September 11
The Beach
There is something about airplanes, trains too I've learned since starting this trip, that just lulls me to sleep. We were up early at at the airport for our flight to Phuket. We didn't have an actual flight paid for but knew that there was one leaving at 1000. We had tried to call the ticket office last night but once we finally figured out how to make a local call it was only to get a recording stating that the office hours were closed. The online service wasn't accepting our "international" credit card. So, we felt that kind of left us with just getting to the airport in time to get on the plane and just hope that there were seats available. We were ready to leave Bangkok the city life had gotten old really quick. I had to find a cash machine since the guesthouse didn't accept credit cards. The cash machine the gal behind the bar was recommending only accepted local cards so I was left jogging down the sidewalk looking for a cash machine early in the morning as all the street vendors were setting up for the day. The Buddhist monks were also making their rounds accepting portions of rice from people who would give their rice donation into the basket carried by the monk and bow to the ground before proceeding on with their day. It was interesting to watch. Something that caught my eye about the monk was that he was barefoot.
On the sidewalks of Bangkok.
Ew.
Of the cities I would list where I would NOT walk barefooted, Bangkok would definitely be included. Sure they hose down and sweep the streets daily but a city with that many people - it's really hard to keep clean.
I eventually found a cash machine and hightailed it back to the guesthouse before our cab arrived.
We got to the airport at the tail end of rush hour without incident - or nearly.
The scooters for hire would travel along side the cars waiting in line for the light to change to get to the intersection. This would put us in a situation of playing "Chicken" with the scooters often carrying schoolkids or woman with the scooters turning into their lane to avoid a head-on collision with us at THE very last second. I can't tell you how many close calls we had. At one point we came so close I couldn't help myself,
"Shit. That was close." - S
I think my driver understood the swearing because he just looked at me in the rearview mirror and laughed - he never decelerated.
After that I just looked out the side window at the passing landscape rather than out the front window.
We got tickets and checked out luggage with no problems and I was asleep before we even left the runway.
The flight was only just over an hour and we were in Phuket before noon. We had also done a search and found some places to stay but had no reservations. We figured there was enough of a selection that we could find one simply by walking around and inquiring. We road in a minivan for another hour as we were headed to Kata Beach which is in the Southern end of the island. It was hot and humid but without all the pollution, more vegetation, and fewer cars - looked good so far. We were the last ones off the minivan-bus and walked up the hill to our first possible hostel. It had a super steep driveway and when we got up to the top we had a look around. There were bungalows and an outdoor eating/bar area where another couple were sitting.
Now, when someone mouths the words to me,
"Don't stay here" I tend to take it into consideration. This is just what happened. The proprieter at the same time offered to show us the bungalows.
I turned to Jon and told him what the woman had 'said' to me. Now, we'll admit, our standards aren't really high, we've camped in a few pretty knarly places in Europe so I decided to have a look while Jon stayed with the luggage. The cement bungalow was basic, appeared clean enough but I didn't like the fact that the woman said what she did so we declined and headed into town.
We were just north of Kata Beach and it was your typical tourist town. There were a variety of places to stay. I told Jon I would check out a few of the accomodations that I recognized from our internet search while he stayed nearby with the bags.
The first place I checked out was a hotel that was managed by Europeans (a common claim at some of these places). The desk clerk took me up to a room. It was directly at the top of the stairs and the room had all the ambience of a prison cell. It looked dingey with fluorescent lighting and the bathroom looked pretty old. Actually, everything looked really old. Living in such a hot and humid climate does present it's challenges regarding moisture which is totally understandable but this place was just plain depressing. I decided to keep looking.
I had left Jon at an intersection and reported back to him on what I had found. I looked around and saw a room for rent sign near the pharmacy. For some reason I thought it would be better if it was run by the pharmacy, somehow - cleaner. I mean, pharmacies should have some sort of level of cleanliness standard - right?
I walked over and into the shop and asked about the room. The gal behind the desk had an absolutely pleasant disposition. I asked if there was a private bathroom, and a/c - it had both. I asked if I could see the room and she grabbed a set of keys and closed up the pharmacy while we took a look. As we walkd up the stairs to the third floor she made it clear that the room was very small.
The room was just fine, clean, bright, a/c even television (that's considered a bonus now). I was sold. What was even better was that the prison cell across the street and this place were the same price: 500 baht.
We went back downstairs and I motioned for Jon to come join me as I paid for the room. Everything is so packed to together (buildings, people, stalls, car, etc.) he walked right past the pharmacy and I had to run out and get his attention.
We paid for one night and took our things upstairs.
Feeling a little better now that we had a place to stay we had to find some food. We walked around town and found a little mini mart where we bought some food. Yogurt, cheese and crackers, water - the usual. We went to an internet café which was a total rip off of the Starbuck's franchise called Andaman Coffee and did a search of places to stay on Kata Beach. After some discussion we agreed that if we were going to be staying at the beach that we should be actually staying ON the beach. This narrowed down our choices. Jon had found a fancy place on the beach and we decided this would be a great place to stay for our belated one year wedding anniversary. After we took down the necessary information we walked up the hill toward the beach.
We weren't sure exactly which beaches and to what extent the beaches of Phuket had been damaged by the tsunami of 2004 but as we neared the beach there was a lot of new construction around as evidenced by new walkways, buildings, hotels and roads bordering the shoreline. We walked onto the beach and we were faced with the most beautiful, exotic landscape. The water was that progressively blue/green tropical water that started out clear on the pale sandy beach turned blue in the shallow waters and then emerald green as the water got deeper and closer to the Anadaman Sea.
We kicked off our shoes and started walking towards the water. We braced ourselves for the frigid slosh of the water to hit us but were lapped with lovely lukewarm water.
We looked at each other with a big smile on our faces. This was just what we were hoping for in our visit to Thailand. It was wonderful, this place was beautiful and quiet, tropical and incredibly picturesque. We walked along the beach and actually came upon the resort Jon had found on the internet. We walked in and were offered a look around in one of the rooms. Everyone was very pleasant and the room looked first rate - as it should. It was really tempting - just for a few days...
By the time we left we had reservations for a third floor room and had agreed that we would be really frugal for the rest of our trip.
We walked back along the beach to our little room for the night. The tide was changing
"Omigod - look!" - S
Before us was honest to goodness blow fish - dead now - in the blown up position. It was unreal! I had only seen these things on tv and maybe once in real life at a chinese restaurant aquarium but it wasn't blown up. Those suckers can get really big. It was about the size of a cantalope or honeydew - so cool. A little farther along the beach we came across another fish that, while interesting - it was about 10-12 inches in length- wasn't nearly as cool as the blow fish. Of course I didn't have our camera with us but we came upon it the next day as we went to check in at the resort. The ants had gotten to it by then but I took a picture anyway.
