Day 2 at the Sanctuary

Tuesday, October 21st

By accident, I woke up at 6am and couldn't fall back asleep, so I went out to the beach to snap some photos of the pink sky.  Also in the morning we saw a huge creepy crawling spider on the floor of our dorm.  Not a daddy longlegs, a huge crunchy spider.  Let's not forget we have thin mattresses on the floor so it could of easily crawled up someone's bed.  I tried to be brave holding a dust pan to capture it, but I was terrified that it would crawl towards me so I just sort of stared at it.  Another girl in the dorm took the dust pan from me to cover it, but that crawlie just crawled out the window.  Whew!  What a relief, but since it crawled out, it could easily crawl back in.  Thank goodness it didn't pay us another visit that night (so we think).

Besides that, the day was much like yesterday.  Eating, yoga, chatting, and reading are the staples, but we did go into Hatrin town for 2 hours to get some lunch and a one hour thai massage for 200 baht ($6).  Pretty sweet deal.  Also, for lunch we got to watch notting hill too!

I started reading my new book catfish and mandala, which is about an vietnamese-american cycling through vietnam, his fatherland.  He left vietnam when he was a kid, so he is trying to reconnect with his heritage.  Sort of like when I tried to find my dad's home street...ok maybe not as dramatic.  But it's nice to know where you came from.  Also some parts remind me of my family.  For instance, Vietnamese also have the same stupid chinese believes like if you keep on pinching your nose a few times a day, it'll get higher and less flat.  Yes, my nose was quite red sometimes as a kid.  The main character escaped from northern vietnam to america, so it reminds me of my dad's escape from mainland china to hong kong and then to america.  It's inspiring me to really dig deeper into my dad's life back in china, but he seems to have put that chapter of his life behind him and moved onto his new life in america.  But, as a daughter I should try to capture the story so it can live on for generations.

In the evening the sanctuary played the movie "where is bin landen."  We were a bit skeptical at first, but gave it a shot since it was the same producer as super size.  It was pretty interesting, giving a lighter perspective of the complex situation of the middle east.  It was a good time filler.

I wished there were more adventures and stories to tell, but basically this part of the trip is all about relaxing and recovering.  Tomorrow we will be heading to ko samui, so maybe more stories then.