Phuket Day 5

Finally, my dream-like vacation in Phuket had come to an end. Though it was JUST Phuket, I felt like I had been living in a dream where there was no work but only play, only carefree days of eating, shopping, sightseeing and snoozing by the sea / pool. I was super sian when I woke up and thought of this, but the breakfast was something to look forward to!

Baked potatoes, sunny-side-up eggs, bacon, French toast, boiled porridge and coffee!

Haven't had Coco Crunch and cornflakes in years!

Went for a swim in the pool, and I was freaking delighted because the sun was up and shining! My days spent waiting for the sun had not been futile, and I finally got a tan! After our fulfilling swim, we washed up, packed up and checked out of the hotel. After leaving our luggage at the reception, we went to Bangla Shopping Centre for lunch! Had roast duck noodles and dim sum at a Japanese steamboat restaurant there. Cheap.

We walked on the beach for one last time and guess what, it started to rain. We ran for dear lives back to our hotel which was freaking far away, and retrieved our luggage. The minibus came and took us to the airport. So it was check-in, board the plane and back to Singapore.

On the plane

Getting my staple food at the DFS shop

This stupid poster had to remind me

When we arrived back in Singapore, it was already night time. The airport was crowded with families and travellers as it was a Saturday. Darn, I actually felt jealous at those travellers. Argh.

A whole lot of unpacking and washing awaits me ...

Phuket Day 4 (2)

After the elephant ride, we were taken to Bang Rong Nature Reserve for a canoe ride. Accompanied by a guide, Sluggie and I canoed along the river lined with mangroves and floating fishing villages. It was freaking quiet, but it was beautiful. The nature of the mangrove swamps remain untouched and the community of Bang Rong took care to protect the nature reserve. Commendable.

A floating fishing village on the river

After the canoe we were taken to dinner, which was a simple meal of fried rice, stir-fried mixed vegetables, deep-fried vegetables, tom yum soup and sweet and sour sea bass. The deep-fried vegetables were kind of weird, they were deep-fried pineapple slices, baby corn, long beans and onion rings (literally the rings from the onions). The sea bass looked ordinary but was superb.

Having dinner by the river

Finally the last item of our excursion was an ox cart ride. I wished I had skipped this. It was inhumane to make an ox pull a cart seated with six people and a guide on its back. The ox was struggling to move and it seemed tortured. One angmoh told me she would rather get down and walk by herself. I didn't feel fun at all, but sad.

The poor ox

Finally, the sky started to turn dark and the minibus took us back to our respective hotels. Along the way I asked Sluggie to see if the dead cat was still lying on the road while I shut my eyes tight, and I was deeply saddened when he told me it was still there. I just can't imagine the body will remain there drying up under the sun.

We reached our hotel, washed up and went to Bangla Road to spend the last night in Phuket. We had dinner at a tze char restaurant. We ordered deep-fried prawns (even better than the ones we had the day before), stir-fried chicken with mushrooms and minced pork soup with glass noodle and tofu. We initially wanted to splurge on the huge tiger prawns and lobsters but we were running out of money. Too bad.

We had normal prawns instead

Then we walked along Bangla Road to look at the trannies for one last time. There was one grossly ugly one (who sexy-danced and flashed a boob a few days ago) from this bar (can't remember the name) who kept teasing the angmohs. She lifted up her skirt today and we saw that she didn't wear panties! We nearly flipped when she took an angmoh's hand and slid it to her cleanly-shaven you-know-where. Argh.

This is the bar I am talking about. The ones dancing on the podium are trannies. So is the fair-looking one wearing orange and squatting. Looks pretty though.

Bangla Road. Freaking fun.

Sluggie and I decided to park ourselves at a nightclub called Dragon Club because their draught beer was cheap. We were entertained by many sexy (real) Thai women pole-dancing clad only in their underwear or bikini. They welcomed tips to be stuffed into their cleavages and G-strings. I was simtten with one who looked like Ayumi and Sluggie was smitten with one who danced like a snake. Later on, the deejay announced that there would be a 'special show' which turned out to be a raunchy item where two almost naked women bathed each other and attempted pseudo-coital positions on the table-top in front of us! Cool!

I was bawling and clutching on to the bar table when Sluggie tried to drag me out of the club. I just could not bear to leave that stupid place. We played one round of pool before I reluctantly left. Argh.

