Week 12 Still in Phuket

---

Wed 2 to Tue 8 Dec
Well I currently look rather like a big slab of neopolitan icecream, being brown, pink and white in roughly even quantities but not necessarily in the places you would expect, or want. Its my own fault for buying new swimwear and not being careful enough in protecting with ultra-high factor lotion, the tiny slithers of pure white skin that had not seen the sun since the Eighties.

Of course I chose the hottest time of the day on the hottest day of the week to go looking for new swimwear and I left a puddle in the changing room. Yep I know that’s icky but it was only sweat. Well lets re-examine the word changing room - it was a bit of material about two feet wide hanging on the long side of a triangular space about five feet wide across at its widest point, at the outside corner of the shop, facing the street. I am wider than two feet when contorting into tight lycra-based garments. Yes, I know that the local sizing means that a UK size 8 is an extra large (XL) here but I didn’t expect my clothing labels to look like a teenagers love letter covered in big X kisses. I believe the shopgirl took advantage of the fact that I was melting and still reeling from the number of “X’s” on the label of the only things that would fit me, when she engaged in the bargaining process. She will probably dine out all week on the profit she made, but I was happy to get a couple of new swimsuits as the constant use over the past couple of months of my existing one was causing me to worry about when the material would finally give out and how public that event would be.

As much of this week has been about doing very little, either by the pool or on the beach, its a short update and I will cover the week as a whole instead of day by day. I am still in Phuket. The first half of the week I was still at Kata Beach but decided to move to a different location, albeit only the next bay along, to Karon Beach. The hotel here is slightly cheaper, comes with an inclusive breakfast, has a nice but small pool, is just across the road from the beach and is not half way up a mountain (yeh, yeh steep hill). Unfortunately it still appears to be in a province of Scandinavia. I have heard a couple of English speakers, unlike the last hotel where I appeared to be the only one.

I have nothing against Scandinavians other than the fact that I cant understand their language which stops book swoping and being able to be nosy and listen into their conversations while pretending to be asleep on my sunlounger. It was a shame about the books as the Kata hotel had two full bookcases for free swaps, but I only found one (crap) book in English. Oh yes, and the fact that they all look like gods and goddesses with perfectly even tans.

While still at Kata we had a “show” one night which came with a rather nice buffet BBQ. The warm up act was a couple who played various instruments and sang. One of them was really quite good and did a fair job with most of the singing for the first 10 minutes. Then his pal came on and got applauded when an unexpected rainstorm commenced after the first excruciating minute of his/her (not sure) solo, forcing them both to abandon the stage and all of their live electrical equipment. Luckily I had been given the table facing the toilet door. Despite the view it was under cover while everyone else had scenic views of the verandah and pool, beautifully lit with fairy lights, but were outdoors. I had the last laugh as I watched the mayhem that followed while everyone tried to relocate under the roof whilst a brief storm sent sheets of water flooding the whole verandah. Anyhow they repositioned the stage, dried out the equipment and decided not to bring back the duo and commenced the main act which was - Hawaiian dancers. They were really local Thai performers but were quite good in parts. The guys did a particularly good fire dance finale with whirling ropes and batons of flames, right outside the toilet area so I ended up with the best view in the house.

At Karon I went for an interesting foot massage where the lady used a cross between horse liniment and deep heat on my legs and then wrapped them up. It got very hot but was weirdly nice, kind of exquisite pain. It certainly worked and I felt great at the end and it had the pleasing side effect of completely nuking my itchy mosquito bites. But I did whiff a bit and had to go straight back and have a shower to get rid of the over-powering “medical”” smell.

A couple of tips when having a Thai foot massage. Always ask for the older ladies as the young ones are not as good and get distracted easily by what’s happening outside or chatting to each other and their hand-pressure gets stronger as they gossip and peoplewatch. Always set the ground rules about how hard/soft you want it at the beginning and tell them pretty quickly if its hurting and make a big fussy “yes, good” when its been sufficiently reduced to just-bearable. Thereafter you have had it and must not flinch, as any flinching means that area needs working on over and over again and any yelping you do will be ignored. Keep your eyes closed as its scary to watch them when they use the little wooden acu-pressure tools or when you lose sight of their fingers as they are buried too deeply in your quivering flesh. Completely relax, particularly when they do that last 10 minute neck massage (yep comes free with all foot massage) or the crack you hear will be your neck breaking.

Karon Beach is nowhere near as attractive or have as many trees and shade as Kata, but its longer and has the strange attraction of having squeaky sand. Yep, the sand squeaks as you walk on it, don’t know why or how but its fine, powdery, pale yellow, noisy sand. The waves can be a bit fierce close to the shore but are generally OK if you get out far enough for your swim but you have to watch carefully for boats and the odd jet ski. Renting a sunlounger plus umbrella and little table on the beach is a bargain 2 pounds for the day and although there is a constant stream of people walking past selling stuff, they generally don’t bother you unless you show interest. Their wares are the normal range of tourist tat but you also get a wide range of foodstuff including icecreams, which suits me. The hotels, shops, bars and restaurants are all on the opposite side of the road and its nice to walk along the strip in the evening after sunset. Can be a bit smelly in places with the drains and sewers being whiffy.

