Advertisement
Published: December 2nd 2009
Phuket - Phuket Province We were due to leave Phi Phi 2:30 pm, bound for Phuket, however we were working to Thai time, which more than often means add 30 minutes - as a minimum. Although this rule should generally be applied in most cases, apart from the trains, I still felt certain that the boat would cast off without me when I decided to run back to the woman at the beginning of the pier to fetch Sam a Banana & Nuttella Pancake… luckily I just made it with 20 minutes to spare. Come 3 o’clock, or there about, we left Phi Phi & headed to Phuket, which would be a 2 & a half hour boat ride. The afternoon sun was hot & it was difficult to escape the sun’s glare unless you relocated into the main cabin, which in contrast was freezing cold thanks to the air con. So we seized the opportunity to do some sun bathing & drinking, simultaneously, out on deck - & who said men can’t multi-task. The sea was particularly choppy which some of us enjoyed, & others not so much. Sam, who never suffers from travel sickness, did. However we later
found out it was due to the greasy pancake she had wolfed down 20 minutes before we left. So due to her “travel sickness” & despite the fact it was sub-minus temperatures in the main cabin, Sam went inside & fell asleep for about an hour, until she was woken up by the frost bite & had to come back out into the heat where most of us now had taken the opportunity to catch 40 winks. Most of us apart from ‘Eagle-Eyed’ Kieran & me who had our eyes firmly locked on to a suspect Thai guy who had strategically sat himself between everyone as he had obviously seen Elaine’s handbag wide open with her bright pink neon purse perched at the top. Whilst I pretended to be asleep with my eyes shut, Kieran had his sun glasses on so the guy couldn’t see what direction he was looking in. The shifty Thai guy was looking round & his eyes were darting in every direction, waiting for the perfect moment to grab the purse, but just as he checked once more to see if I was asleep, I opened my eyes & looked directly at him. This startled him,
& he resumed back to his position & sat back, I then I sat up right & by the look on his face, he knew he had missed his opportunity. The surveillance operation had been a success. Once Barry & Elaine had come around from their nap & had closed the handbag, we had a bit of banter with the would-be opportunist & then he upped & left.
Not long after we arrived at our destination, Phuket. The usual crowd of overly keen taxi drivers & touts were waiting for us & the rest of the boat load & once we had gotten off & established there was no room for bartering as we were in Phuket, we agreed to pay up the 500 bht & Sam, Vicky, Elaine, Kate, Kieran, Barry, James & I jumped into the mini-bus & made our way to Bazoo Guest House, Karon Beach. We were all wise to the fact (thanks to the Lonely Planet) that Bazoo didn’t pay the touts or taxi drivers commission, & therefore was never a favorable drop off, so it is always either ‘no good & dirty’ or ‘closed down’. In our case it was the latter. And
the taxi driver was more than happy to direct us into another guesthouse just across the way, Pineapple Guesthouse. Well we wasn’t having it, as we were wise to their tricks, after all, the Lonely Planet is the source of all relevant & accurate information. Well actually, not all the time. The taxi driver was telling the truth; it had closed down, 2 years previous. So Barry & I jumped out & went to survey a number of other suitable opportunities close by. Fifteen minutes later we returned with only 1 suitable option, 2gether Guest House, a Swedish themed & run guest house that offered very comfortable rooms with massive clean & comfortable king sized bedrooms with, air con, TV & hot showers a real luxury compared to the last couple of places we had stayed in. We had also managed to get it for a reasonable 600 Baht per night, permitted we didn’t have the breakfast buffet, which was usually included in the more expensive rooms. Happy with ourselves we returned to the rest of the group to tell them the good news. In between Barry & I going to find the rooms & the taxi driver dropping the
rest of the crew off, Kate & Kieran had gone to inspect the accommodation that the driver had originally referred us to (Pineapple Guest House) & had checked out the dorm rooms, which were a comparable 150 Baht per night, but they only had 5 beds available. Kieran & Kate decided they would take 2 of the beds & after checking them out, Elaine & Barry decided they would take the other 2, although Barry didn’t seem that overly keen having just seen the rooms that Sam, Vicky, James & I went to check into at 2gether. Once Sam had settled down & got over the excitement of our very comfortable room & had her first hot shower of the trip, we got changed & went to meet the others to eat. We ended up eating in our guest house & with an offer of ‘all you can eat’ pasta for a 149 Baht each, how could we refuse? They served 4 different pasta dishes: Spaghetti Bolognese, Carbonara, Pork-Pasta & Ravioli each served with a slice of garlic bread & a helping of salad from the ‘free’ salad bar. Well naturally I had all 4 dishes, & what was left
over of Sam’s, who had 3. Now stuffed & sweating from a pasta & rich sauce overload, the last thing that was on my mind was taking a walk down the road to see what drinking delights Karon Beach had to offer, however it was the general consensus & it didn’t take much, if any persuasion. We strolled down to the beach, were it was pitch black & not a beach bar in sight, all of the bar’s were back up the road we had just walked down. The main road seemed fairly quiet & subdued, but just one turn of a corner & we walked straight into the cesspit with a procession of small bars all of similar size & character & all playing the same Euro Techno crap pumping out of their sound systems, oh & not to mention lots of Thai prostitutes who were either pretending to enjoy the company of the old fat western men buying them drinks, or standing about for the next fat western man to walk by so they could pull them in & pretend to enjoy their company whilst they bought them drinks. We managed to find a bar that had all
of the above apart from the Thai prostitutes & their fat companion’s, it also had a pool table - bonus. We enjoyed a couple of bottles of Chang & a few games of pool & were all entertained by the innocent charm of the little children who were selling dead roses. The one, a young boy played a game of pool with us & could barely see the top of the table & the other, a young girl who proved to be Sam’s ultimate rival at connect 4. Sam who was the reigning champion, had met her match, this girl was unreal. She had already mapped out her every move as well as Sam’s… she was unbeatable. Once Sam had admitted defeat & we were all 20 baht lighter (as that was the losers fee) we sang happy birthday to Kieran as it had now passed 12 o’clock & then Sam & I went bed.
