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| Garden in the city center |
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| Golden dragon that is the "heart" of Phuket Town |
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| Upper tier of the park |
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| Bicycle statue art |
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| Concert area |
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| We walked thru several of these gates around town |
We wandered into a mall and enjoyed seeing everything that was for sale. There were several familiar brands, including Levi jeans. We concluded that living in Thailand would provide much better jean selection for Brandon. His small waist size is normally so hard to find in the States, but here it seemed to be the most common size.
We did our exploring in small stints returning to our hostel room for air conditioned respite from the muggy, smoggy weather. The hostel is right in the Old Town, so it's easy to walk around everywhere. An added perk is that the hostel provided a light breakfast, which was good even though we weren't sure what we were eating. It was some type of breakfast cookies and pastries that with a google search revealed they probably had pineapple jam filling. While we ate we enjoyed looking at the lobby decor as well.
We spent a lot of the day figuring our the ferry. There doesn't seem to be a direct ferry to Tonsai Beach where we want to go for rock climbing. We're pretty sure that we have to take a ferry to Ao Nang and then a longboat from Ao Nang to Tonsai. At least this is what I've pieced together from several websites. Fingers crossed!
Then we did a lot of cost comparing of ferry + taxi services online, at our hostel, and at several local travel agencies. The local travel agencies are similar to what we experienced in Guatemala. All the prices are about the same and everyone (agent, taxi driver, ferry company, who knows who else) takes their cut. Your payment includes the ferry fare and a taxi pick up at your door. The trouble was that no one seemed to know where our hostel was located, so we were a bit skeptical about actually being found and picked up. Our hostel also acts as a travel agency and so we looked at their price as well. We knew the taxi service they contracted with would be able to find us, giving us peace of mind. However, their price was the least competitive. The online ticket price on the ferry website was the best deal, but once again we were skeptical the taxi would find us.
Finally, we decided to separate the transactions. We bought the cheaper ferry tickets through the actual ferry company online and we arranged with the hostel to have a taxi pick us up in the morning. This caused confusion with the front desk, because they really wanted us to do the ferry + taxi deal, a deal that doesn't really seem like a deal to us. But, it should all be sorted. Hopefully our taxi shows up and the price is what we were quoted...never dull.
After all that work we felt deserving of a good dinner. A random contact in Thailand (son of a co-worker of my mother or something) had suggested Suay Restaurant. We've found that finding food in a foreign country, especially when there are so many options, can be stressful. So, it was wonderful to have a recommendation only about a kilometer walk from our hostel. It turned out to be an amusing, delicious experience.
As we were enjoying our delicious lemongrass ice tea and strawberry, orange, passion fruit frappe and waiting for our food orders when a man sauntered over. He explained in a clearly Australian accent that he was a photographer for Pacific Magazine doing a piece the restaurant and that he need some subjects in his photos and would we please, please do him the favor of posing for him. We wanted to warn him that he was choosing very non-photogenic people for the job, but we were pretty much his only option as the restaurant had just opened for the evening. So, Brandon and I sat in some chairs and desperately tried to have normal conversation as he took picture after picture. Yep. This happened. We're probably famous now.
We were released from our photo shoot and our food arrived. We shared a delicious Thai salad with pomelo and sweet chili dressing. I had roti (think flatbread) with yellow chicken curry, kaffir lime leaf, and picked cabbage. And what did Brandon have? No surprise. Tacos. Chicken curry tacos with sour cream and guacamole and Thai salsa all on a roti taco shell. It was all amazing and filling.
When we were done we had the "do we tip or not in this country?" moment of panic. We had forgotten to research that. Oops. After the fact, we looked it up and were relieved to find that we had followed the correct protocol and left any coin change behind. Phew.
Shortly after we returned to our hostel it started down pouring. Buckets and buckets of rain. And, it's still pouring an hour later, so, I think we're in for the night. As I write this, Brandon is channel surfing Thai television which is pretty amusing. You can watch chicken fighting, martial arts, the movie Thor, soccer, Fox new, cartoons, and more.
That's our Phuket experience. Hopefully all goes well with the taxi and the ferry and finding accommodation tomorrow. It'll be an adventure. If we don't post for awhile don't worry. We're not sure of the internet access for the next week while we're attempting to find some rock climbing. But, we'll check back in as soon as we can!