Phuket Day 4 (1)

Woke up to a great American buffet breakfast served at the hotel's restaurant. We had delightful servings of bacon (again *groan*), sausages, eggs, breads and pastries, cereals, cold cuts, salads, some Thai dishes and fruits. I think I am addicted to coffee, I just need to drink it during breakfast everyday. I was happy for a moment that the yoghurt was dabao-able, but then it tasted like shit. Ugh.

I love buffet breakfast

After that, we went for a swim in their pool. I was intending to suntan, but it was cloudy and it even started to drizzle a while later. Heck.

I love their swimming pool!

When it was time, we went back to wash up and wait for the minibus to pick us up for our excursion to Bang Pae Safari. It finally arrived at about 3pm and there were already six tourists on board.

Along the way, I saw a dead cat in the middle of the road. Apparently it had been knocked over by the vehicles but nobody cared to pick it up. What if it gets run over repeatedly and you know, all the good stuff comes out? I was so sad that I broke into tears, startling Sluggie and the driver beside me. I remained that way till we reached Bang Pae.

A guide took us to the Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre, where gibbons are kept and nursed. They are not fit to be released into the wild because of various reasons: some carry the HIV virus (that will pose danger to humans if they attack them), some have had their limbs amputated due to other diseases or abuse from previous owners, some are over-aggressive etc etc. My heart goes out to these poor creatures.

Then the guide took us to trek through the jungle to arrive at a waterfall. There were many Thai teenagers diving and swimming at the bottom of the waterfall. What fun. Sluggie and I were oogling at the topless hunky guys and the curvy girls with wet translucent pyjamas. Keke.

At Bang Pae Safari

The waterfall

Then we were taken to a rubber plantation where we were shown how rubber was tapped from a tree. I was yawning because I ALREADY KNOW. Malaysia has an abundance of them. It was an eye-opener for the angmohs though.

The rubber plantation

Then we were taken for the elephant ride. Sluggie and I were seated on one small elephant and the rest were assigned bigger elephants. Yeah yeah, we are small-sized Asians. A cheeky Thai boy sat on the elephant's head guiding it, while we sat on a bench on the elephant's back. I was indignant when the guide kept hitting the elephant's head with a stick whenever the elephant strayed from the route or stopped to munch on some plants. Such cruelty! Sluggie consoled me saying that if these owners do not put these elephants through this labour and pain (and earn our tourist dollars), they would have nothing to eat. Okay, fine.

On the elephant

Playing with a cute little squirrel owned by our guide

The guide took us for a thirty-minute ride on the elephant through the rubber plantation and in the river. After that, we alighted and we bought bananas (at exhorbitant prices) to feed the elephant that we rode on.

Delighting the elephant with bananas

Sayanging the elephants

Phuket Day 3

Woke up, had breakfast and proceeded to check out of Patong Villa Hotel. I was sick of the same breakfast for the past two mornings: omelette and bacon. We then went to check in at Deevana Patong Resort and Spa, which was further inland and pretty much inaccessible. Took us half an hour to walk there.

Upon arriving, we were greeted with a cold towel and a welcome drink. Great service! Also, the hotel was beautiful. Our room was in the Garden Wing, which was really nice with all those flowers and greenery. They had the Spa Wing where some rooms had their own jacuzzi pool, cool!

Our room

Fooling around at the garden

The swimming pool at the Spa Wing

They even had a recreation room with a pool table, a ping pong table and a soccer table. Sluggie and I eagerly had a few rounds of pool because it was free.

At the recreation room

Then we walked all the freaking way to Thai Thai restaurant at Bangla Road to have lunch, and shopping at Bangla Shopping Centre after that. It was a short walk to Patong Beach and yes, we went there for suntanning! We rented two beach chairs and a beach umbrella, and proceeded to lie there and snooze by the sea. As usual, all those sunbathing angmohs and the Thais ever eager to sell parasailing and jetskiing packages, and hair braiding and massage services. Sluggie and I had fun oogling at some topless angmohs with erm, saggy boobs. Some even wore G-strings. I mean, this is Thailand, how can they walk around like that?