The next morning it was extremely hard to get ourselves out of bed, it was just too comfortable! After an hour of watching BBC World News in bed, we decided to get up, have a hot shower & then & go & meet the
rest of the crew. But not before buying Kieran a birthday present. We had all chipped in to buy him a pair of shorts he wanted, back in Phi Phi, however Sam & I wanted to get him something personal. So we ran over to the small shop opposite 2gether & looked for a suitable present. After looking at stupid presents that would only serve the purpose of amusement, mainly on my part, we decided to get Kieran a note book & pen. Although this was a small present, we knew it would be warmly received as Kieran was forever writing on scraps of paper trying to capture where we had been, or what we had done on a particular day that was of significance & worth writing in his blog. Once we had written his card & carefully wrapped up his present in a screwed up plastic bag, we went & met the rest of the gang who had not long sat down to order a full English breakfast, next door to Pineapple Guest House. After breakfast the plan was get some motor bikes & find the nearest beach with the biggest & roughest waves. This was something that
Kieran & I had particularly missed (the waves) as all of the places we had been to so far had all had calm water, not like the time we were in Goa (India) enjoying being battered & sometimes nearly drowned by the waves. We had heard the waves were good at the next beach along, Kata, so headed straight there. We had a look & dropped the girls off, before deciding to quickly have a look at the next beach along as we had also heard that the waves were supposed to be good, so Kieran, Captain Slow (Barry) & I rode to the next beach Ao Nai Han. Once we had evaluated the wave’s performance, we quickly went & fetched the girls & relocated them to Ao Nai Han, left them to set up camp & ran straight for the sea. The waves weren’t great, but they offered a bit of rough ‘n’ tumble so we were happy. We enjoyed a nice afternoon in the sea, in the sun & in the shade with a Chang or two before heading back to get changed & then headed to the go-karting as this was Kieran’s choice of activity to celebrate
his birthday. Just before we were due to leave for the go-karting it started raining, so we left it for about 20 minutes until we thought it had passed & then got underway heading back towards Phuket Town. Ten minutes into the 15 minute ride & it really started raining, to the point it hurt & you couldn’t see anything in front of you, it was too dangerous to keep riding so we pulled into the next available place we could take refuge under. This shelter happened to be on a building site, under a part built house that had probably not long had concrete laid at the front of it as we discovered as we quickly scarpered under the main but unfinished reception area. As we ringed out our soaked clothes, we realised we had left our foot prints in the concrete floor ranging from size 3 to 11’s…oopps! It was a bloody good job we pulled over as the rain got even heavier as the tropical thunder storm passed right over head & unleashed some spectacular bolts of lightning before us. After about 30 minutes of waiting for the storm to let-up, we decided to head back, right
through the storm again? Once we got back to the rooms, everyone chilled out, before getting ready to go into Patong, the main stretch of beach in Phuket where you can get every fake imaginable, plus there’s a Burger King, McDonalds, KFC & Subway, plus a shed load of bars & ‘discotheques’. But before leaving, we all posed for some pictures with Kieran, who was now dressed like a Lady-Boy before being dropped off in Patong in what was the best mini bus we had travelled in yet.
As we hadn’t eaten, we all chose to eat the junk food of our preference so Sam, Vicky, James & I went for a Burger King & for anyone who’s wondering, they’re just as expensive in Thailand as they are back home. After that followed a great night of boozing, laughs & rubbish cocktails, so we sourced most of our drinks from one of the million 7eleven stores as Phuket, Patong especially, is very expensive. The next day Sam & I got up & rode into Patong, as Sam was keen to get a bag as the one she had bought from Primark had now fallen to pieces. We spent the
best part of 2 hours walking up & down the Patong stretch bartering & haggling with numerous fake handbag sellers, none of which would budge, a part from one, the first one we spoke to, just across from where we had parked the bike. After negotiating & walking off & being called back, we reached an agreement where both parties were fairly happy, well for at least 2 minutes as by the time we had paid for the bag & walked back over to our bike, it had broken. Needless to say we promptly got our money back & headed back to Karon as we had to meet the others as we were going to attempt go-karting again.
After the drive there the go-karting seemed fairly mundane, especially now we were acclimatised to riding on the roads of Phuket, but thanks to our earlier bartering we had managed to secure ourselves an extra 5 minutes of fast paced fun as Barry, Dean, Kieran, James & I tore around the go-karting circuit ignoring all pre-warnings not to crash into each other - in true essence of Mario Karts. By the time we left, the guy was screaming at us, saying
“all you want is free, free 5 minutes, free video, free t-shirts!!” by which point he had taken off his own t-shirt & thrown it at us in jest.
On the way back Sam managed to find the small & practical fake Mulberry shoulder bag she wanted, so she was happy too. That night everyone chilled out, tired from the karting & previous night’s fun we all got our back packs packed & ready to go as we had an early start & were moving onto to our next destination. It was a collective decision that we wanted somewhere that was very quiet, chilled out, off the beaten track & nowhere near as commercial as Phuket, so we decided to head to a place called Ko Phayam, a small Island with only 500 inhabitants… ideal.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.146s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0953s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
melanie
non-member comment
X-Factor
Danyl has gone, Halleujah, Stacey, Joe and Olly in the final, love,hugs and kisses, the Seatons.