Sunday, November 13, 2005

phuket- 29 oct to 2 nov

i know tat's a super boring title. but hey, it's simple and direct to the point! besides, i can't think of any other better ones.

to start things off,

my luggage!
flight was at 7.05am and we have to check in at around 6. as usual, the last minute me only started packing my luggage at around 10+ the nite b4! and i was msning and taking my own sweet time deciding wat to wear and bring for the next nites. result: panda eyes as i slept only at 2am and woke up at 5 to wash up! but still, it was worth the little sleep since the idea of a holiday jzu perked me up so much!

we reached phuket international airport around 8.30 phuket time which is equivalent to 9.30 spore time. once there, guess we looked kinda lost as we didn't really know who to look out for. i was told to look out for someone who will be holding a placard wif our names on. so drama rite? haha..after some detailed surveying, we finally found our tour guide!! since all of us haven't had our breakie yet, we rushed off to buy some burgers and hotdogs from the cafeteria at the airport and we were off to our half day phuket city tour!

destination 1
some famous buddhist temple in phuket, built to honour some famous monks. obviously, i wasn't really paying attention when the tour guide was introducing the place. but the temple and the scenery was indeed beautiful. check out the pix!



my travelling kakis! less that lady in the background. boo!

destination 2
we went to this place, (again, i forgot or rather dunno the name) for our elephant's ride. have to admit that the ride was cool..but definitely not worth 600 baht! it was a half an hour ride and we travelled through the forest. i guess the most eye opening thing was to witness jackson's dumbo doing the triple act! the elephant was eating the leaves, peeing and shitting at the same time! wow! and we saw his fifth 'leg'. it was really loooonnnngggg....almost touching the ground.
then we went to the next hut and watch some live firing. the shooting was so loud taht we could go deaf any minute. since we were not interested in that, after having tried holding a real pistol, we left the place and head towards phuket town.

destination 3
stopped by the largest gem gallery in the world and bought myself a pair of ivory flower studs for 200 baht. haven't worn it yet.

destination 4
went to the 'dog shit' store and bought some local delights for mama! i like the love letters wrapped wif pork floss! delicious!

destination 5
our hotel- patong bayshore! though it was nowhere near amari watergate which we had stayed in for our bangkok training, this is still a decent good hotel wif the basic necessaties! wat's more, it's a cheap deal! we paid S$110 each for a 4 nites stay which include airport transfers, breakfast and half day city tour. indeed worth the money!

after changing and slacking in the room for 1 hour, we explored the area in search of the beach and lunch. had a satisfying lunch at this resturant which sells local thai delights as well as western food. this resturant serves the best pat thai. unfortunately, i can't remember the resturant name. boo me!

up next, we had a little sneak preview at patong beach. 'ride' the waves and soaked in the water for a good 2 hours. it was beautiful and the sun was good. we r coming back for more the next day!

after some recommendation from the tour guide who was stationed at the hotel, we walked to 99 for our seafood dinner. i was impressed that the thais are multi linguists! besides thai and eng, some can speak chinese and even cantonese! well, i guess in order to have patrons to ur stall, the more languges u know the better it is. easier to converse and tourists will definitely feel less frustrated getting u to understand wat they want.

the sumptous seafood dinner costs us around 800 bahts. good deal. next, we walked around patong area and the nite life there was indeed bustling. we walked into this road called bangla road. serious, i'm not kidding. evidence: look below!

okie, even though this is not a picture of the road sign, but it's a picture of the boxing stadium found at bangla road! anyway, this stretch of road are filled wif happening pubs and clubs. we saw lotsa of caucasians as well as asians. we also witness some bar top dancing and girls 'calling' for biz. heh heh..we were not scared but juz found it amazing. coz it's definitely something which we would not get to see in spore.

