Lasting Memories of Macau and first impressions of Phuket

As I sit in my spa pool villa at the Banyan Tree Resort in Phuket Thailand I feel the need to comemorate the most vivid memories of Macau and the racing and somehow contrast them with my after race expedition to the Island of Phuket. (OK, I can hear some of you now saying...my God this poor guy is bored stiff.........Well perish the thought.)

Macau was:

• Clean
• The people were engaging. Especially our little rebel helper, Dawn.
• Alex in the hotel restaurant was exceedingly helpful. His English was good but because he was from the Phillipines originally, we had better success speaking Spanish.
• The Casino architecture was amazing.
• There were no billboards.
• The teak dock built to accomocate 20 boats was superb. Because of the dock and the number of boats the entire race weekend ran on-time. Imgaine a dragon boat festival race running on-time. The secret is adequate dock space and boats to make the crew turns necessary to stay on-time.
• The heavy humid hot air made it so hard to breathe during races. Was I the only one that noticed this?
• Competition at the highest level. I honestly think I have not seen faster crews ever. Wasabi, to our credit, was in the thick of it.

Phuket:

• The Thai people at the Banyan Tree are so well trained in their jobs. It is amazing.
• This area where the resorts sit was once a moon cratered tin mine that the UN environmental group said was undevelopable - it was so contaminated. The Singapore money group behind this area came in anyway, removed all of the contaminated earth and relpaced it and shaped it to fit the plan. We are talking several square kilometers. The result is that one group is now providing jobs to the local residents who had seen there industry, tin mining, disappear and leave them with uninhabitable surroundings.
• I can say I have swam in the Adaman Sea.
• It is hot and humid like Macau but I have my own private pool. OK, I do have to share it with my wife.
• The food is exquisite. They have tiger prawns the size of small lobsters.
• Oh, and the best part in the compare and contrast department. In Penang two years ago we found Tiger beer to be so refreshing. There was no Tiger beer in Macau. We had to settle for Macau beer. Well, in Phuket they have Tiger Beer - frosty cold - and served in a chilled Weizen glass.

I was going to upload some pictures but our wi fi here in PhuKet is capacity contrained and therefore very slow.