Mid Semester Break Pt. I

Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Phuket
October 25th 2009

Published: October 25th 2009

For my mid semester break I traveled to Thailand with two other fellow exchange students, both of whom are from RPI. There is so much that I did that I’m going to do this in two parts. The first part of Thailand was Phuket; we got there at night and then spent three full days there.

Arrival:
We went to Patong Beach, which is the major tourist spot on the west side of the island, spent about an hour walking around to find a cheap place to stay and we ended up booking at this nice place on a backstreet for three nights. We only checked in 2 people for the purpose of saving money and the idea was to sneak me upstairs every night…..this didn’t go over too hot but it doesn’t come up till later.
For that night’s activities we went to the most populated street, Bang La Rd. It was a long one way street that turns into a non thru way at night and allows only pedestrian traffic. It was filled with shops, walking merchants and bars. The shops offered local souvenirs, pirated DVD’s, heinous paintings, or crude wooden sculptures. Walking merchants were selling people necklaces, laser pointers, tattoos, and even the opportunity to take pictures with either a monkey or an iguana (I did the iguana). Now, there were quite a few adult content aspects that were displayed on the street, but I don’t feel comfortable talking about them online as my siblings may read this and I do not want them to be asking questions about what these things are. I am just including this little segment for those thinking “oh there was none of that type of thing in phuket.” There most certainly WAS that type of thing there; it was everywhere and in plain sight. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then you’re too young and you don’t need to know, if you feel you’re old enough to know but you can’t figure out what I’m getting at…feel free to ask me in person when I get home. So anyways, we walked up and down the street for both the purpose of getting familiar with the territory and looking for two Scandinavian friends for Singapore that were traveling there the same time as us. After a walk down and back we settled down at a bar, had a few drinks and proceeded to be entertained by the bartenders. There were two men and about 4 women hanging around the bar and we were the only customers, so they made it their duty to keep us there and the way they do that is by playing a series of games with us. We played connect four, several variations of jenga, and this game where you have a hammer with a chiseled end (the tip comes to a thin line) and you have to hit in a nail into a large stump…it was nearly impossible but I finally didn’t come in last after about 4 games. After about an hour or two of games and drink we decided to get some sleep so we could start up early the next day. That night when I went to sneak upstairs the guy that checked us in was in the bathroom or something so that wasn’t an issue the first night.

Day 1:
We woke up and immediately went to meet our Scandinavian friends (one was Swedish and the other Norwegian) at the 5 star hotel we knew they were staying at. We met up with them and decided to tour the island on scooters for the day. We rented scooters for about 10 usd for the day, and we hadn’t driven more than 10 min. away from the beach when we saw elephants hanging out on the side of the road! Thailand is a beautiful country with amazing animals and a beautiful landscape. On that ride we saw two more gorgeous beaches, tall green clad hills some of which had standing Buddhas on top which is always fun to see. When we weren’t admiring gorgeous landscape we were driving through small streets crowded on both sides with massage parlours and even more souvenir shops. That evening we decided to hit up Bang La Rd. once again this time as a larger group; we again went to a bar and played some more games. Before the night was over we hit up two other bars, one of which had a live band playing which was unbelievably entertaining. Sweet child of mine is hilarious when sung by someone with a strong Asian accent. We also visited two clubs and danced a little to some pretty good DJ beats. We thoroughly explored the nightlife of Phuket and we were most pleased with what we found, it was a fun and happening place. That night back at our hotel there was a lady working there that had not checked us in and therefore it was no big deal for me to get in again.

Day 2:
We planned to travel to a beach that we had discovered some 15 min. away from where we were currently staying. For transportation we had to bargain with a tuc tuc driver to take us over there. My very persistent bargain hunting roommate took control of that aspect of our trip, he was borderline offensive with his first request of price because he started so ridiculously low, and I’m surprised more tuc tuc drives didn’t just tell us to go away. However they wanted the work and were willing to argue back in forth. A tuc tuc by the way is a very small truck with a bed that has a roof, and open back and two benches for passengers. So we got a ride over to the other beach, Kuta. This beach was a definition for what a beach should be, and I would enjoy going to the beach if we had this type of thing in New England. The sand was soft and fine as silk, with not a rock or shell to mar its smooth surface. The sun was bright and warm, but not to the extent where I was immediately concerned with burning. Thailand is just the right distance away from the equator that the sun was gentle and comforting. Furthermore we felt like we had absolute privacy, the next closest people were about 30-50 ft. away. Then on top of all that, the waves were perfect to go in the water and have a good time, but also not be worried if you had small children. Then of course all along the beach there were tents and lean-to’s that had women offering massages for as little as 5 USD for 1.5 hours. Needless to say…it was a relaxing and blissful afternoon and I loved every second of it. That night we walked away from the majority of the crowds in order to find dinner. I ordered some chicken and rice, thought it was a relatively tame meal…I was wrong. I took three bites of the chicken and I started to tear up. I looked over to the counter and the waitresses were laughing at us. They came over and asked “oh you not want spicy?” It was agonizing to get through, but I made it, and with only a few tears. The rest of the night for me at least was pretty tame. Went back to the hotel with the girl of our group to get to bed early, this time the guy who checked us in was there, and he let us pass, but 2 hours later when our third member showed up, he was not happy at all. After 15 min. of arguing/trying to explain, he kicked me out. So at 1:00 a.m. I was wandering the streets of Phuket. Luckily for me, we had those Scandinavian friends at the 5 star hotel, so “unfortunately” (the quotations denote sarcasm) I had to spend the night on their couch so it ended up being no big deal.

