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Published: March 10th 2008
VISIT THIS LINK TO SEE UPLOADED VIDEO CLIPS OF OUR TRAVELS:
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After Egypt, we headed to Phuket, Thailand, our final destination. Yup, sadly, the adventure is coming to a close. For various reasons, we cut our travel time, and destinations, short and we’ll be back in the U.S. the last week of March. Rather than try to see a whole bunch of places at breakneck pace, we decided to settle into a place for our last 6 weeks and just rest, get back in shape and eat well again before returning back to the States and reality.
So on February 4th, we arrived in Phuket, Thailand, after a brief stop in Bangkok. We had a long layover, so we headed to the market district, where there is just row after row of clothes and shoes. We stocked up on workout clothes and $7 swimsuits. We chose to go to Phuket, even though it is a very touristy area, because there was a pretty good Muay Thai and MMA school where Jason could train in martial arts, and as luck would have it, there is a great yoga studio just up the street for Tracey (that also has
Elephant Trike
Yes he is actually pedalling it!a fabulous pool, steam sauna and great gym…nice 5-star spa facilities for what a regular gym costs back home). And we were just dying for some warmth and sunshine after several months of cold, rainy weather. Phuket is one of the larger islands right off of the mainland of Thailand. It is one of the areas hit by the Tsunami, but you would never know from the way they rebuilt all along the coastline. The owner of the bungalow we are staying at was on the island of Phi Phi, one of the hardest hit areas, and she told us how she just happened to survive since she was on a hill when the water hit, and then she had to travel into a mountain looking for food and water afterward, was found by some Burmese people living near a waterfall and then reunited with her husband after he tracked her to the forest. Pretty amazing story, only one of many, we’re sure…and she was one of the lucky ones.
We’ve been here about 4 weeks now, and we’ve been positively spoiled. The people for the most part are very nice and friendly, and it’s easy enough to get
Elephant Hoola-Hoops
To our amazement, they kept them twirling for several minutes. around because almost everything is in English since there is such a busy tourist industry here (although most Thai’s don’t actually speak English very well). We also have been getting nice massages for 9 bucks, a variety of healthy food (not just ham and cheese!), beautiful beaches with turquoise warm water and exercise that we have direly needed. We’re already noticing how much longer (and painfully) it takes to get in shape, and we’re not even 30 yet! Oh, and the movies are CHEAP! We love movies, and they have a nice theater inside the fancy mall with movies played in English with Thai subtitles, and the movies are only $3 to $4. One interesting thing is that before every movie, everybody has to stand up while they play a tribute video to the King. Jason jokes that the tribute is the King’s vacation video, because every photo of him has a camera around his neck or the King overlooking some beautiful Thai scenery. They love their King and Queen here (a prime minister actually oversees the government), there are monuments and billboards everywhere, and people hang the royal couples’ photo in their homes. Ironically, the King was born in
Vying For The Only Shade
Don't visit the Phuket Zoo. Massachusetts!
