Phuket, Thailand

I went to Phuket, Thailand this weekend. I left Singapore on Friday morning at 8:15 AM and returned on Sunday at 11:30 AM. I flew Tiger Airways, and we left from the airport's "Budget Terminal"! HAHA I found that really funny! We got to walk out onto the tarmac to board the plane, so that was really fun.

Thailand this weekend was absolutely FABULOUS!! So amazing and beautiful!! The scenery was absolutely breathtaking! As we were flying into Thailand, I was blown away by all of the little islands off of the coast. It is one of the best views I've ever seen from an airplane! I put plenty of pictures on my photo site :)

When we arrived in Phuket, I was caught off guard by the number of taxi drivers and shuttle services that were haggling us for our service. It was very overwhelming. We found a service that would take us all the way to the hostel and even come pick us up on Sunday to bring us back to the airport. It was expensive, but it was the safest decision. We stayed at Jinny Hostel, which was a 15-20 minute walk from the beach. The rooms were AMAZING! My room had two twin beds bathroom, shower, air conditioning, and a TV, which only had stations in Thai. It was like a palace, and the couple that owned the hostel were two of the nicest people I've met abroad so far.

After checking into our hostel, Hannah, Caroline, Josh, Sharifa, and I headed to the beach. There were no sidewalks along the road, and the houses and shops came right up to the edge of the road. It was pretty scary walking so close to cars and motor bikes. There were no street markings, no crosswalks, and no traffic lights... it was interesting. Crossing the road was literally like playing Frogger. There were a few times where I legitimately feared for my life. 

On the way to the beach, we passed by numerous street vendors selling fruit, vegetables, meat on skewers, basically any kind of food. Some of the vendors even sold their goods out of the back of their trucks or from their scooters as they drove up and down the road. During our stay in Phuket, I noticed that these little family businesses were open all hours of the night- 24 hours a day! It was insane! I suppose that they are open as long as there is business. The food from the vendors was very inexpensive, but I was not brave enough to try anything other than peel-able fruit. We ate these lychees that had a red outside, and you twist it open to eat the fruit on the inside. The texture was a cross between a pear and a peeled grape. It tasted very sweet.  We bought breakfast both mornings from a nice lady down the street. We had little banana nut muffins, the most amazing sugary banana chips, an interesting pancake-like pastry with a flan-like custard on top, and a little cube of sticky rice with a coconut and brown sugar topping!! So good! 

Also during our walk to the beach, we noticed that there were so many power lines along the street. I cannot even describe how crazy it was. Just imagine 20 to 30 black power lines running down the length of the road, all overlapping and tangled. You could even hear then buzz and crackle. There were also dogs and cats every where, as well as a fair amount of interesting smells...

When we made it to the beach, we were attacked by people trying to sell us lounge chairs, umbrellas, volleyballs, a jet ski ride, it was terribly overwhelming. America could take a lesson from the private businessmen in Phuket. The Thai are very good at selling their products, very persistent. They would follow us, keep coming back to our spot on the beach... it was actually quite annoying and it is so hard for me to say no. But no worries, I became a pro by the end of the weekend of getting by the hagglers. Haha, it helped that I was taller than them, I just had to keep looking forward to avoid eye contact.

However, on the beach I did give in to one little business... PARASAILING!! Yes! I went parasailing for the first time in Thailand! The ride was pretty short, maybe three minutes tops, and it was the most expensive thing I paid for all day, but it was absolutely AMAZING and so worth it!! It was a harness and a parachute and I rode with a monkey! haha the monkeys were small Thai guys that rode behind you (with no harness!) and would steer the parachute. The monkeys were so awesome. They're so lucky that they get to parasail every day. I was nervous at first, but as soon as my feet left the ground, I was so in love! It was an incredible feeling, so free, I want to go again right now! I had a big, open-mouthed smile the whole time. There was so much to take in! The wonderful feeling of flying, the incredible view! Ahhhhh pure bliss :)

After the beach, Hannah and I went shopping at the awesome open air markets selling all kinds of clothes, jewelry, handbags, and other souvenirs. I learned to barter for the first time. I was uncomfortable with it at first, being so insistent on a low price from an already ridiculously low price, but... when in Thailand, do as the Thai do! Hannah was very good at bartering, so she taught me her ways, and then I started having a good time with it. I bartered down a handmade purse with little elephants on it from 650 Baht to 200 Baht, which is about $7. All the bartering was great practice for when we go to Beijing for six weeks. I'm really excited to go shopping there! 

The accessories at the markets were nice, but the clothes were terrible. They had shops full of awesome shorts, tank tops, dresses, and shirts. The styles were awesome, open-backed tank tops, beautifully patterned sun dresses. The terrible part was that all of the clothes were so little! There is only one size in Thailand: one size fits all. The shopkeepers tried to convince me of this by showing me how the tank tops and dresses were made of a stretchy material... but a small is still a small, so I didn't end up buying any clothes.

