Limestone krasts galore!
Trip Start
Jan 09, 2005
1
70
90
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
Patong, Thailand
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
We figured out the public transportation and hopped on a (red) public bus to Phuket town. Once you arrive in Phuket Town you then have to take another bus or songthaew (back of pickup truck with roof overhead) to one of the several nearby beach towns. We normally try to steer clear of the obnoxious tourist towns but we figured since we were in the area we may as well spend a few days and see what all the hype is about Patong.
While all the hotel rooms were about double what we were paying in other parts of Thailand, they did include free wifi, AC and our room had a dvd player (which we never had time for). We chose a place a few blocks off the nightlife street more by coincidence than anything else. Our first night we were pretty tired from all the travel and just walked around and checked out the night life. I was surprised at how low key things seemed to be for such a party town and it looked like everything was closing down by 1:30am.
That said, there was still quite a decent night life for a weeknight. There was one street that catered to gay men with all kinds of drags all dressed up (it was awesome!). There were a few other side streets with pool tables, live music, or karioke all of which had TONS of local women (and ladyboys as they are called) clamoring for your affection and buisness. The main street though, is long and full of clubs and tons of bars with scantily clad girls and ladyboys dancing on the bartops. You really can't walk anywhere without someone vying for your attention (and ultimately your money).
We found a great street with night street food over by the huge mall that had all kinds of yummy looking food (though I could only eat at one with the usual pad thai). One of the stalls specializes in many different ice teas and I wish I spoke Thai because I have no idea what the flavors are or what those little balls are at the bottom of the glass. I still have a hard time using the spoon and fork method that the locals use. You scoop the food onto the spoon with the fork and use the spoon to put the food into your mouth. It probably sounds easy but by the time the spoon gets close to my mouth half the food has already fallen off.
I can't remember if I've written this yet or not but I have been really surprised by the lack of available vegetarian food. There are plenty of food stalls on the street which is great for a quick snack or fast meal but the majority of the food is usually some form of meat on a stick grilled over a bbq. The main dish I have been able to consistently find is Pad Thai and to be honest some of the meals have been very lackluster and disappointing. Another thing I've found out is that msg is used in most meals so you have to be careful to let the person know that you don't want the msg put in your meal. I've even heard that they put powder msg in a salt shaker so make sure you check what's inside the shaker before putting it on your meal.
The next morning we met up with a couchsurfer from Egypt that has lived in Phuket for about 6 months. This time we didn't end up staying with him like with most couchsurfers, but instead just met to learn about the area and culture. It was very interesting hearing him talk about living in Patong and trying to make friends. I guess he's had a hard time finding meaningful relationships without feeling like the person ultimately wants something from him in the end. I'm sure it's hard for locals to bond with foreigners and ever feel a genuine relationship, especially a place like Patong where pretty much anything you could ever want is for sale.
The stereotype of the much much older man with the cute younger local girl is pretty much everywhere in Patong. You can't walk down the street without seeing several older (and usually very out of shape) white men with a much younger local girl. I happened into a few conversations with some of these men and each one could barely communicate with the girl but all seemed to be very happy (though I wonder if the girlfriend wasn't showered with presents how long the relationship would last).
One specific example was a man who wanted to sell us a timeshare. We were told we would get a free dinner and one free week of accommodation if we listened to his spcheal. He, like many of the other men his age, found a local woman and married her and has since moved to Thailand and seems to be very happy. We sat through a 3 hour session about the timeshare (that seemed like it would never end) but decided that the offer was not for us since we don't have an extra $16K lying around. While there was some frustration in getting the dinner voucher it was finally all sorted out and now we are in the process of trying to redeem our free week of accommodation (wish us luck! Hehe).
Other than taking the tours we had been researching since Krabi, the majority of our time in Patong was spent just walking around. We checked out Karon beach when we participated in the timeshare presentation and weren't really blown away. During one of our tours we met a couple staying in another nearby beach, Kata, and they said that it was pretty much not taken care of and full of trash and didn't have anything to do. Since the current is so strong you can't really swim at any of the beaches anyways. Therefore, it probably makes the most sense to stay in Patong where it's loud and super touristy but at least has stuff to do (even if it feels like Mardi Gras meets Vegas).
Our last night in town we met up with our friend and hit up the club scene. It was nice having someone with us that knew all the club owners because we got into all the clubs for free and were usually offered free drinks. I had the time of my life dancing until the wee hours of the morning making friends with tons of locals. Even when it started raining heavily the party kept on going. ;)
We found out we were robbed once we were in Bangkok and we're pretty sure it happened at our hotel in Patong called The Black Pearl. Greg had several $20 US bills in his wallet which he left in our room and realized they were replaced with $1 US bills. After traveling for 5 months now we have started to get a little careless by all the new creature comforts like nicer hotels. We usually use our own lock on all rooms we stay in but since we have arrived in Thailand the lock is in the door so it's not possible. It's hard to remember to lock up every single thing every time you leave the room and the hotel staff took advantage of pretending to be our friends so we felt comfortable (and were therefore careless).
