Days 135-146 – June 15-26, 2008 (Thailand 3)

Day 6 – Koh Samui to Phuket

We had to wake up before 6:00 am today to make our 8:00 flight to Phuket. Unbelievably tired, we somehow managed to get up and ready. However, there was no one working at the reception desk at the time, and we not only needed a cab but also still had to pay for the drinks we had charged to the room during our stay. I saw a security guard and tried to explain our situation. He didn’t speak much English but with the help of the cook, called us a cab. We left without having to pay for the rest of our bill. The cab ride to the airport was quick and we were a little early to our check-in. One strange thing I’ve noticed about cabs here is that they rarely play the radio and don’t usually attempt speaking to us, so it is just awkward silence unless Emily and I are talking to each other. The flight to Phuket was ridiculously short – only about 40 minutes. We flew in this tiny, crazily-painted plane, and Emily and I were seated in the front row. We met this weird old guy on the plane who kept trying to talk to us. (We randomly saw the same guy a few days later when we were walking around Bangkok on Emily’s last night.) This flight had a lot of mosquitoes flying around inside the plane for some reason, but on the positive side, we were served another meal. We were met at the Phuket airport by a driver from our next hotel, the Boomerang Village Cottages in Kata Beach, which was on the other side of the island. On the ride, we took a little detour to a local university to pick up the driver’s daughter. This was pretty unexpected and the driver made no comment about it before, during, or after. It took us an hour to get to the hotel, but it is unknown how long it might have taken if we weren’t acting as a school bus. The hotel we were at was nice, and we were treated to a fruit drink upon arrival. Our room was really sweet and big and was decorated with all types of Thai sculptures and paintings. The bathroom was strange once again, and the shower was not separated from the toilet, but a curtain separated both of them from the sink. We also had a huge king bed and were also given an additional bed in the middle of the room that made it hard to walk around. So much bedding. We were getting picked up for our elephant trekking at 1:30, so we rested in the room for a bit. While there, I changed by return flight to the 26^th. It ended up costing $200, but by the time I learned it was so much, I couldn’t really change my mind back. The hotel was owned by a group of Italians, and the only food they made before dinnertime was pizza, so we had that for lunch. The pickup man came and got up and took us to the Siam Safari location, where we paid and were separated into groups. When everyone arrived, they brought us about 10 minutes away to the elephant spot. The first thing we did when we got there was watch a little show of baby elephants. The baby elephants were really cute and did tricks such as painting, dancing, and giving us kisses. Afterwards, they brought everyone over to the real elephants. We were given a brief overview, and the big elephant that was used as the feature was the one that Emily and I got to ride on. She was massive and weighed around 3 tons. We didn’t actually get to sit on the elephant and ride bareback and were instead on a little seat on her back. We had a 45 minute ride through the trees and it was a lot of fun. Our guide was great and definitely made the experience more enjoyable. At one point, the guide reached into the trees, snatched out a lizard, and stuffed it in his mouth. He then tried to get us to do the same, as if it was somehow sanitary. After unsuccessfully trying to convince us, he put it back in his mouth, this time folded so both its tail and head were sticking out of his mouth. Much to our surprise, we met a quite a few Aussies on our elephant trekking, after Emily and I both noticed their absence in all places before Phuket. But I do remember hearing that Phuket is a popular tourist destination from Australia, while other parts of the country are not as much. All in all, the elephant riding was a great time, and we chilled around the