After shopping, we enjoyed the sunset on the beach. It was beautiful of course, so naturally we took a zillion pictures.

For dinner, we went to Savoy, one of the top 10 Thai restaurants in Phuket. I ordered coconut cream soup and Pad Thai. Yum! There was a live band, and they gave us Georgians a shout out, many times! They played "My Girl" and "Brown Eyed Girl" and get this... "Colors of the Wind". HAHA! Hilarious! They're very up-to-date on their songs.

Later that night, we hit up the bar and club district. I just want to say that nightlife in Phuket was VERY different than the nightlife I have seen in Atlanta. The way the girls dress, the prostitutes all along the streets, the hagglers all over the street advertising their bars and their ladies, the A-Go-Go Girls dancing at and on the bars, the Cabernet ladyboys in their flamboyant peacock-like outfits.. It was quite an interesting site to see. Don't get me wrong, the atmosphere was very fun. The streets were crowded, the bars were bursting at the seams, the clubs were playing awesome music, but it's so different in how Thailand so outwardly advertises sex and alcohol. Girls were walking around with posters that advertised a particular bar or even themselves! The US seems very private about partying, almost shameful, compared to the way Thailand nightlife is flaunted. So needless to say, it was an eye-opening experience, and I had fun nonetheless. 

The next day, a group of eight of us went on an elephant trek through the jungle!! Oh my goodness, RIDING AN ELEPHANT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I had the time of my life! The elephants have little chairs tied to their backs that can sit two people. Hannah and I rode together in the chair, and our tour guide rode of the elephants head. haha! Our elephant's name was Boonmee, and he was so cute! About a quarter of the way along the trail, the guide taught Hannah and I commands for directing our elephant, and then he hopped off and let us ride the elephant by ourselves! We even got to move out of the chair and straddle the elephant's neck! So amazing! At the end of the ride, we got to feed Boonmee some bananas, which was so fun!

After the elephant ride, our guides took us white water rafting. It wasn't as intense as what I've done in the US, but it was certainly fun and refreshing! The way that this tour company controlled the river was pretty neat. Since we did not visit during monsoon season, the water in the river was very low, so the company had a big reservoir on their property that they emptied into the river right before we began. The extra water created some nice rapids! When we returned to base camp after our rafting trip, the reservoir had been drained completely empty! It was a pretty nice system they had worked out :)

After rafting, the tour group provided us lunch in the pavilion- chicken with cashews, a vegetable dish, a Thai soup dish with squid, and a whole fish, all served with rice. We also had salad and fruit, and I ate some of the bananas that we had fed to the elephants. The bananas are much smaller in Thailand than what we eat in the states. So after an amazing lunch, we went swimming in a waterfall, and then headed back to the hostel. 

We were home by 5:00 PM, so five of us girls went out and got Thai Body Massages! It was incredible and so relaxing. If I lived in Thailand, I would get one two or three times a week. It was only 250 Baht for one hour, which is like 8 US dollars. Can't argue with that price! In fact, the exchange rate for Baht from the US dollar is so good that the slogan for the trip became "Drop it like it's Baht" and "It's ok, it's just Baht!", meaning that Baht is pretty much useless. They have a 20 Baht bill, that is worth less than a dollar. One of the boys on the trip found that extremely funny.

After massages and a quick dinner at a pizzeria, four of the boys and I went to see a Muay Thai Boxing fight. After paying quite an insane price for the ticket, I was disappointed to find that the boxing matches were held in a place that resembled a garage. The ring was in the middle, and there were couches around it. The neat thing though, was that we got to sit in the second row, very close to the action! Also, we were the only tourists there. It was all locals, yelling and gambling and carrying on. It was fun and a nice cultural experience! There are no rules in Muay Thai Boxing. The boxers only wear gloves and a mouth guard, and then anything goes. The way to win the match is to "inflict the most visible injury on your opponent", and if you knock out your opponent, you automatically win. It was so awesome. The boxers had incredible speed with their punches and kicks. The cool thing was that almost all of them were in the ring smiling while they were fighting! They were having such a great time trading blows, it was crazy. Before the match, the two fighters participate in a ritual were they bow to each of the corners of the ring and honor their teachers, and then the 5 rounds begin. We saw one bloody nose, plenty of bruised ribs, and one guy got kicked below the belt and the match was halted until he recovered. Two rounds later, that same guy ended up knocking out his opponent, right in front of us! It was so cool! He kicked his opponent in the head, and the opponent crumpled. The referee caught him before he hit the ground, and then his coaches ran over and picked him up and started rubbing him and waving things in front of his nose to get him to regain consciousness. It was so intense. My favorite part of all of the matches though, was the breaks between rounds where the fighters would go to their corners to recover. I liked how the coaches would poor water on them and stretch their muscles and pump them up for the next round. It was awesome!

So that was Phuket, Thailand. In less than 48 hours we were on a plane back to Singapore. I think I'm going to like these weekends where we travel to a different country, and try to pack in as many activities as possible! So fun!