That said, overall we ended up liking a town we thought we would totally want to leave. The town is completely touristy and filled with the sex trade, but it also has a fun night life to it. Basically, if you go into it knowing what the town is you can enjoy it for what it is. It got a little old being constantly soclited to eat at a restaurant, get a massage, or take a tour but a smile and a polite "no thanks" was usually enough (whereas in India you usually followed).
We headed back up to Bangkok but this time took a bus instead of the train. There is a major difference in using the bus verses the train which is mostly the sheer amount of time you are waiting around and traveling. Though our train had been late, once we were on it we rode all the way down to a town near Krabi and were therefore able to sleep uninterupted. We had to start our bus journey around 12pm on Sunday and transftered to about 3 different busses with tons of waiting time in between plus an 11:30pm stop for the driver to eat. Once we finally arrived to Bangkok it was 3am and nothing was open so we just took a cab to the US Embassy and hung out till it opened around 7:30am.
I never understand why transportation would ever have you arrive to your final destination at an hour when everything is closed and doesn't open for hours, but this has happened to us several times. In my opinion the bus is a horrible way to travel from the beach area down south up to Bangkok and I highly recommend using the train. Once I took care of the passport stuff and grabbed some food we did some meditation with a monk which was quite interesting.
After our session with the monk we decided to kill time and check out the famous Khao Sarn Road. As we had heard, it was totally touristy and filled with stalls selling alcohol. Greg tried a fried grasshopper and I opted to just take pictures of the act. After awhile we were bored with the area and decided to just head to the airport and catch a few zz's before our early morning flight since we hadn't slept in two days. We were ready to check out our next stop.
Things we checked out:
James Bond Island- Since the timeshare session went way over the 1.5 hours we were promised, we ended up almost missing out on our half day tour. We hopped on one of the motorcycle taxis and rushed through the streets to meet up with the bus that had already left. The tour started off at a temple in a cave with a fairly large resting Buddha. The cave was really cool because it was made from the limestone crags that southern Thailand is so famous for. There were all kinds of stalagtites and bats that were fun to take pix of as well.
We continued on to the Phang Nga Bay which is famous for its limestone crags that jut out of the water, the most famous being the one called "James Bond Island" because it was used in the movie "The Man with the Golden Gun." We hopped in a longtail which is a covered wooden boat powered by a motor at the back. We first went through some mangroves and passed by some really pretty krasts and then stopped off at Ko Panyi which is a Muslim village built on stilts (and is usually called "Gypsy Village").
After checking out the cool village we continued on to the main attraction. There is a cave that is featured in the movie as well as the "island" so everyone was busy taking tons of pix. It turns out the half day tour is much better than the full day tour because there are way fewer tourists in the late afternoon and all the stalls selling stuff you don't want are closed. The ride back was nice as well because the sky was lit up with beautiful shades of pinks as we drove past more awesome krasts and mangroves on our peaceful ride back.
Tour of Krabi- One of the most important things for me to do was to see all the limestone krasts jutting out of the water. We spent hours both in Krabi and in Panong trying to find a tour that would cover as much teritorry as possible and show us a ton of the krasts. Many of the tours added in tons of stuff we didn't care about and didn't want to pay for and didn't really cover much so we were very happy to finally find this tour.
Since we had already seen the krasts of Phang Na Bay we just needed to see the several other famous ones. We shared a nice covered speed boat with about 10 other people and had a really great day. The ride out to the first krast was just beautiful. The entire Andaman Sea is dotted with lush green islands and smaller krasts and just sitting in the boat watching the scenery pass by is breathtaking.
The first krast we passed by was the famous "Chicken Head," named because it looks like a chicken's head (shocker). Connected to this famous krast is a beautiful white sand beach and another smaller island. The strip of beach is called "Miracle Beach" because when the tide is low the sand is completely uncovered and you can walk from island to island. When we arrived there was about 4 feet of water covering it so we didn't see much.
Apparently, there was some famous Pepsi commercial that was filmed on this famous beach and I have to assume that someone was jumping in the commercial because every single Thai tourist took a picture of themselves jumping on the Kai Thab Mo beach. It was funny watching the HOARDS of Thai tourists crossing the strip of beach covered up to their waists in water. Many had life preservers on as if someone could possibly drown in 4 feet of water. Tee heh he
Had we been visiting a tourist attraction in India all the tourists would have come up to us and asked for our picture. But since we were in country that is so often visited by foreigners, no one even noticed us. It's an interesting mix of missing being the focal point of all the locals and enjoying the anonymity. I assume it will continue to be like this throughout the rest of SE Asia unless we somehow get off the beaten path (which we hear is really hard to do).