as we were walking back to the hotel, we saw this indian selling an improvised version of banana roti prate! and it was damn damn good! yum yum! we had a banana and coconut roti prata for like 25 baht (S$1). the prata was super crispy and the uncle gave us generous serving! the banana was long and huge, like those del monte one and he poured lotsa chocolate syrup over it. he was even considerate enough and gave us lotsa tissure to cover the bottle of the oily plate. really really nice uncle. we were all so tempted to quit our job and open a stall in spore selling that! franchise us, uncle! hahaha..well, guess his business was so good that he didn't open his stall for the next few nites. sigh..

day 2
it was a relaxing day as we spent the entire day at the beach. did parasailing and played some beach volleyball.

rented beach chairs and began our bargaining wif the uncle. in the end, managed to get parasailing for 500 baht only to realise afterwards that our round was cut by half. double boo! but it was still fun. i love the taking off part! haha..literally feel like flying. so carefree...and the view was enchanting from the sky.


after the little flying experience, we wilded our time by riding the waves again and playing cards. read one for my baby and this was like an ideal holiday for me. soaking up in the sun wif a good book and good company, except for the distraction going ob beside us. haha..the good looking (broken wrist) thai boy sure cracked us up wif his only little stunts. sadly, he still didn't managed to get himself hooked up wif the ang mo dude. yup. it's no typo and ur eyes are not playing tricks on u. there was some gay drama going on beside us! guess we would never forget about the hugging incident in the waters and the funny 'it's raining now?' by vincent.

dunno why, good times seems to pass by really fast. before we knew it, the sun was setting and we had to go..

i missed the beach =(

we had seafood dinner again and dropped by at the family mart. this is rather similar to 7-11 but we choose to patronise them coz we absolutely loved that 5 baht distilled water! we had to walk a few streets jzu to find our distilled water as the nearby family mart ran out of it. we made a clean sweep of all their bottles. haha..i even bought 2 bottles home as we couldn't finish it! had an early nite as we were embarking a trip to phi phi island the next day! yeah!!

day 3
sadly, the weather didn't seem too good. we woke up to find it raining cats and dogs outside. thankfully, it went lighter and we managed to carry on wif our trip. the most exciting part of the trip gotta be the bumpy speedboat ride. read me, i'm not being sarcastic but all of us enjoyed the speedboat ride. becoz the waters was so choppy and the boat was going so fast, there were many times all of us were flung off our seats! still, we enjoyed that and couldn't help but ask for more. it was like a mini version of viking! totally rocky!

the next most memorable part gotta be my painful experience wif the deadly sea urchines. somehow, i felt i asked for it. if i haven't venture so far and haven't had my back facing the sea, the dumbass me would't have walked right into one huge black stuff without realising it. bet my frenz were totally freaked out. hope i didn't make them worry too much. well, the good thing is, at least now i know how to treat sea uchine stings. essential tools. a bottle of vinegar and hard object. vinegar for pouring over the wounds and hard object for hitting against the wounds. ouch!

phi phi island got famous ever since leonardo dicaprio filmed the movie,'the beach' over there. basically, the entire one day tour was about visiting the different bays at phi phi islands where we alighted at some of them such as maya beach for snorkelling, monkey's bay to feed the monkeys, kial's bay and etc. didn't have much photos on phi phi island but will post them up at mulitiply once i received them from ys. for now, it's jzu this snorkelling pix!


day 4
shopping and more shopping! spent around 100 bucks on lingerie but i was happy! hahaha..very long never shop. and i finally got my lightings! hurray! saw them at bangkok but didn't have the chance to buy them. did traditional thai massage too and this was VERY VERY GOOD! 2 thumbs up! much much better than the one i had at bangkok! the masseu was experienced and know the right places to massages. i know this sounds a bit duh..but she's good in a way that she doesn't over crack or exert ur body. and for every part of the body, she didn't juz massage once, but twice and thorough! her skills are marvelllous and we gave them 200 bahts tips each! never in my life have i been so generous. but for good service, it's worth the tipping. =)

day 5
we woke up really early in order to catch our flight back to spore. hate to leave the place as i felt it wasn't enuff. i miss not visiting the beach and eating there on at nite. well, i guess there will be another chance in the future. i certainly would't mind coming back to phuket again!

Rouge a-hemmed @ 10:55 PM 0 rockers