Phuket In Words

Phuket In Words

Spent a short weekend in Phuket. It was a sudden trip due to Mum informing us that it was 16 January instead of the actual 16 December departure date. Mums, sigh!

In the beginning, it was nothing but hassle. Holiday season mahhh, make passport long queue, aiport check-in long queue, haih, in short, everything takes longer than it should. Then, Mother Nature also fooled around a bit by calling in big thunderstorms that delayed our flight by one hour from LCCT Kuala Lumpur. Luckily, the weather improved a bit while we were in Phuket itself.

The first thing I noticed about the place (My last trip to anywhere in Thailand was 8 years ago) was the striking number of pick-up trucks on the road; I estimate that 1 in 5 vehicles is a pick-up. Heck, they carry people in pick-up trucks all the time and sometimes we saw like 15 people in the back of a pick-up!

Our hotel was at the over-rated Patong beach. The sea at Patong is far from clean. However the Patong Beach area got pretty alive at night with stalls selling all-sorts and cutesy seafood restaurants. Strolling around were the massive tourist population in Phuket consisting of Ang-moh-langs and Asians too but few Africans and Middle Easterns were seen around (probably either because they had better beaches where they come from or they're just not into Thailand). I must say that the people around there were pretty good looking, tourists and locals included.

Of course there were those people that Thailand was famous for -prostitutes and uhhh, the hideous transgenders hanging out when the nights get late. It was quite obvious to tell who was what since the 'pros' often dressed very provocatively compared to the practically casual, laidback get-up of travellers. As for the Ah-Kuas, their shoulder-hip ratio is simply too large to be feminine and they were often too perfect in looks, suggesting surgery. And no, I was NOT enticed by anyone to watch the tiger shows. I did NOT watch tiger shows while I was there.

The local friendliness and hospitality is hard to dismiss. Their sweet smiles and sing-song style speech made it all more charming and certainly they love to sing too. Everywhere, I found people singing unplugged, entertaining themselves in their own melody. I can proudly claim that this was the first time I heard singing that was so authentically sweet with the correct emotions unlike the many wannabes who think they can sing. They're good at giving tunes the feeling!

But beware. This sincerity, in my opinion, is very much limited to the local Thais only. The Indian population who retail near Bangla Road, Patong just want you to buy their stuff. First, they'll try to associate with you buy claiming they used to stay in Malaysia, Singapore, etc, etc depending on where you come from. Then, they'll give you a cut-throat tourist price (Often in Malay, to prove their claims) of whatever they think you might be interested in. Of course bargaining is acceptable, but they will never discount those items cheap enough to be worth your bargaining efforts. And then, there were these Chinese businessmen who claimed they used to be from Malaysia. Again, this was an obvious case of taking advantage of familiarity to charge you more than they should. Needless to say, I did not get anything from those Patong stalls because I thought I could buy them cheaper without even bargaining back here.

They have malls around too in Phuket like Jungceylon and Robinson. I must say that those things that they import like burgers and clothes cost twice more than they do in Malaysia. However, they too have spots selling stuff similiar to those on Patong but with price-tags and bargaining is not allowed. Still, the streets were unbeaten in terms of liveliness at night.

Then the funny part was that some actually thought I was a Thai. Many times I was surprisingly greeted 'Sahwahdeekahh' by those Ang-moh-langs and the local salespeople tried to converse in Thai to me too despite the obvious fact that locals don't carry cameras and get around taking snapshots. Then, they later blush and explain I look like one of them. I even learnt what 'She looks like a Thai' in Siamese sounds like because it was said so often in my presence. LOL, so much for dark skin.

Talking bout dark, the dark side of the trip was of course the activities. I was hoping to go canoe-ing into caves around James Bond and PhangNga Bay but Mum wanted a round-island tour of Phuket instead and of course we had to listen to her. It was always her way.

The tour was indeed enjoyable minus the constant nagging of the irritating guide who seemed to care bout everything but our needs. First, he takes advantage of the 45 minute airport transfer to the hotel to promote HIS excursions at COSTLY prices. Then, by false urgency methods, he convinces people to commit and make payments even before they had opportunities to go and counter check with other agents who charge about 700 bahts cheaper for the same stuff. He wouldn't be so annoying if he wasn't constantly imposing his ideas of fun to his customers. He conned a 70-year-old man into taking a PhangNga cruise which made the poor guy sick and too tired to go for a 1900 baht night show (clean one ahh, watchable by kids as well) for which the man purchased an extra ticket for the guide. And that idiot had the heart to blame the old guy for not mentioning he got tired easily and claimed that he'd be bored watching the show. 3 words: "F*** off idiot!"

I'm telling you IDIOT, I'm gonna tell everyone bout your inadequecies as a tourist guide!

Then of course although we all expected to pay a little extra for the trip since it was peak season in Phuket, I couldn't help but feel that the agent (PYOTravel) was taking a huge cut out of the deal. Imagine the trip cost us about RM700 per person to fly AirAsia and to stay 2 nights at a lousy hotel that received numerous VERY BAD reviews online. Further checks confirmed that the hotel stay costed about only RM130 per room per night. And not to mention that the complimentary tour scenic spots were suddenly replaced by trips to retailers of Honey, Gems and Cashew Nuts; I suppose someone is getting a FAT commision out of this.

I could go on and on droning bout how bad some tour agents can be but really, as long as you get the message:
1) Counter check prices and bargain before committing to Payment
2) Do check online reviews and prices before booking as well.
I'm happy to say that I had fun in Phuket despite having those idiots messing around.

Of course, you might wonder how dark I'd be after two beaching trips in a year (Redang an Phuket). LOL, I did not swim while I was in Phuket. The sudden evening downpour did not allow me to hit Patong Beach!

So much for resentments............

Coming up: Phuket in Pictures (when I get a decent connection to upload pics)

jiayeng @ 10:19 PM Comments (0) READ