Pardon my unsightly paunch

I was busy soaking up the sun while Sluggie was busy picking up little seashells for his fish tank. All was nice for a seaside nap when after a while, dark storm clouds started to gather and there was a blurry mist up at the hills. It was raining! Sluggie and I quickly fled for shelter at the shops and so did everyone. My bikini was too wet for me to put on my clothes, so I just wrapped my hotel towel and walked the streets like that. Sluggie walked around topless. I kind of felt weird walking around in a towel but it seemed okay here. I even saw female angmohs riding around on their scooters in their bikinis.

The rain was getting heavier and we escaped into a Baskin Robbins ice-cream boutique. There we shared a triple sundae with cookies n creme, strawberry cheesecake and macadamia nut ice-cream. The ice-cream was something that lifted our moods dampened by the rain, but eating ice-cream in cold weather was weird, though.

I love Baskin Robbin's ice-cream!

Our triple sundae topped with crushed nuts, chocolate sauce, rainbow sprinkles and cherry!

The weather was pretty much fucked up, and we soon got to know why. Just as we thought the rain had cleared, we left Baskin Robbins and headed for our hotel. Along the way, the rain poured again and we fled like mad. We washed up and watched some lame Thai commercials while waiting in our hotel room for the rain to stop, intending to go to Bangla Road which was many fricking miles away. Just as we thought it was clear, we ventured out only to get attacked by the rain again. We sought shelter at nearby tze char stall and conveniently had dinner there. We ordered deep fried prawns, stir fried pork and seafood guo tiao soup. We were running low on money and had to scale down our meals.

Halfway through the meal, the rain stopped and we were relieved. But as soon as we finished the meal and were on the way to Bangla Road, it came again and we were forced to turn back to our hotel. What an accursed weather. We were then forced to play pool at the recreation room for the rest of the night ...

Phuket Day 2 (3)

After that, went out to walk around the streets. Saw an interesting stall selling pancakes of interesting flavours, like pineapple coconut nutella, egg peanut butter raisin, banana honey strawberry jam etc. Sluggie and I just had to have one, so we ordered egg and cheese pancake (at least it sounds normal). We realised that it was just a modified version of roti prata. The cook drizzled condensed milk on the pancake after it was done. Tasted good!

The pancake stall

Our pancake in the cooking

'Roti Prata'

We just had to go back to Sabai Beach Restaurant to have our dinner because the food is cheap and good! Even the servers recognised us. This time we ordered stir-fried mixed vegetables (the oyster sauce works wonders!), fried calamari rings (again!) and green chicken curry. Shiok.

Our dinner

Went to Bangla Road again and saw this sign, a grim reminder of the Boxing Day tsunami disaster. Ever since that incident, Thailand has taken precautions like establishing evacuation routes and a tsunami warning system in Phuket. But still, I hope nothing like that will happen again.

We passed by many bars along Bangla Road and finally we went into one which had pool tables. We hit a few rounds of pools as Sluggie is a billiard-fanatic. I am totally a newbie while Sluggie is DA MASTER, so with his guidance I just learnt and played. It was fun though.

I am better off cam-whoring

DA MASTER

Nothing ends the night off well than alcohol

It was way past midnight but Bangla Road was still busy with all those angmohs and ah kwas loitering around. Definitely a wild place to hang out after dark!

Phuket Day 2 (2)

We reached Monkey Beach, so-called for the huge population of monkeys inhabiting the beach. The boat would not drop us off because the monkeys are wild animals and Jacky did not want us to get near them in case they might hurt us. So we could only view them from the boat. Jacky handed all of us bananas to throw to the monkeys. The monkeys could swim!

Monkeys at Monkey Beach

One of them was audacious enough to climb onto our boat to demand for more bananas. Jacky fed it 7-up instead, which it happily sipped from the bottle. As it came further on board, I took a chance to confront him with my camera.

This was the audacious monkey

The monkeys were everywhere, on the beach, on the trees, and even up on the cliffs. I saw one big one standing at a high corner of the steep cliffs looking down at us, and one angmoh said "Oh, that must be the chief." Jacky said that it was the lifeguard.

After that, the boat took us to the bigger island, Phi Phi Don for lunch. We were seated together at a table with the six tourists who were in the same minibus as us earlier. Sluggie and I were delighted because the lunch was sumptuous! There was stir-fried mixed vegetables, chicken with cashew nuts and dried chilli, fish with sweet and sour mango sauce, seafood tom yum soup, deep fried fish fillet, sotong and onion rings, and also spaghetti for picky angmohs who would not take rice. They also served fruits which were always watermelon and pineapple.

