We arrived in Phuket really late Tuesday night (about 2 in the morning) so we slept in Wednesday and actually didn't do anything Wednesday except go to the beach that was near our hotel, Kata Beach. It was so beautiful! Of course the pictures never do it justice but the water was the whole blue/green shades that you always see in pictures but rarely can find in person. It was so nice to relax too after a busy time in Chiang Mai. This trip really brought out Molly's and my old person side (no offense to my older readers, of course!) but we preferred to spend the day doing thing and going to bed at a normal time than going out and to bars and what not. We usually were back in our hostel by 9pm and would just enjoy hanging out or reading our books. That's how we define vacation!
Kata Beach!
Thursday, August 2nd- After our relaxing day Wednesday, we had to get up at about 5:30 to go on a boat tour we had booked. Again, another reason alcohol was not consumed on this trip! Also, it was my 23rd birthday!! woo hoo. I know I said the island had a lot of touristy things and going on a boat tour probably fits into that mold but I have no idea how you would go around Phang Nga Bay without having your own boat? So, the tour was the best way to do it. We got to the boat around 7 and heading off right away. There were a ton of little islands (most of which were just rock) but they were really cool formations of sedimentary metamorphic rock that almost looked like they were "dripping" off the island. We got to stop at one and explore one of the caves. At this stop, I decided to be brave and speak French to the French family that was with us, a couple and their two kids and the grandma... (there were 11 adults and 2 kids total) However, as I was talking to the French lady in my nervous I-haven't-studied-French-in-a-long-time French apparently I missed some key information from the lady running the tour. Apparently, as Molly informed me later, she said 1 in every 6 trips someone hits their head, and what do I do when I walk in? Immediately hit my head... I'm not just talking about a little bump, I'm talking full on collision with a rock formation jutting out of the ceiling on top of my skull. I'm really glad I didn't scream any swear words, surprisingly because it hurt. Next time, I'll save my language skill improvement for the boat. For the record, my head had a minor bump the rest of the trip but no real damage was done :)
After the cave, we went to James Bond Island which is where one of the James Bond movies was filmed (in case it wasn't obvious why it was called that...). Even the tour lady said it was a tourist trap but it had a place for some nice pictures so we stopped for about 10 minutes to see the typical "Thailand" picture of the limestone rock jutting out of the water and moved on.
View from James Bond Island
The day is kind of running together but after that we got to go on these little inflatable kayaks with a Thai person and go into some of the rock caves, formations, I have no idea what to call them. Passageways between the rocks? Sure... anyways it was really relaxing and it was so peaceful away from the all the wind from the ocean. It was hard to believe it was still part of the same place! That was just a little short tour and then back on the boat!
I think after that we went to the floating village, which is exactly what it sounds like, a village that is just floating. There's no real land... I just kept thinking how scary that would be in a Tsunami! Eek! The island was a Muslim community which actually surprised me because I didn't realize that Thailand was Muslim also. Apparently, about 94.6% of Thailand is Buddhist and about 4.6% is Muslim. Thanks Wikipedia.... The island gave us a bigger insight on what people live like outside of tourist areas. The island makes its income from tourism though and fishing... and that's about it! I think it would be too claustrophobic living on a non-existent small island though!
After the floating island, we went to another island where we got to time to relax and lay out on the beach. It was a perfect end to the day! I think it also might have been my most exciting birthday yet. Although I still find it hard to believe that I'm 23 years old already! Ah!
We got back from the boat tour and did the typical routine, dinner, ice cream, shower, read, movies (if there were any good ones on TV) and bedtime!