room for a few hours afterwards. Our plan for the rest of the night was to go into Phuket Town and meet up with Fox and her friend Jenna, who had arrived that night. Emily and I figured we would just eat when we got there and only had a bruschetta snack in the restaurant. We were ready to leave around 7:30, but our cab didn’t come until 8:00. And this guy also stopped to pick up a woman who was probably his wife along the way. We got to Talang Guesthouse, where they were staying, and Emily and I went to a convenience store to buy some beer and headed up to their room. Their room consisted of 2 beds and a bathroom but had only fans and no AC and cost 300 baht total ($10) for the night. We hung around there for a little and then moved to a local Thai restaurant down the block that had live music. This place was legit Thai, and none of the staff spoke English. Fox’s Thai was not great, but she somehow managed to order us food and drinks. We had a few noodle dishes and a couple soups. The food was pretty spicy, especially the soup, and it was made even more so by Fox dumping hot pepper all over it. We left there and went to a local bar, where a Thai man and woman were singing “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce and Jay-Z over the instrumental. This was pretty funny to watch, especially since the guy had the timing and pace of the song all wrong and even said the wrong words a bunch of times. But it didn’t really matter because basically no one there spoke English anyway. The bar was packed with Thai people. One Tom Selleck-looking Caucasian guy started talking to Jenna while Emily was being hit on by a Thai man. We left there around the time this started happening to try and find a place that Fox and Jenna had apparently been to before. We quickly got lost but ended up at a club. I went to the bathroom when we got there, and while I was peeing, a bathroom attendant threw a hot towel on the back of my neck. When I was done and started to walk away from the urinal, he grabbed me and cracked my neck, my back, and gave me a massage. It was the best cracking I’ve ever had and well worth the 20 baht ($0.67) tip I gave him. I came out and Fox was getting a table and buying a bottle. A bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and 3 bottles of Coke was 800 baht (~$26.00!). We drank our cocktails and then decided it would be a fun idea to just dump all our drinks into the ice bucket and share, like a Full Moon bucket. Looking back on this, it was pretty gross, but it seemed great at the time. There wasn’t much of a dance floor at this Thai club, and makeshift tables like the one we had were set up everywhere. There was a chubby Thai guy with dyed blond hair dancing near us, and the girls were all taking photos with him because he looked so ridiculous. He kinda reminded me of Bizarre from D12. At one point I was dancing, and he grabbed me and had me dancing next to him. It was pretty funny, and since I felt like he wasn’t going to try any moves on me, I wasn’t overly creeped out. But we did decide that it was time to leave soon after. We started walking, looking for our way back. Emily and I thought one way, but Fox and Jenna said another way and that’s the way we went. We kept walking the wrong way for a while and eventually asked a guy on a motorbike who was offering rides for directions. He pointed in what we all knew was the wrong direction, and we refused to believe him. Somehow while walking, a stray dog joined our crew. I was convinced he had rabies, but Jenna and Fox claimed he didn’t. Anyway, this dog followed us all the way back to Talang Guesthouse. When we were getting close to Talang, the same driver who had been on a motorbike 5 minutes ago pulled up next to us in a car and tried to get all 4 of us in, still contending that we were going the wrong way. We got back to their room, and Emily called the cab driver who had brought us. When he dropped us off earlier in the night, he had offered to return to get us, and within a few minutes, he was back. We got to our hotel room and went to sleep around 2:00 am. The room was incredibly hot when we came in, and the AC did not work as well as it should have.