The locals do really stick it to the tourists when it comes to money; that is the downer here. Westerners, or “farang” (Thai for “Gringo”) as they call us here, always pay more than the local people, significantly more (a much higher percentage than anywhere else we’ve been in the world). If you buy tickets somewhere, there are signs in English with tourist pricing, and signs in Thai with Thai people pricing, so it’s hard to figure out how much you’re getting ripped off but usually it is about a 1,000% mark-up. Therefore there are some things we have just refused to do out of principle. So rather than be ripped off by taxis all the time, and depend on the terrible driving skills of the locals, we rented a moped. It was just more affordable, with more freedom and also we felt safer with us doing the driving (don’t worry parents, we always have our helmets on and eyes wide open)! The people here just don’t have any orderliness to their driving. They just pull out into intersections and absentmindedly weave on the road, and no one seems to pay attention. You do fine as long as
Poor Bird
This bird was tied at the ankle with a rope being held by the trainer. Repeatedly the bird would fly into the tree and get yanked down, fighting all the way, by a hard tug of the rope. you’re watching out for them and realize that nine times out of ten, they won’t notice you. After we got the hang of the bike, we really started to have fun with it. On hot days, it’s really nice because the breeze on the bike really cools things down, and it’s fun to ride around by the beaches and see some scenery. We’ve gotten around to see a nice Buddhist temple and a huge Buddha statue they are building on top of one of the main temples, but we didn’t have the camera that day, so that will have to be for another day. One day, Jason brilliantly locked our moped and bungalow keys inside the bike’s seat compartment. We freaked out because we didn’t know what we would do. But a local guy that was trying to help us just told us to go to a locksmith and have a key made. The locksmith came right out to the bike, took some measurements of the ignition and HAND FILED a replica key on the spot! And the key worked better than the key from the manufacturer. Good for us, but rather unsettling when you think about the security of
Tourists Fishing in a Zoo Pond
Why these guys were fishing in this dirty pond in the zoo was beyong us. Keep in mind this is Phuket, an Island, with easy access to the ocean from anywhere. the bikes!
We thought about going on an elephant ride, but after the mistreatment of the camels in Egypt and other animals we’d seen along the way, we decided against it. We just didn’t want to feel responsible for some poor animal being whipped and prodded for our enjoyment. Yet for some reason, that same logic didn’t occur to us when we decided to visit the zoo. We certainly didn’t expect the same standards as a zoo would have in the U.S., but we didn’t think it would be terrible. After all, with pricey entry tickets of $16 dollars each, the money would have to go to the animals’ care, right? By the way, as a prime example of local vs. tourist price, the local people pay $1.66 to get into the Phuket Zoo! Sadly, it became evident very quickly that as little money as possible was put into making the animals comfortable and healthy. Their role was strictly to earn profit, not to share the joys of nature with people, nor to teach people about the different species. If any one of you reading this ever comes to Phuket, and you care about animals, do not go to
Stuck in a Pipe
This kitten is lucky Tracey showed up because we guarantee no one else in the zoo cared if he lived or not. He's dark so look closely. this zoo. The poor things were caged in terribly small enclosures, often just a cement floor with bars, and they were shamelessly exploited. A tiger was heavily sedated and then people would take pictures with it, after the one-armed “trainer” (think about the one arm for a moment) rapped the poor tiger on the knuckles so he would roar for the photo. The elephants were chained by the ankle to a cement floor, four elephants to the small cement enclosure, and no freedom for these enormous animals to roam or rest whatsoever. And then they had to perform in a show, where one “trainer” in particular viciously tugged the elephant’s ears and forcefully dug a sharp, metal prod into the elephant to make it perform its trick, and beat the poor thing when the elephant didn’t do what he had asked. We noticed an abnormally large number of crocodiles (speculated that they sold their skin for exotic leathers) and in one pen we counted 80 piled on top of each other, scrambling to find a place in the one tiny spot in the shade. We later heard that another zoo visitor was told by zoo staff to pick a crocodile
and that they offered to kill it so he could have the teeth. There was also a crocodile show where the performer stuck his head inside the croc’s mouth, and another show where the monkeys pedaled around on trikes and dunked basketballs. On the one hand, seeing these shows demonstrated how intelligent these animals are, but mostly it was so incredibly sad to see them treated so poorly, and to know that almost all of that $16 went into someone’s pocket instead of caring for the animals. Had we known, we never would have gone, so all we can do now is tell people not to support such a bad place. The zoo is also just an odd place. There are cats roaming free all over the zoo and people fishing in the dirty artificial pond (?!). We were walking around when Tracey heard a distressed meowing, and determined to be the animal savior as always, she found a poor little black kitten stuck in a pipe. She tried to reach in a pull the guy to safety, but he was so scared he savagely hissed and spat, so Tracey wandered the zoo until she found a staff member who
He Made Shot After Shot
We wish we were this good at basketball. had proper hand protection to pull the savage little cat to safety.