Friday, August 3rd- This was our last booked day of our week, a bike tour! A lot of people rent motorbikes in Thailand but seeing as how Molly and I are 1. horrible at directions and 2. we have never driven anything with 2 wheels and a motor, we opted out. We still wanted to see some of the island though that we couldn't just walk to so an easy solution... a bike tour! We drove in a van to the north east side of Phuket, about an hour away from where we were staying on Kata Beach (which is more of the south west side). At first the terrain was pretty rough, for a non intense biker at least! We were biking through the country more than just paved roads. We got to see a rubber tree forest. Apparently Thailand is the number one export in rubber? Who knew? It was really fascinating to see how their methods are still so humanized. People wake up at around 1 or 2 in the morning and cut the sides of the trees where they have these little black cups at the bottom to catch the liquid that comes out which they use to make rubber. So strange!
Rubber ready to export!
We also got to see some pineapple farms. When they plant young rubber trees, since they're too small still, they have pineapple underneath until the trees are big enough to use for rubber. So smart! We also stopped by a man who was "peeling" coconuts?? I had no idea how big coconuts were! I thought they came as the little brown things, but there's a huge outer layer too! The only thing I didn't like about this is that they used a monkey to climb the trees to get the coconuts that they took from the rainforest and trained to get the coconuts because it's too dangerous for people... Poor monkey! It's so strange that these processes (the coconuts and the rubber) use such simple tools (well and monkeys...) but you know what I mean!
Peeling coconuts...I wonder if there's a machine to do this??
After the farm side, we went to a waterfall and the Gibbon Rehabilitation Center. Another depressing tourist trap is that people go into the forest and capture baby gibbons (which are a type of ape) and they capture a baby to get money from people who want to hold the cute baby animal... Well to get one baby, they usually have to kill about 10 other gibbons before they can just get one! The rehabilitation center works to get these gibbons back and they actually put a lot of them back into the wild. It's really hard though to get the gibbons because people will hide them and I guess there's actually a gibbon mafia where people pay off the police! So, just like the elephants, if you ever go to Thailand don't pay for pictures of animals!!!
Speaking of elephants, one night in Phuket, when Molly and I were walking to dinner we actually saw someone with a baby elephant on the street using it for money!! It was even worse that it was only a little baby elephant....We were so upset but of there was really nothing we can do to stop it. I wanted to scream at all the people not to pay for it and tell them how bad these elephants are treated to do this but I didn't need a Thai person angry at me. I do kind of regret not saying anything though!
Well, we rode around for a little while longer (a total of about 22km) and then headed to the beach when we were finished for the rest of the day!
Saturday, August 4th- This was our last day in Thailand and we spent it again, at the beach of course! Our flight was an overnight flight back to Seoul so we spent the morning in the air conditioning in our hostel while we could before check out and spent the rest of the time sitting at the beach. It was a great end to an even better trip!
Well after reading all that, hopefully it wasn't too boring, but maybe it's inspired some people to go to Thailand. My favorite things were definitely the elephant day, the cooking, all the different foods (especially pad thai, pineapple fried rice, the different fruits like rambutan and dragon fruit, the green curry, ok basically all of it...) the boat tour, the beach, relaxing ok again, basically all of it!
There were some downfalls of Thailand though...
1. The mosquito bites. I think I had 17 at one time, not to mention they inflamed and were huge and were the itchiest bites I've ever had. Luckily they were better after a day or two...
2. The night our air conditioner died at midnight and we had to be up at 5 for the boat tour. Thailand nights do NOT get any cooler. We were dying and probably got 2 hours of unrestful, horrible sleep.
Obviously the pros outweigh the cons! I'm even happier that I got to experience all of this with Molly! We had so much fun together and I wish she could have stayed with me longer!
Sunday, August 5th- Back to reality. Molly and I got in around 8 in the morning and took a nap when we got back. It was miserably hot that day so the only thing we did was go to jimjilbang (the Korean bath house) so Molly could experience some true Korean culture! Otherwise, her Korean view is pretty limited to my kindergarten class but that's ok! She flew out Monday... :(
Now, it's only 3 weeks left of work! I leave August, 29th so my last day of work is August, 28th. I've been really excited to come home but after seeing Molly and talking about what we want to do when I get home, it makes me even more excited!! Time to enjoy my last few weeks in the place that I've called home this past year.
See you soon Minnesota!
Love, Meghan
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