Day 3:
Day 3 was the day of the big tour. Our party was picked up in the morning at 10 from our hotel and we were taken the two hours away to Phang Nga Bay which is part of mainland Thailand. Off the coast of Phang Nga there are about 40 islands jutting steeply out of the water. The islands protect the mainland from tsunamis, which is a feature the locals find very convenient, and they also break up the wind. To reach any of the islands it is first necessary to ride in a long boat through a Mangrove tree forest. These trees prevent erosion of the soil and they too break up the wind. The mangrove forests spread out forever from both sides of the river, and then suddenly and without any warning whatsoever the islands jump out of the trees. It was like God started with a totally flat landscape and then he stuck his fingers up straight out of the ground to make the islands. It was remarkably beautiful.
We got out to an island called Tum Talu; our longboat docked at a larger ferry and we took off in groups of two on small inflatable rafts. We cruised around the island…and under/through the island and it was wonderful. I got to see mudskippers swimming and skipping around too and they were pretty awesome. As for the rest of our tour there, the pictures speak for themselves.
From there we went to the James Bond Island. This is the island featured in “The Man with the Golden Gun,” it is the lair of the bad guy. It was awesome, there was a main island and then just offshore there was a pillar of rock jutting straight out of the water. I can’t remember what the locals actually call it, but the translation is “nail island.” Once again, the pictures speak for themselves.

After that it was lunch time. We were taken to a fisherman village, Koh Panyi, on stilts above the water. The town has its own school and medical center, it was neat. They had a boat that delivered fresh water every day. So beyong having supplies shipped to them when needed, they were totally self sufficient. The meal and the company were most enjoyable. We sat down at a round table and we were joined by an Australian couple and their younger son. They brought us several different dishes and each of them was great. There was endless rice, with a spicy soup with seafood (squid and prawn), veggies, squid cooked in pineapple and onions, grilled chicken, and jumbo breaded shrimp. Everyone ate, but to my surprise and dismay, as a group we didn’t finish the breaded shrimp. So being the responsible individual that I am, I took it upon myself to eat the last 4. Now I’m not sure if I should be proud or not of what happened next, but it’s pretty funny so I’ll share it anyways. After I had finished our breaded shrimp I was still a little hungry, so when I happened to glance at the table next to me I was ASTOUNDED to see that those people had not finished their breaded shrimp either. I can’t believe how many people were taking shrimp for granted, so I was FORCED to grab their plate and finish it for them. To save my dignity a little, the young kid from Australia (he was probably 12) helped me finish them. After this delectable meal we had about 15 minutes to explore the little village. We walked down narrow “allies” with vendors on either side; these vendors sold anything from food goods to tourist souvenirs/novelty items. On one of the piers I saw several young children (ages 3-7) riding small bicycles around in a circle on a 15x20 ft. concrete slab. Upon seeing this it occurred to me that I have NO IDEA what children or adolescents do there at the village. To the best of my knowledge they have no reason to leave the village, and there is nothing to really do IN the village. I imagine that the education is not terribly advanced and therefore that as children get into adolescent ages they learn their parents’ trade as they won’t go onto further schooling thereafter. I really wanted to talk to someone and find out what the course of life really was for those people, but a language barrier prevented that from happening, as did our structured tour schedule.
We moved on to our last stop, the Suwankuha Temple, or as we tourists call it, the monkey temple. So much fun! Monkeys were running around everywhere, and there happened to be a temple in the area . Seriously though, before we devoted all our attention to the monkeys it seemed appropriate to visit the temple first. The temple was actually a cave with several statues in it. There was a large reclining Buddha inside (approx 30 ft. is my guess) and we weren’t allowed to take pictures with it unless we were appropriately dressed, apparently an undershirt, bathing suit and flip flops didn’t cut it. Pants and a collared shirt (or even a polo) would have made it, but there was NO WAY we would have worn that all day, either way I manage to get pictures of it and then a partial that included me as well. Walking a little long there was a substantial amount of cave to explore; we climbed up and then down in a cavern that was at least 40-60 ft with stalagmites hanging above. I don’t really understand making a temple in a dark and unattractive cave, but to their credit it was very quiet and solemn which created a great atmosphere. After fulfilling our polite viewing of the temple we raced outside to party with the monkeys! As I said before they were everywhere, they live in the forests above the temple and come down during the day so that they can get fat from the tourists. I bought some bananas to feed the monkeys…and they love bananas. I had at least 5 monkeys climb up me, it was a lot of fun (if you want to see the video and you don’t have facebook just let me know and I’ll email you the file). Unfortunately we were still under a time constraint and we had to ride back to our hotel.

From there we immediately took a cab to the airport to catch our flight to Bangkok. We told the driver that we had very little time to get to the airport and asked him if he could drive quickly. He understood that to mean “treat this trip as a tryout for our Formula 1. He turned a 1 hour trip to the airport into a 33 min. trip (yes I timed it). On numerous occasions during what I was convinced was my last car ride ever, I really had to close my eyes to keep from screaming in fear. The worse part was I was sure we were going to kill someone if we didn’t, and I’m positive we brushed the leg of some guy on a little scooter. However he did make it to the airport in record time and there were no accidents, although I personally needed a change of clothes. From there we took off for Bangkok and that will be covered in Part II….

Mid Semester Break Pt. I

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