The beach faces the setting sun and is very pretty most nights. Sometimes you see people setting off lighted paper lanterns which are sweet, last a surprisingly long time and go quite high - its fun to turn around and see just how many people are watching the latern’s flight and normally there are dozens of upturned faces. You get the occasional few minutes of fireworks or firecrackers but unfortunately the fire dancers generally are out later when the bars start to get rowdy, but the few early ones I watched were good entertainment. However I am told the ones on Phi Phi and Railay are in another league, so hope to see them later on my trip. I am staying outside of the main drag, which is about a 15 minute walk away Its quite busy there in the centre with a wider variety of shops & bars, but I like our little area which is at the end of the bay nearest the road to Kata and the beach is peaceful here too. Shame we didn’t have an ATM though.

Many of the restaurants display mock-ups of their dishes and popular cocktail drinks out front and this seems to be a bit of a competition with a lot of time and effort going into some displays and the addition of lighting and carved fruit displays or crushed ice boxes full of the raw ingredients, particularly whole large fish. I normally go back to my room earlyish at around 10pm and don’t bother with the extensive bar scene and music that is just coming to life at that time and goes on until dawn.

One of the few advantages of being at the top of the hill at Kata was that we were situated at the Tsunami evacuation site which was quite comforting. Here at beach level at Karon it is more risky (not when you look at the odds in truth) but I am fairly glad that I am in a room at the back of the hotel on the 4th floor. Most of the hotels here only have narrow frontages facing the beach, say 50 feet wide, but run back for several hundred feet in a thin strip-shape. Its comforting to know that some of the hotels that are charging 2 or 3 times what I am paying are within 100 yards along the road, with exactly the same location and views as me.

While I was having a beer watching the sunset I met a young chap who was doing a post-grad year out and we got chatting about our itineraries which were quite similar, although in a different order. It was fun to compare experiences and thoughts about some of the countries we had both done or were to do, and also exchange information about tour companies offering good trips. He is one of the few people I have met that has included Japan in their trip, possibly as its so expensive - he was there just a couple of weeks before me so didn’t see the fabulous autumn colour and got lots more rain than me.

I was planning on going on a tour to see the Big Buddha but I can see his top half from my hotel as its on the hill behind us. I spoke to some people who had done a tour and they were not impressed with the itinerary and said they had been crushed into hot vehicles and part of the tour had been a shopping stop in Phuket Town, in other words dumped for an hour and a half to do your own thing and spend money. The other stops on the 5-hour trip had been a temple, a cashew nut farm and the Viewpoint which should have been great for photos but its been hazy most days so nobody got any decent shots. So I didn’t bother and you will have to squint at the photo of half of the Buddha under the crane on the hilltop. Just to prove what a great photographer I am with a limited zoom, I have also included a shot without the crane - good eh ?

Don’t bother asking hotel staff for information or advice and definitely don’t get them to get your tuk tuk or taxi. I asked them how much a tuk tuk down to the town centre would be when I needed to find the ATM and two different people at the hotel quoted me a price which seemed ridiculously expensive. I bargained with a group of taxi drivers that evening who were sitting having beers (hum?) and smoking on the corner near our hotel and got the ride there and back for one third of the hotel quote for a one way trip.

So one last massage story. On the beach I had been observing people visiting a particular beach massage platform for a couple of days. I finally got the courage to go and have a full body massage from the Big Mamma who was the resident masseuse. She is a big girl. Think either female sumo or those vintage films of the old Queen of Tonga and you will get the idea. This woman is huge. She sits in the middle of the wooden platform and does her stuff without seeming to move an inch.

Let me explain ... instead of her moving around you when she is massaging different parts of your body, she basically moves you and throws you over her legs so that whichever bit of you is next in line for a pummeling is right there under her nose. She doesn’t move - you do. She also includes a lot of Thai-massage movements which means that you get folded into knots and whole limbs get curled over on themselves several times.

Its rather disconcerting that one minute your legs are over her shoulders and she is using her foot to knead your buttocks and the next minute your legs are over your own shoulders and she is doing something indescribable to your lower back, whilst your left arm is curled around your right ear. You don’t argue, you just take it.

Now the funniest thing about Big Mamma is that she speaks in a really high pitched voice (think Betty Boop on speed) and gets fits of giggles that make the whole wooden platform shake like an earthquake. She also has massive hands and so quite often will only need to use one of them to massage you while the other either takes a phone call or is used to feed herself a snack or lunch. Its a real experience and not terribly relaxing but at only six pounds for the hour, its priceless.

---