We stopped in front of the chicken head for some snorkeling which was pretty decent. It was kind of weird to be snorkeling since we just spent a week diving but it reminded me of how much I enjoy snorkeling as well. We saw a few different fish and coral that we hadn't seen up in the Similan Islands. I saw a sea urchin's eye which is totally cool and something I've never seen before.
After snorkeling we headed over to West Raily beach. We were taken to a strip of beach just off a ridiculous resort ($1K/night) that had a cave with a ton of different penis statues. I guess people come to this shrine to increase fertility if they are trying to have a baby but most people just took funny pictures with the statues. Instead of sunning on the beach (which we never do) we decided to explore around and ended up finding an uglier beach with the cliff climbers.
Raily is famous for its rock climbing since the limestone crags are everywhere and are so beautiful. We chatted up a fellow American and watched his girlfriend climb some really challenging spots on the limestone wall. I was really inspired to try more climbing when I get home since I've only ever tried climbing in a gym and being outdoors seems so incredible.
For lunch we took a quick ride to the other side called East Raily which is a bay with huge limestone crags on either side and a gorgeous white beach. Since there is a mountain separating the east from the west, you have to take a boat to get to either side. From what I understand backpackers stay on the East side and people that want resorts stay on the other side. We had been told we should check out Raily but since we had a plane ticket to Baily we had to rush off to we just stayed in Phuket instead of running around trying to cram everything in.
The lunch was super gourmet for us, with about 5 different plates of food for us to try. Though I was only able to eat about 2 of those plates, they were really yummy and everyone seemed thoroughly happy with the food. Greg and I noticed that up until Thailand we were consistently unhappy with all the tours we had taken throughout India and Sri Lanka (usually with just one thing here or there) but in Thailand we were more than impressed with our tours and the guides.
After lunch we went to Hong Island, yet another area of famous krasts, to snorkle. I was really disappointed in the snorkeling in this area since there seemed to be so much salinity you could barely see a few feet in front of you. I did my best to swim around and see if I could see anything but after about half an hour I gave up and just chilled on the nice white sand beach.
The ride back to the mainland was a little bumpy since the waves had picked up but nothing compared to the liveaboard when I was super seasick. We had a very full day and thoroughly enjoyed the tour.
US Embassy- We had already been to the embassy to drop off my old passport to get it renewed so we knew the area a little which was nice because we needed a place to hang out until the embassy opened. We went to the building across the street where had used the Office Depot to package up stuff we were sending home and found some cushy chairs to hang out on.
I arrived just after the office opened and there was already a huge line of Thai's outside the door waiting. Luckily, there is an area for the locals and another area for US citizens so I didn't have to wait too long to get my new passport. One of the things no one told me when I was at the office the first time to start the process is that I would have to get my Thai visa transferred over to the new passport.
I was given a map when I got my new passport that made it look like the Thai embassy was right around the corner. Since I thought I was just walking a few blocks, I left all my bags and wallet with Greg thinking I'd only be a few minutes. Boy was I wrong. First off the map they gave me was totally backwards so I was walking for about an hour in the hot sun (frustrated that I didn't have sunglasses or sunscreen) before I finallly got a map from a hotel and figured things out.
I finally made it to the office (which was MUCH further away than the orginal map made it seem) and found out I had to make copies of my old passport and visa. I had planned on treating myself to a slurpee at a nearby 7-11 just before I reached the building since I was so hot and thank god they didn't have the machine because I would have had to beg a stranger for money to make the copies. After waiting about an hour I finally got everything squared away but for anyone that needs a new passport please know that you have to get a new visa as well. Gargh!
Wat Mahathat- This is one of the oldest shrines in Bangkok and houses the Buddhist University as well as the International Buddhist Meditation Center. I have been wanting to take a course on meditation so I was excited to attend one of the free daily sessions given by a monk that speaks English. We chatted with the monk giving our session and he is a really sweet older man that is a world traveler.
He began telling us a little about the ideology behind meditation and then took us to a prayer room and showed us ways of meditating through walking and sitting. After demonstrating he asked us to practice on our own and we thought he would return in about 10 minutes or so. After an hour and half passed and he never returned we thought maybe he had forgotten about us so we went back up to where our things were.
He asked if we had enough and we were all very confused so we said yes and thanks so much and took off. I know the meditation center offers weekend retreats so I think I will look into those when we return to Thailand since while our session was informative, we were somewhat disappointed.
Pix and videos of things we checked out:
Phuket and Bangkok photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/greggoodman/sets/72157618474516474/
Frying the greasiest fried egg ever in Patong, Phuket
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilevw0Odx5c
Thai Boxing Promo on a Pickup Truck in Patong, Phuket
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx1Y3G8quaI
Greg eats a fried grasshopper on the streets of Bangkok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S6Ro3hQg08
Comments
Test
Good One.... Really amazing