Thailand Part 3: Just...Phuket

Asia, Thailand

Taking our own in for self-protection

More scenic option? Really??

[We are going to start noting possibly alarming PRE-FULL-ON-Covid pics/etc. with a "%" -- as we've found ourselves yelling at TV shows about shaking hands, kissing, large crowds...]


We returned from Malaysia and thus reset our Thai visas for another 30 days, the standard, no-cost visa for tourists. Thailand is clamping down on what they see as serial visa abuse, as for years many people have done border runs for a day, or even for a few hours, then come back to Thailand to re-up for another 30 days. When we returned, we flew into Phuket, a large island that looks more like a peninsula on a map, separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of the Andaman Sea. 





Besides being a standing joke (with the “ph” becoming an “f”), Phuket (pronounced poo-KET) is a renowned diving and beach destination. We came here to join up with a liveaboard dive boat to go to the Similan Islands. There is Phuket the island and Phuket the town, and we started with a few days in Phuket town. 

Mark is starting to look like the Smiths

The town is on the eastern coast of the island, though the main part of town is not really at the beach - most of the beaches are on the east and west coasts of the island. In town, we found the Phuket Museum, inside the Thavorn Hotel, opened in 1961 and Phuket’s first 5-star hotel. The hotel is tired now, though the reception area speaks of a mahogany-banistered past grandeur. It has many connected rooms on the main floor that meander through the older part of the building, holding the collection of things the hotel’s owner accumulated over the years. 

Movie bus and tuktuk

Some items are from the tin-mining past from 100+ years ago (the Thavornwongwongse family made a lot of money from such mining). One particularly cool item is a bus, outfitted with a movie projector, which they drove to the various mining camps to provide entertainment. We couldn’t tell if there was a popcorn machine on the bus. 

Phuket night market -- crowds!      % <--Pre-Covid

We went out one evening to the night market on the main drag in Phuket town. [%] The street was closed off and vendors sold everything you might expect in a tourist area, t-shirts, elephant pants(!), souvenirs, and food. The food was great, like pork belly on a stick, grilled over coals, for 60 baht ($2). There were also performers, a karaoke set up where we listened to a local man sing Delilah, and a small group of younger girls doing a traditional dance, accompanied by what looked like older family members on Thai instruments.

Sightseeing with Amigo Dennis 

Since our first two months in Asia involved a lot of moving around, we did not want to lug 50 pounds of scuba gear with us, so we asked around (in our Mexico bar!) to see if anyone wanted a ticket to Phuket in exchange for bringing our gear as a checked bag. Our friend Dennis waved his hand, saying he had a buddy from years past who lived on Phuket who also had a casita he could use for a while. Believe it or not, it was safer and cheaper to do it this way than to rent, or to ship the gear to meet us, in part due to vanishing gear and customs shenanigans in Thailand. So, in November, we left the gear bag with Dennis in Mexico, planning to see him in mid-February. 

What a cashew looks like!

We caught up with Dennis at a mall in Phuket town, which had started (about Feb 9) to screen people entering the mall. As gringos they waved us through, but they did stop anyone “looking Chinese” to take their temperature. We hired a driver who took us to sights we had on our list: a cashew factory (basically a gift shop with a lady opening cashews by hand with a machine), then to see Wat Chalong (do NOT hug the Buddha!).

Not the touchy-feely type?

From there we went to have a tasty lunch at a tiny restaurant, which was full of Muay Thai boxers in training [%], young men with muscles, some bruises, and no shirts. (Didn't take pictures, sorry, girls.)  

The next stop was the Chalong Bay rum distillery and visitor center, where we had cocktails, tasted several flavors of rum, and took a short tour.  [%]

Fancy cocktails!

As for the gear, everything arrived intact except Linda’s expensive dive computer, which was likely mistaken for a fancy watch. This meant we had to get her a new pressure gauge, and dive gear is one of the few things in Thailand that isn’t cheap! SO for the time being, her gauge is in bar instead of psi – sooo international! 

We noticed many songbirds in cages around town, generally the red-crested bulbul. It turns out that they have regular songbird competitions in Thailand, and it is a great honor to have a prize songbird. The birds were beautiful, with lovely songs, though it is always sad to see birds in cages. 

Linda also decided to get a haircut while there, and the woman (wearing a mask) seemed tickled to have her in the chair. 