After lunch, we were given some time to walk around the shops before we were called back to the boat. Our next and final destination was Khai Nok Island, and we reached there after a forty-minute ride. One happy thing was that the sun was finally out!

I was freaking happy because Khai Nok was beautiful! It really matches the description of pristine white sand and clear aqua waters! We were given about two hours to rest and relax on the island, like snorkelling or simply sunbathing.

Beach chairs and umbrellas on Khai Nok Island

Jacky our guide cutting up watermelon for us

Everyone of us rented the beach chairs and umbrellas and threw our belongings there, Jacky and Co. helped look after them. Sluggie and I coveted loaves of bread from Jacky's station and went to a nice bay to snorkel and feed the fishes!

The water was very clear and we could see the fishes. They were predominantly yellow with black stripes, but there were also other colourful types around. We threw bread pieces into the water and they zipped to their food in no time. We learnt not to be stupid to feed them by hand beacuse they bite.

It was fun being surrounded by the fishes

Hungry and aggressive fishes

After we ran out of bread, we went back to our chairs and sunbathed. The atmosphere was just so right for lying there and sleeping ...

We were grumbling as Jacky called us back to the boat which would take us back. I just could not bear to leave this place. On the boat, Jacky showed us magic tricks and his final trick made me want to box him. He asked us how to make a yellow box turn red, and we were like clueless. Then with the yellow box in his hand, he inserted a hundred Thai baht note (which is red) into it and cackled "This is how you make the yellow box red, hyuk hyuk!" We were like "DUH!" but we tipped him anyway. He had been a great guide.

The boat took us back to Chalong Pier where the minibus took us back to our hotel. There we washed up (our feet were full of fine sand) and watched a documentary on Discover Channel on spiders. Yuk.

Phuket Day 2 (1)

Woke up at about 7am and after washing up, went to the hotel's restaurant for their breakfast. I ordered omelette and bacon and toast. The omelette was huge, and the bacon strips were crispy and salty. Together with a cup of coffee, the breakfast was super shiok.

After breakfast, a minibus came to pick us up for our trip to Phi Phi. Then it went on to other hotels to pick up six other tourists, all of them angmoh couples.

On the minibus

Besides the beaches, Phuket is full of hills too

After a thirty-minute ride, we arrived at Chalong Pier to board a speedboat to the Phi Phi islands. Together with many other tourists, we were led by a quirky guide named Jacky.

The weather did not seem very good because of the dark storm clouds. Nevertheless we all boarded the speedboat at the pier bound for Phi Phi.

Chalong Pier

It was an hour ride to Phi Phi and on the boat we realised that Sluggie and I were the youngest and the only Asians among the other tourists. It was kind of intimidating. Jacky entertained us with his lame jokes and magic tricks along the way.

Finally, we reached the Phi Phi islands! The boat took us to Phi Phi Ley, the smaller island. As there was no shore, we could only take pictures from the boat. Then it took us to Maya Bay, famously known as the beach in the movie 'The Beach'. I was kind of disgusted because firstly, it was too overcrowded with tourists and secondly, one has to pay an admission fee to set foot on that beach.

Phi Phi Ley

Maya Bay

Nobody wanted to pay for the admission fee, so the boat took us to Pileh Cove for snorkelling. Armed with snorkelling masks and life jackets, Sluggie and I plunged into the waters only to realise we did not use the snorkelling mouthpiece properly. We were struggling frantically and gulped in mouthfuls of water. We quickly climbed up the boat and I felt so sick. The water was freaking salty. The stupid boat was bobbing up and down which made me feel even sicker and I went to the toilet (on the boat) to vomit. Out came the egg and bacon bits, and the boat driver wasn't impressed when he saw it (I had trouble flushing it away and had to consult him).

So while the rest were happily swimming, we and a few elderly tourists waited on the boat. Anyway, the waters were clear but not very nice. I could jolly well skip this cove.

Pileh Cove

Waiting for our hair to dry

Finally, Jacky called the swimmers back to the boat and off we went to Monkey Beach! On the way we passed by the Viking Cave, which is a cave with a huge bird nest business going on. Jacky did explain why it was called Viking Cave but I didn't really catch that. We were all busy looking out for any bird nest.

Viking Cave