phuket...phuket...

a day of being a typical tourist, and getting 'cheated' at all the designated tourist spots. first mistake of the day - boarding a cab tt promised to bring us ard for 20 baht per person. We ended in places like the lok kok pearl factory,the honey factory (where we had to listen to this uncle describe how good honey is for the body in MANDARIN),the dfs shop...until finally we requested to just have our lunch and be sent back to the hostel. so we got driven to this restaurant meant for kah-ing tourist aka us, and had this super sumptuous spread by the sea.this sumptuous spread of course came with a hefty bill of 50 plus sgd, and i almost stupidly gave a 1000baht tip..all because of my blurness and miscommunication. i hate communication barriers. times like these make me wish i knew how to speak every single language on this planet. hah! nevertheless, the lunch was damn shiok, and my fav dish was the deep-fried squid with garlic and black pepper..yumz to the core. thankfully the taxi driver was honest,and didn't pull any weird stunts, such as charging us more than the 20baht that he quoted at the start of the excursion. then again, i guess we can trust the thais..afterall they seem to be a bunch of full-of-morals people!

ventured around phuket town later that night. because i found a whole slab of charcoal pills in my bag, i decided to be a little less cowardly, and a little more adventurous by trying out the food at the night market..so here i am eating my bowl of fishball kway teow in the night market. the night market had like cockroaches (hil's best friends..haha) running ard and dogs lazing around. it kind of shouted "GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU LAO SAI!", but surprisingly no such thing happened.haha..looks like my fears of eating at roadside stalls all these years, were uncalled for.

the next day, tourguide charles brought us to this place that according to the lonely planet sells one of the famous phuket delicacies. this supposed delicacy was absolutely not delicate to our tastebuds at all. when the spoonful of noodles soaked with curry enters your mouth, the first thing that goes to your mind is,"yummm..green curry.."..and that thought is immediately replaced by an explosion in your mouth and a "knnbccbmf SPICY la!!!" afterwhich, your tongue hangs out like a dog, and you will start fanning it to make the spiciness go away, but sorry ,no such luck. we finally got rid of that burning sensation with this sweet glutinous rice with tapioca dessert that the shopkeeper and his wife offered to us (while laughing at our monkey act). mental note: no more phuket delcacies for the rest of the trip!
after that super hot breakfast, we found a tuktuk parked along the road, and after negotiating with the driver, he promised to bring us to the bungy jump/go-kart/patong beach for 300baht, and even promised to wait for us,to send us back..but...not before offering to bring us to some tourist hotspot. omg...not again. we said no like one million times, and he begged us to just go to 2 places so that he can get his chops, and then he'll bring us to our destinations. the way these taxis and tuktuk work, are that they work for this company that pays them a commission for every tourist hotspot that they bring their passengers to. so, being the kindsouls that we were (haha!), we agreed to go to only ONE place..and it turned out to be the same pearl factory that we went to the day before -_-".

anyhow, after that, we went to the bungy jump, but of course cowardly me didn't jump. i was the designated photographer. we met some funny japs there..whom we met again at the go-kart place. go-karting was damn fun, but hard to steer, and i end up with two blisters on my hand, and one on my foot..all from fighting with the steering wheel and the abrasion with the floorboard of the go-kart. bah.

the rest of the afternoon was spent on thai massages (shiookk), pedicure/manicure and watching "happy" boys play volley ball and work their "broken wrist" syndrome. totally iron-ladies like.
mobile advertisment:"tonight..tonight..monday night...come watch the best..come watch them fight..tonight..tonight...monday night..." -_-"
muay thai match in the night. wah..damn hardcore man the fighting, no such thing as acting, like in the WWE matches. the first match involved two kids, this poor fat boy, he looked so tough and fierce, but he started hyperventilating when the other boy punched him in the stomach. there were guest boxers from japan, iran and "u-s-and-a". the jap guy damn jia lat..after 2 punches, his head started bleeding and his face was covered in blood, but he was a fighter..he didn't give up until he konked out in round 4! the iranian guy was a wuss. he looked so fierce, like a terrorist..hahaha..but he got cornered the entire match by the damn zhai thai boxer. and as for the "u-s-and-a" guy..he basically just ran round the ring trying to buy time and not get knocked out. yet another wuss.

i've always wondered how the thais, vietnamese and cambodians managed to squeeze like a family of 5 on their motorcycles, but after the match, we had a taste of it. two of us plus the driver on this small little motorbike..wave- the kind macs uses for delivery..and that little thing brought us through the mountains back to phuket town. everytime the rider changed gear i thought we were going to get flung off the bike! :S scary but thrilling experience.

we took the local public bus to patong beach again the next day, and the trip cost us 20 bahts each, and there was no such thing as going to tourist destinations this time round. damn. why didn't we just take the bus??? at patong beach, we got off 1km from our destination, all because we were trying to be smart asses and guess where our guesthouse was at,instead of asking. haha..so we had to troop back to the hotel in the sweltering heat, with our heavy bags slung over our shoulders, and i got a sunburn from doing that. omg, i swear i am the ultimate loser.

after scouting ard for our chang beer/red bull/singha beer singlets and fake-o board shorts, not forgetting our price slashing session, we changed into our beach wear and headed to the beach to slack under the hot sun with a cold beer. sweet. i of course chose to hide under the umbrella because i turn dark damn fast, and i of course turn into a bangla in no time.

spa at karon beach later that night, wah it was super duper good, but i forgot to bring my cam into the spa room. it was super duper nice! and we ended the night with yet another seafood feast, at one of those makeshift roadside stalls outside our guesthouse. the service was super good, and that made us wonder why our country can never achieve that standard of service, when the people serving at a ROADSIDE stall in phuket could. sigh...

after dinner, we went for a few rounds around patong beach - to breathe in the night air, fully utilise the bike (thank you "click", you served us well..haha), and to enjoy the night scene- and a stroll down the clubbing street, was how my last night in phuket ended. and then it was back to dreary old sg for me :(


those who had a ball of a time in krabi. shucks...it looks so damn nice. i wish i went.