A couple of days ago, we had to do a “visa run.” You can enter Thailand on a thirty-day tourist visa, but then you have to leave the country and return in order to stay longer. We couldn’t figure out why they didn’t just allow people a longer visa, or just extend the visa at an immigration office, but they just try to get tourist money any way they can, and visa runs are no exception. It’s all intended to make more money for local companies. So we got on a mini bus, drove four hours to a town called Ranong. We pulled up to the immigration office, stepped out of the bus and were repulsed by the strong smell of decaying fish. We got our passports stamped that we were exiting the country, hopped on a boat that took us into a dirty water channel and into the Andaman Sea, and then to Kawthaung, Myanmar (formerly Burma). The immigration officials there give you an entry and an exit stamp, and then you’re whisked back into the boat to head back to the Thailand immigration office to
get one final re-entry stamp into Thailand. Four hours later, you’re back in Phuket. It is a pain for something that is obviously just a formality and a way to extract more cash from your wallet, but it was interesting. Phuket is the wealthiest province in Thailand and it shows, and Ranong is pretty poor in comparison, so the homes and buildings were often just scraps of metal and wood, the water channels filthy dirty, the smell of the daily fish catch ripe in the air. It was probably a more accurate portrayal of the living conditions most people in the country have. We also saw a real-life paddy wagon at the immigration in Ranong. It was packed, absolutely packed full of people that were being deported. There was a big metal compartment full of bodies packed together like squished sardines…don’t get yourself in trouble in Thailand!
We went to a Muay Thai fight to see a couple of the guys from the gym Jason’s training at who were lined up on the fight card that night. It was interesting, but mainly because of the little kids that were fighting. They were the first fight of the night and
Yes It's Real
And yes, they demonstrated over and over how it was willing to chomp down. had to only be 11 or 12 years old, and they were fierce! They were really good, especially for their age. The tickets were pretty hefty though, and the fights weren’t that good. There was a lot of rigging going on, trying to fix fights for betting, and the foreigners were often set up to fight Thai guys that were way past their prime. But it was still an interesting experience.
For Jason’s birthday, we went to Phuket Fantasea, a theme park that has a Thai culture show and a big buffet. At first, we thought we were doomed, because as soon as we arrived, a huge downpour started, but fortunately the clouds quickly blew away and after dinner it was clear skies. The buffet was mediocre, but it was a nice change because it wasn’t strictly Thai food. True to the Thai style of making money at every opportunity from the tourists, the “theme park” was a huge series of shops. The staff wore elaborate costumes and acted out their characters really well. They did have a jungle safari exhibit that was pretty neat. They had several animals in elaborately decorated exhibits (monkeys, exotic birds, deer and several
Elephant Discipline A$$hole Style
This guy had a thing for abusing the elephants with his metal hook. tigers), and unlike the atrocious zoo, these animals actually seemed well cared for and their habitats much nicer than a cold concrete floor. The main attraction was the show, held in the Palace of the Elephants. The storyline was pretty weak and hard to understand (how a prince saved Thailand), but it didn’t matter too much because the costumes and special effects they used were pretty impressive and visually interesting. 8 “oompa-loompa” looking acrobats put on a really neat show in a black light setting, twirling and flipping above the audience. The show even had a scene in a village where all kinds of animals came on stage, including a herd of goats, 5 roosters, oxen and several kinds of birds, all very well trained to make their entrance and exit (how the heck do you train a rooster?). 16 elephants also showed their talents onstage, but one really stole the show. His bladder couldn’t wait, and he emptied it onstage, where a poor barefoot trainer struggled to squeegee the huge pool of pee into a bucket…just in time for about 5 actors to stand in the still damp puddle to take their place on stage! It was hilarious!
All in all, we’ve enjoyed our visit, and plan to remain lazy bums (when not training) for our remaining two weeks. We look forward to seeing a lot of you soon!
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