Day 7 – Phuket

In order to make our 8:15 am pickup for today’s tour of the Phi Phi Islands, we were forced to get up at 7:00, tired and slightly hungover. We ate breakfast at the hotel – it was pretty good, and they even had precooked fried eggs and a variety of fruits. A van came just as we had finished eating, already full of people. It took us to a pier in Chalong called “Tourist Pier” where we were divided into groups and sat and waited for everyone else to come. They were trying to get us to rent flippers for 100 baht to use while snorkeling, but Emily and I thought that they weren’t too necessary and declined. They were really pushing hard for them, though. The group on our speedboat consisted of about 30 or so people from all over the world: a Japanese couple in matching outfits, an Indian family wearing all long sleeves, 2 guys from Denmark, 3 giggling little Asian girls, and many others. Emily and I sat on the inside of the boat for the hour trip out to the islands. The water seemed calm, and there were a lot of nice views on the way. The green islands kinda reminded me of those in the Whitsundays, but this seemed more tropical. We turned into Maya Bay, where they filmed some of the movie “The Beach”, for our first stop. It was gorgeous. Maya Bay was a secluded little cove lined with green rocks and contained the bluest water I have ever seen. Whenever the sun was shining, the place looked absolutely beautiful. We stayed there for about 40 minutes and spent that time exploring, taking pictures, and swimming. The beach was loaded with tourists and speedboats, and it would have been nice to stay longer, but I’m sure it is a very popular and busy spot for any tour of the islands. We boarded again, and this time, Emily and I opted for seats in the uncovered front section of the boat. The decision worked out well because this part of the tour brought us to places where we couldn’t get off and just had to view from onboard. With the front being the only uncovered portion, all the other passengers kept trying to come up to our section as we went to places such as James Bond Bay, Monkey Beach, and Viking Cove. The next place we could get off at was a snorkel location, and we jumped into the water with the masks that they had provided for us. Obviously, this wasn’t too impressive compared to the Great Barrier Reef, but it was still some nice snorkeling. However, here, people seem to have little respect for the reef and wildlife. People were actually catching fish in plastic bags and picking up coral and shells from the seafloor. Quite a different from my snorkeling experiences Australia, especially considering this disregard for nature was happening on a bunch of different tours and the guides not only didn’t seem to mind – they were the ones handing out plastic bags! Back on the boat, we were served Pepsi and bananas. Next was lunch and they brought us to the main Phi Phi island. This was the only Phi Phi island with hotels or anything on it, and our lunch buffet was served at a resort. The food was good and more than enough to fill me up. We had some time to sit on the beach enjoying the island scenery and take silly pictures. There was a pool that had a sign reading “No Swimming Chemical Treatment” and looked really green and gross near the food, and some crazy lady was sitting on the edge of the pool, taking pictures with her feet dangling in it. I hope she just couldn’t read English. As our boat left this island, our guide warned us that the next 45 minutes would be extra rough, and this would be felt mainly be the front of the boat (where we were still sitting). The next ride definitely brought us through some choppy water, and we really felt each wave as the boat bounced around and usually came down pretty hard, but it was a lot of fun. It felt like I was on a huge wave runner. There was an Indian guy across from us who was having a terrible time, though. At one point, Emily saw him grab his balls and grimace after coming down from a big wave, as if he had just crushed them. The whole rest of the way, he looked really uncomfortable and kept making hilariously pained expressions on his face. The next island we went to had many beach chairs and umbrellas set up, along with some little shops near the beach. We got a pair of seats for 150 baht ($5), and I relaxed in the shade for most of the 2 hours that we were there. I went to use the toilets at one point, but they tried to say there was a 20 baht charge, so I obviously just peed in the ocean instead. How dumb do they think people are? The water was really warm here (even before the pee), and, again, people were catching fish and taking coral. Our guide had set up a table with free fruit and drinks for everyone on our boat. Towards the end of the 2 hours, the sky started to become dark and gray, and it started pouring rain for about 5 minutes. Luckily, we saw this coming and ran into one of the shops to hide. I was pretty sleepy on the ride back to the Tourist Pier and tried to take a short nap. The same van that picked us up that morning brought us back to our hotel (we were first again!), driving like a maniac and passing whenever it was not at all appropriate. We sat around for a little while and then got ready for dinner. There was supposed to be a really good restaurant called the Boathouse in Kata Beach, so we took a short cab ride there. It turned out to be surprisingly expensive (normal Western prices), so we decided to check out some of the places we had passed by on the taxi in. Even in this area of Thailand, there were dozens of Indian salesmen trying to talk to us and lure us into suit shops. We chose a Thai place and ate a decent meal with reasonable prices. The cab ride here had been pretty quick, and with not much else to do, we figured we would just walk back. Along the way, we stopped at a place with computers and internet access for about an hour, and I also found a mobile phone store where I bought a 150 baht refill. We didn’t have much trouble finding our way back to the Boomerang Village, although we were caught in wind/dust and rain storms during our journey. When we came back to the room, we just relaxed and watched some American movies with Thai subtitles on TV then got to bed before midnight.

