Day 30 Phuket

Days 25-30 (6 days, 6 nights)

Phuket is a very famous island in southern Thailand. The whole island seems to cater towards tourists. This has it's drawbacks, but we still had good fun. We didn't plan out where we were going to stay at Phuket which led to a lot of beach hopping. This was a bit of a pain, but it led to some interesting experiences. Prior to flying south, Trish had read online that Patong Beach was a hotspot and we decided to stay there the first night.

Patong Beach

As you can tell from the picture, this place is really touristy. I mean REALLY. I couldn't find a local food stall anywhere, all the places to eat were sit down restaurants and expensive. There was some entertainment though:

Here's a street magician having fun with his foreigner volunteer.

Here's some clams Trish and I had, they were pretty good. ($3USD)

A fruit salad dish we had at a more low key restaurant. (approx $2USD)

Well, after that night in Patong, we decided we wanted to try a place that was less touristy and had more of a local feel. We took a sawngthaew (which is a red truck with a covered compartment) just a few kilometers south to Karon Beach.

Karon Beach

Sunset at Karon Beach


A dog that accompanied us in our sunset watching (he kept watch looking the other way).

Karon is a really nice beach. There weren't nearly as many tourists as in Patong and there was also a better selection of cheap food:

Tom Yung Seafood Soup ($1.50 USD). It was excellent.

Beef over rice ($1.50USD), very good.

Once we got settled in at Karon, we rented a motorbike to go traveling around the island.

Here's a vanilla ice cream desert with green pearls, black jelly, and some taro chunks on the bottom that we had next to Wat Chalong, Phuket.

Here is a picture of a side door to a small temple on the grounds of Wat Chalong. One cool thing about the temples in Thailand is that cats and dogs love to hang out on temple grounds. They're also very well behaved like these pair of feline friends.

Phuket Town

This is the main town on Phuket island where most of the locals live. When we were there, they were having their annual Vegetarian Festival. The locals during the duration of the festival eat only vegetarian foods for one week in order to purify their bodies and they wear white to represent a purification of the soul. The festival was imported by Chinese merchants and has a direct connection to ancient Chinese religious practices.

Here's a delicious vegetarian noodle dish we had. ($1USD)

Phi-Phi Islands (Let the Puking Commence!)

Here's a pic on the cruise boat we took to the Phi-Phi Islands. This cruise was not fun. On the way to the islands I was already feeling a bit sick from eating the crackers with this gooey sweet center that they provided on board. The waves were a bit rough since it was rainy season in Thailand, so it got worse as the cruise went on. Anyways, on the cruise they let the passengers do 1 hour snorkeling off the beach of Phi-Phi Don. As the other passengers were getting ready to snorkel, I was barfing my brains out in a trash can next to the concession stand. The Thai female attendants that were behind me at the stand must have found it hilarious and disgusting as I hacked out all of my bodily fluids (I didn't have much to eat that morning, so most of the stuff I was barfing was liquid).

After I barfed, I went snorkeling. When I got back on the boat, I barfed again, this time off the side of the ship. My range was pretty good (I projected my barf a good 3 to 4 feet), however what really surprised me was that I had any stuff left in my system to barf. Oh, the snorkeling was cool, I got to see small shiny fish swim past me.

Phi-Phi Don beach

This was cool. Trish made friends with a cat on Phi-Phi island. I gave the cat some spare bread that I had in my bag. As I was doing so, a Thai guy walked by and said, "Monkey." I looked to where he pointed and sure enough there was a monkey in a nearby tree. I went to take out my camera to get a shot of the monkey in the tree and was very much surprised to see the monkey quickly make his way right in front of me as shown in the picture. Right after taking that shot, the monkey made a grab for the bread bag, but I quickly stood up and threw a piece of bread behind the monkey to get it further away from me. Don't get me wrong, I like monkeys, but it's kinda creepy when they're grabbing at you with their human-like hands.

Kata Beach

The above two pictures are from Kata Beach. After staying in Karon Beach for two nights, we decided to move to a guesthouse in Kata because 1) it was cheaper (600Baht/night) and 2)Lonely Planet calls Kata Beach the best beach in Phuket, though I would have to say I found Kata and Karon equally enjoyable. Kata is a nice quaint area with some local treats:

This is a banana raisin roti with condensed milk on top. Roti is fried bread, so this isn't for those of you who're watching your cholesterol.



This was weird. Trish saw this ad on the window of an eyeglass shop and said, "Doesn't that girl look like me?" I responded, "Holy crap, totally."

This frog thought so too. "Spot on if I do say so myself," Frog.

Flying Back to Taipei

And so that ends my Cambodia-Thailand trip. Yay! Please note that I've also added photos to the previous Asia-Trip posts. All in all in it was a great experience. Prior to this trip I had very little knowledge of the countries I've visited. Now that I've been to those countries, I feel that I've learned a lot about their cultures and had fun doing so.

I plan to have many more travels in the future, till then, bon voyage!