We hired a car to drive us an hour to the west-Phuket town of Karon.  Along the way, we passed many forests where the trees were regularly spaced 

No ants moving these!

almost like a farm. They were rubber trees, and some had small buckets on them, like maple trees in New England, but for rubber sap. 

Flintstones - Meet the dacquiri!

In Karon, we tried a few beachside restaurants, with differing quality and service levels. There were still Chinese tourists, but not as many as in Chiang Mai (this was mid-February now), but there were a LOT of Russians. Their general rudeness was new to us, as we had not been in areas with many Russian tourists before. 

We stopped at a bar on the main street called Dino’s, [%] which we called the Bedrock Bar. It looked like Fred Flintstone might walk up at any moment! 

Here we found the best pad thai we had on the trip, for 50 baht, at…The Pad Thai Shop! It was crazy busy [%] for good reason, and free soup! 

Our boat and its shadowing sister ship

We left Karon and headed north for a couple of hours to the town of Khao Lak, where we boarded the Sawasdee Fasai, a liveaboard, at 8 pm, and motored overnight to the first dive location. The boat was large, but there were 27 divers, plus 7 or 8 DMs, due to language, experience, and maintaining group size. Add the deck hands and the dive deck was organized chaos. We had four days of diving, and skipped a few dives doing 9 total. 

The Dive Deck -- crazy!      %

One of the few clear shots!

The focal point of the Similan Islands is Richelieu Rock, and it did not disappoint, quantity and diversity of fish-wise, but poor viz (visability) lessened the breathtaking factor. Boongsang Wreck, an old tin-mining ship, was also low vis, but the enormous clouds of fish of many varieties, blocking out the sun when they swam over by the thousands, was impressive. 

Tsunami Memorial at the beach

We returned from our four days at sea to Khao Lok, and decided to spend a couple of nights there, looking around a smaller town. Khao Lok has a tsunami museum, which on the one hand is not well curated, but on the other has some pretty interesting information, and a very moving video presentation showing the aftermath of the tsunami that occurred the day after Christmas, 2004. This is the same awful event that devasted Aceh, Sumatra, where over 130,000 people died and another 40,000 went missing. Khao Lok had 4,000 fatalities, and lots of missing people. The town is mostly low-slung 1-2 story buildings, so the tsunami wiped out much of the town. A large number of those lost were tourists. The scale of the devastation shown in the video was overwhelming and brought tears. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaah

We found a good lunch spot, Loma, after a HOT walk to the beach from our hotel, and after we sat down, they presented us each with a cold hand towel, the opposite of what you often get at a Japanese restaurant. It felt so GOOD to press it onto your face! The food (curry and pad thai) was very good, too. 

Later that night we ventured out to a place called Captain’s Bar (%  remember when you could do that?) The drink menu included a new favorite – Jack Denial. Another great slight miss in converting English onto a Thai menu. 

Tasty Roti!    %   

After the drinks, we stopped at a cart near the hotel and had a banana chocolate roti. The woman laughed at how excited Mark was about the dessert crepe.  

We had an open itinerary for a while before our planned departure to Bali, and decided to spend a week in Kamala, a beach town on Phuket island on the west coast. 

We noticed on our walks to and from the beach area that there seemed to be a wood-fired pizza oven on every corner, almost like a pizza oven salesman had come through and convinced everyone to order one (an oven, not a pizza, well...maybe). 

The BEST meat skewers! [%]

We had a nice meal one evening from the Kamala night market [%], across the street from our condo. They had many meat items cooked over coals, usually on sticks, and all were tasty, and cheap. $1! And $2 G&T's the size of a large Icee.

We also found a beach restaurant, Ruam Thep, where we went twice, with tables overlooking the beach, very good food, lovely service, and the Sang Som rum set!








One night there were fireworks, we have no idea why, which in retrospect, oddly looked like the corona virus. 

Corona in the sky with ?

Pineapple fried rice

We revisited the rum distillery, (don’t judge!) when Dennis’ friend,  the brother of his Phuket friend, came to visit. They had a lovely dinner to see Dennis off – ribs and home-cooked Thai food! 

Though we had planned to visit at least one Thai island, our general laziness took over, and we decided to save that for a future trip. 

Beach view with a human taco shell -- really!

Next stop: Bali, Indonesia!

9 - 28 February 2020

[We are going to start noting possibly alarming PRE-FULL-ON-Covid pics/etc. with a "%" -- as we've found ourselves yelling at TV shows about shaking hands, kissing, large crowds...]