We did our exploring in small stints returning to our hostel room for air conditioned respite from the muggy, smoggy weather. The hostel is right in the Old Town, so it's easy to walk around everywhere. An added perk is that the hostel provided a light breakfast, which was good even though we weren't sure what we were eating. It was some type of breakfast cookies and pastries that with a google search revealed they probably had pineapple jam filling. While we ate we enjoyed looking at the lobby decor as well.
 |
| Pineapple jam filled cookies |
 |
| We felt right at home with the I-80 sign |
 |
| Pretty cool wall art of Phuket Island |
We spent a lot of the day figuring our the ferry. There doesn't seem to be a direct ferry to Tonsai Beach where we want to go for rock climbing. We're pretty sure that we have to take a ferry to Ao Nang and then a longboat from Ao Nang to Tonsai. At least this is what I've pieced together from several websites. Fingers crossed!
Then we did a lot of cost comparing of ferry + taxi services online, at our hostel, and at several local travel agencies. The local travel agencies are similar to what we experienced in Guatemala. All the prices are about the same and everyone (agent, taxi driver, ferry company, who knows who else) takes their cut. Your payment includes the ferry fare and a taxi pick up at your door. The trouble was that no one seemed to know where our hostel was located, so we were a bit skeptical about actually being found and picked up. Our hostel also acts as a travel agency and so we looked at their price as well. We knew the taxi service they contracted with would be able to find us, giving us peace of mind. However, their price was the least competitive. The online ticket price on the ferry website was the best deal, but once again we were skeptical the taxi would find us.
Finally, we decided to separate the transactions. We bought the cheaper ferry tickets through the actual ferry company online and we arranged with the hostel to have a taxi pick us up in the morning. This caused confusion with the front desk, because they really wanted us to do the ferry + taxi deal, a deal that doesn't really seem like a deal to us. But, it should all be sorted. Hopefully our taxi shows up and the price is what we were quoted...never dull.
After all that work we felt deserving of a good dinner. A random contact in Thailand (son of a co-worker of my mother or something) had suggested Suay Restaurant. We've found that finding food in a foreign country, especially when there are so many options, can be stressful. So, it was wonderful to have a recommendation only about a kilometer walk from our hostel. It turned out to be an amusing, delicious experience.
As we were enjoying our delicious lemongrass ice tea and strawberry, orange, passion fruit frappe and waiting for our food orders when a man sauntered over. He explained in a clearly Australian accent that he was a photographer for Pacific Magazine doing a piece the restaurant and that he need some subjects in his photos and would we please, please do him the favor of posing for him. We wanted to warn him that he was choosing very non-photogenic people for the job, but we were pretty much his only option as the restaurant had just opened for the evening. So, Brandon and I sat in some chairs and desperately tried to have normal conversation as he took picture after picture. Yep. This happened. We're probably famous now.
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| The ambient Suay Restaurant |
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| Brandon appreciated the fancy napkins |
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| Our nice cool drinks on a sweaty day |
We were released from our photo shoot and our food arrived. We shared a delicious Thai salad with pomelo and sweet chili dressing. I had roti (think flatbread) with yellow chicken curry, kaffir lime leaf, and picked cabbage. And what did Brandon have? No surprise. Tacos. Chicken curry tacos with sour cream and guacamole and Thai salsa all on a roti taco shell. It was all amazing and filling.
 |
| Our delicious array of food |
When we were done we had the "do we tip or not in this country?" moment of panic. We had forgotten to research that. Oops. After the fact, we looked it up and were relieved to find that we had followed the correct protocol and left any coin change behind. Phew.
Shortly after we returned to our hostel it started down pouring. Buckets and buckets of rain. And, it's still pouring an hour later, so, I think we're in for the night. As I write this, Brandon is channel surfing Thai television which is pretty amusing. You can watch chicken fighting, martial arts, the movie Thor, soccer, Fox new, cartoons, and more.
That's our Phuket experience. Hopefully all goes well with the taxi and the ferry and finding accommodation tomorrow. It'll be an adventure. If we don't post for awhile don't worry. We're not sure of the internet access for the next week while we're attempting to find some rock climbing. But, we'll check back in as soon as we can!
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