Then was so sleepy that we took a short nap on the cold hard floor of the airport, before getting up at 4am to have breakfast at McDee's. After that, we took a shuttle bus to the Budget Terminal for our flight, and boy, was it an eye-opener when we saw the Budget Terminal. It seriously lacks the comfort and prestige found in T1 and 2. It looks like an air-conditioned warehouse. Budget indeed!
We browsed through the bare DFS shops before boarding the plane at 7am. I could not believe we had to amble across the tarmac floor instead of using the travelator to get into the plane. It really spoilt our flight experience.
After an 1-hour-and-40-minute flight, we arrived at Phuket, a place that we have visited for the third time now. We hopped on a minivan bound for Patong beach, and we checked into our ever-favourite Patong Villa.
We visited the shopping arcade of our hotel because we wanted to visit Mai. When we saw that her shop was closed, we checked with the shopkeeper of a neighbouring shop and we were dismayed to find out from her that Mai had returned to Vietnam for two months. We had made a stop at Phuket with an intention to surprise her with a visit and to pass her some photos we had taken with her the last time we came. Oh well, there's always Speedpost.
After throwing down our bags and luggage, we dived into our bed for a short nap. When we woke, I was dismayed to see that it was raining heavily. Yes, it was not really a good time to visit Thailand after May because that is when the rainy season starts. And rain is definitely the last thing we would want to spoil our beach vacation.
Nevertheless, we braved the rain and made our way to Bangla Road for lunch. And as usual, it is my favourite Pizza Company! The pizza puff (not shown here) and spicy wings were great.
Pizza and wings
Me in front of the salad bar
The rain stopped after lunch and we proceeded to Jungceylon for some shopping. The weather was so grey and gloomy to the extent that we could see thick clouds lying low and shrouding the hills that back Patong.
Low-lying thick clouds
A community between the hilly terrain and tall grasses
We had a relaxing time flitting from shop to shop, munching on snacks like soon kueh and ice-cream, and grabbing Lay's (Thai version) potato chips and candy off the shelves inside Carrefour.
As evening came, we headed back to our hotel to wash up. Along the way, we stopped at Ocean Shopping Centre to get water supplies.
We stopped at Loppy's booth to hire a minivan to take us to Krabi the next morning. He was surprised to see us back again and started to complain about lack of business due to the low season. Indeed, Slug and I both noticed fewer farangs around (but more Singaporeans, yuck).
After a bath and another short nap, we walked with anticipation towards our ever-favourite Sabai Beach Restaurant for dinner. We thought we had gone to the correct location, but after walking around and searching for that restaurant for 5 minutes, we finally saw its dark exterior hidden behind other restaurants and blended into the night. Then it dawned to us that it had closed (probably due to the low season) and we were extremely disappointed. It was a place that we had to come whenever we visit Phuket.
We had no choice but to seek other dinner venues. As we walked towards Bangla Road, we passed by the beer garden with the interesting aquarium, and we could not help but sneak in to pay a visit to the sea creatures again. Upon entering, we bumped into a blonde and handsome farang who surprised us by greeting us a warm 'Good evening'. We were taken aback as he was not a waiter at that beer garden, so why did he have to greet us? We must have been real rude to stare back at him blankly.
It was still the same sharks, moray eels (they seemed to have grown fatter since the last time we saw them), stonefishes and the what-nots, but we were still mesmerized by them. Just then, a farang couple stepped up to the tank and started admiring the sea creatures too. The female farang started cooing, "Ooooh, sharks! Are they reeeeeal?", to which, the guy replied, "Why, do they look electronic to you?" Slug and I tried to stifle our giggles, and just when we thought the guy seemed intelligent enough, he suddenly said, "Look, these are the piranhas". We quickly ran away because we were about to burst out laughing.
(If there were piranhas in that tank, there would not have been sharks, moray eels, stonefishes and the what-nots anymore.)
We came across this Six Restaurant and we had a filling dinner of fried squid in batter, stir-fried pork with ginger, stir-fried prawns with garlic and pepper, and seafood kway tiao soup.
After dinner, we walked along Bangla Road and we could see that the throngs of crowd there were visibly fewer. The trannies (and Joker) were still dancing away, but we were not really in the mood to admire them. It was straight to our hotel to catch up on last night's sleep.
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