Phuket - Day Four (11/16/07)

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This was our last day in Phuket and we had to check out of the hotel before noon. As our flight didn't take off until midnight, we decided to rent a car to drive around the island.

Car rental can be easily found anywhere on the streets by the beach, at day tour agencies... We went straight to this guy with his cars on the street next to Patong beach behind Patong Resort. Since it was only the two of us, we went for the little Honda Jazz - it is a little car, but good enough for the two of us and our luggages. It was very clean inside and the car looked brand new. We paid 1000 bahts including insurance to keep that car from that morning until that evening whenever we got back to the hotel. They could pick it up at the hotel. The only thing I didn't feel comfortable enough was that we had to give away one of our passports as deposit. That made me a bit nervous!

We were excited to start our road trip for the day. It was definitely a bit weird and confusing driving on the left side of the road. Traffic was busy here especially on Patong Beach and on the hills - man, those motorcycles - that's what I am talking about!! Our first stop was to go to Karon beach to stop at the little resort where Sean and his brother stayed last year. Sean just wanted to stop by and said hello to the wonderful people there who went out of their way to help him and his brother out last year. We stopped there for a quick lunch and it impressed me that the front desk and the bar waiter still remembered Sean. It is a beautiful hotel with a roof top swimming pool. The view there is unreal!! I think for those who stay at Karon beach, they should check out the Pacific Club Resort.

We set off from Karon Beach to Phuket town, hoping to stop at the orchid garden on the way. On the map it shows it is somewhere right outside of Phuket town, however, half way there we saw the sign of orchid farm and followed that sign. We arrived at this small orchid farm but it really didn't look like the orchid garden we were looking for. A german woman was at the entrance and charged us 200 bahts each for the tickets - beautiful tickets though. It was real orchid flowers as entrance "tickets'. We asked her about the other orchid garden and were told it was closed long time ago. Hmmm.. I am not sure if I was convinced. But anyway, since we were here we would check it out anyway. The farm was quite big with all kinds of beautiful and colorful orchids. Some of them have stickers on it saying they actually can be brought through customs. That's good to know though as those are definitely beautiful flowers. I would like to buy some but considering back home we don't have the hot and humid weather for such precious flower, oh well, I got some good pics instead.

Although we didn't really quite follow the map and not sure where we were, we seemed quite lucky though to hit the right road that actually led us to Phuket town direction. Phuket Island's road signs are pretty much for local only. Although it is both in Thai and English, the English is so small and not easy to read from far away. That's what makes it difficult to follow the map as it is not easy to find out where we were.

When we got to the south end of phuket town we saw the sign to the Viewpoint and aquarium. Looks like fun. We followed the arrow to the viewpoint and it led us to the hill top to get a whole view of Chalong Bay. Something I still couldn't figure out though - on the way to the hill top, we could see ocean down there already and we seemed pretty high compared to that.. however, when we looked at the trees by the road maybe a feet lower by the roadside.. water was actually about half tree high.. that looked a bit scary.. maybe it was other water, not the ocean water?? But anyway, I think where we were at is called Cape Khaokhat. You can see Long Island to the south and the whole Chalong Bay. You can also see the big buddha sitting on top of the hill across the water. It was amazing view here, but no one was actually there except Sean and I - weird!

We kept driving south and arrived at a muslim village in Panwa. This was when we ran really low of gas but couldn't find any gas station. Luckily we saw this little snack store with a few skinny tanks standing outside. Sean told me that must be the hand-pump gas, I actually laughed about it as I thought it was cooking oil. But he was right. The woman in the store confirmed Sean's guess. We were so excited to find gas and forgot we didn't have enough Thai money. Also, since I believe this is the only place you can get gas, price she charged was extremely expensive. We ended up not having enough money to pay, we offered to pay in USD, she agreed, however, she couldn't change money as we only had 100USD bills. It was pretty awkward there. She told us banks were in Phuket town and too far away. We asked if it was ok for us to go change in the hotel - she happily agreed and told us the nearest hotel to change money. We found this hotel right outside the aquarium. They would not change money for us unless we live there even though I explained we needed the money for gas. A guy overheard my conversation with the cashier and offered to change money with me from his own pocket. He was the lifesaver for our gas/money crisis. What an experience!

Phuket's aquarium is an awesome place!! It isn't very big but they certainly have all these incredible and some weird fishes for visitors. There are some deadly fishes too.. Sean even found a few fish suffering from "hydrocephalus" and asked me to take pics for my neurosurgeon friend. It turned out to be a good postcard for my friend!

Leaving Panwa bay, we headed back to Phuket town again. Again, we were not sure which way to take to go to downtown, however, we followed most people went to and managed our way to downtown phuket. It seems like a very old town, busy too. We parked the car and took a little walk. We were approached often to be taken to a market - that must be a popular place to go but we didn't have time to find out what market it is though. We read somewhere that lobster is cheaper in phuket town than on the beach, but it turned out they are actually more expensive here. So we didn't spend too much time in phuket town when we found out we couldn't find cheap lobster. So we were on the road again.

Our next stop was Promthep cape. This place is what I called paradise! Anyone who goes to Phuket must come to this place. It is at the south end of Phuket island. Seems like a famous place for wedding too as a few couples were having their wedding pics taken here when we were there. There is an outdoor restaurant here - with colorful plants everywhere and gorgeous view right in front of you. We thought it would be an extremely expensive place but actually the price here was very good - same like in Patong beach. We were surprised to find there were only three tables taken the whole time we were there, but when it got darker, we figured out why - even though the plants made this place very pretty, mosquito - ouch! Promthep cape should be the best place for sunset view, although we saw a storm view to the west and dark clouds kind of blocked the sun, lightening crossed the sky and the view was scary but incredible! So.. pity no sunset but hey, what is the chance we could see lightening like that! Too bad I couldn't catch it with camera though. Promthep cape was really the highlight of our day!

Back to patong beach after quite some tough driving in the dark and busy hilly roads. You just need to watch out those scooters and tuk tuks.

We called the car rental company the first thing we arrived at the hotel as I wanted to make sure I had my passport on time to make to the airport. My fear happened though - that guy came late, although not so late that I missed my flight, but late enough to make me worried to death. We had seafood buffet at our hotel. It was great dinner, but the whole time I was worrying about not getting my passport! I had to thank our hotel bell boys. They were so kind and kept calling the car rental guy with their own cell phones to help find out where he was.

After I got my passport, we still had half an hour to burn before we got picked up for the airport. We thought we might go for a 20 mins massage, but the hotel massage was closed already then. Front desk told us to try Christine Massage right outside our hotel. Not knowing what it was, we went in - shocked!!! Tons of girls semi naked sitting inside the glass window. In the lobby, all the guys looked like talking business. Well, I guess obvious enough we know what kind of business that was! Oh well, this is the other part about Phuket - like what we saw on Bangla road to begin our Phuket trip and now same thing to end our trip! Funny huh!

Well byebye Phuket. Forget about the other part about this island mentioned above, we are desperately in love with this place and know for sure we will come back again, for the beach, the ocean, the islands! What a romantic place!

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