Day 8 – Phuket to Bangkok

After getting to bed so early last night, I woke up around 8:00 am today. The blinds in the room did a terrible job of keeping light out, and I was woken up without the alarm. Emily woke up shortly after, and we hung around the room for a little and eventually went to breakfast. Once again, we were the only people eating. We had a nice breakfast then came back and watched “You, Me, and Dupree” while getting ready to leave. We thought about renting motorbikes for this morning but were too lazy and didn’t really follow-through with any plans for today. The flight we had originally booked back to Bangkok was for 10:00 am, but Bangkok Airways decided to change it to 1:50 pm a few weeks ago. We checked out and the Italians at the hotel gave us a cute little DVD package to take with us. They also called us a cab, which unfortunately did not have any family members to pick up en route. It would have been a nice end to our trip to Phuket. He did take us a different way than the first driver, and we made it to the airport in about 45 minutes. This airport had an x-ray machine for checked luggage right when you first entered the airport even before getting your boarding pass, and after checking in, we went through security and I got a snack at Burger King (my first American meal since getting to Thailand a week ago.) The flight itself was fine and only took about an hour. At one point while they were serving meals and about to give us water and hot tea, the plane hit some major turbulence, and a big mess ensued. The stewardess had a tray full of tea that spilled everywhere, and she somehow managed to throw tea all over the ceiling, where it dripped down for the next few minutes. It was pretty hilarious, and we were glad we hadn’t hit that area a minute later after we had been served. The girls in the row next to us were soaked and had to change seats. In Bangkok, we split a cab from the airport with 2 Korean girls who coincidentally were going to the same hotel as us. The driver put on these weird black gloves to drive with and then overcharged us the meter rate when we arrived, yet tried to act like he was giving us a deal. When we protested, he claimed some bogus charges. The hotel we were staying at would be the meeting point for Emily’s tour and is also apparently the tour company’s home base because they have an office here and we also saw other tours meeting in the lobby when we arrived. We checked in and came up to our room, which was definitely the least classy of all our hotels in Thailand. There was a pair of sandals in the bathroom next to the shower, as if having everyone share the sandals would be any cleaner than just going barefoot. (We later learned that they were to be used because the shower drained poorly and would leave the bathroom flooded for a short while after it was used.) But there was nothing really wrong with this hotel – I think we had just been pretty spoiled lately. It was in a backpackers region of Bangkok, meaning there were a lot of internet cafes, tourists, and food vendors. We walked around the streets near our hotel and saw a lot of strange foods on carts as we made our way to Khaosan Road, a popular street in Bangkok. I don’t think cars are allowed to drive down Khaosan and everyone just was walking in the road. There were a lot of clothes shops, bars, and restaurants along the short street, in addition to many people. On our way back to the hotel, we got a little lost. A Thai man speaking perfect English must have sensed this and came over to talk to us for a few minutes. He kept telling us about some program for students he was involved with and asking how long we would be in Thailand for but eventually said goodbye and walked away. He never tried to get us to buy or do anything and left both of us confused as to his hidden motives which surely existed. Emily and I got back to the hotel to plan our next few days. We booked a trip to the Tiger Temple for tomorrow, and I extended the room so I could just stay in it until my new flight out. When it started getting dark, we headed back to Khaosan Road. We had to be up at 6:00 am tomorrow for our tour, so we didn’t really want to venture too far tonight. The street was a lot more bustling and busy at night than during the daytime, full of bring lights and more vendors. I noticed that it was pretty much full of Westerners – possibly mostly backpackers. Hawkers were frying up pad thai, selling sweet corn, and offering ping pong shows as we strolled down the street. People here seemed to be less pushy and aggressive than in other sections of the city, but they did hand out more flyers. We settled on a Thai restaurant, where the food was quick but not very good. I tried a Beerlao for the fist time. My order of favorites would have to be Chang, Tiger, Beerlao, and Singha. We did some shopping on Khaosan and each got a few shirts for cheaper than we had paid on the southern islands. I also got another chocolate banana pancake that was smaller and not as good as the one of Samui. We eventually were ready to go back and went to the hotel for bed.