Adventures While On Vacation In Phuket - Day 3

Breakfast as usual at the hotel early in the morning. We had arranged for Laguna Resorts to pick us up at 10am for a tour of their resort. You know one of those arrangements where you spend 90 minutes of your time touring their resort and understanding their 'plans' and you get something for free? We had come across this at the airport when we arrived and they were giving out 2 Phuket Fantasea tickets inclusive of transfers. So we thought, why not? (You're going to think, cheapskate!) But hey, those tickets normally cost 1500 Baht per person and the transfer costs 300 Baht per person. So we saved 3600 Baht. That's a lot of money!

Pickup arrived punctually at 10am. There was another Swedish couple with their baby joining us from our hotel. They had come across this at JungCeylon Shopping Centre and were also interested in getting hold of those free tickets.



Laguna Resort is really beautiful. Sheraton is there. So is the exclusive Banyan Tree. One can move around to all the resorts there by boat or bus available free. So we spent our 90 minutes touring and having a consultant explain to us their "plan". But of course, they'll never be able to make us pay anything. All we want is the free tickets... haha

We got what we wanted and they let us off pretty easy. Our friends, the Swedish couple, was there for 5 hours! Amazing how they manage to tolerate all that nonsense.

By the time we arrived at Patong, it was past 2 pm. Head for lunch (again!) at Break Point. Ordered tom yum koong again. Hahaa.. When in Thailand, this is what I do. Tom yum koong whenever I can get my hands on them. Well, lunch was again an affordable affair (I wouldn't say cheap). Less than 400 Baht.

Walked around a bit after lunch. Did some window shopping. One thing I realised this time is that many of the traders seem to be foreigners and not Thai. Strange. Gotta investigate. These foreigners sell the same stuff and at higher prices.

I was interested in a silk scarf. A local trader offered it to me at 150 Baht (after a 50% discount). But stingy ol' me wanted it for 100 Baht. So I kept asking other stalls. One stall I came across, the trader (who happened to be Nepalese) gave me a starting price of 800 Baht. I asked for a discount and she lowered it to 500 Baht. I asked for more discount and offered 100 Baht. She said it wasn't even enough to buy stock. She offered a final price of 400 Baht. Since the price wasn't right, I walked away. As I was walking away, she said to me from my back, 100 Baht can't buy anything in Thailand nowadays. Sigh... The rudeness!

After some 'window shopping' , we took the 6pm shuttle back to the hotel to get some rest before the pickup arrived from Fantasea.

At 6.50pm, our van arrived to shuttle us to Phuket Fantasea. It was a boring ride. Nothing interesting along the way. But when we arrived at the main entrance, it felt like a whole new world was waiting for us. The lights and colours were just simply amazing! All the staff were dressed up in traditional Thai costumes.

I went on to the ticketing counter to collect our tickets and proceeded to enter the theme park. It is just awe-inspiring to be inside this Fantasea world. There were stalls selling all sorts of souvenir items, there were games stalls, there were food stalls. It was a fun fair at night.



The show started at 9pm in the Palace Of The Elephants Theatre. Everyone was required to deposit any sort of photo / film recording type of equipment at the counter before entering the theatre. We were wondering why and then we saw it. After depositing the cameras, videocams and camera phones, there were stalls where one can have their photo taken with girls dressed up in traditional costumes, elephants, baby tigers and so on. You pay and have your photo taken. At the end of the show, you can collect it at the exit counter.

When we entered the hall, it was huge! Rows and rows of seats. Our seats weren't too good. It was high up and on the right side of the hall. But since we didn't pay for it, we shouldn't be complaining at all.

The show started with a parade of elephants entering from the side of the hall and walking up on stage. It was a story about Kamala beach. Amazing show I would say but personally I'm not too keen on watching animals perform. Humans performing, yes, I will be interested. But definitely not animals. It's not their nature to be performing. It's unnatural. It's torturous to them. I always wonder why people force animals to train for shows and stunts when it's not in their nature to do those things. Sigh...

Anyway, after the show, we took the shuttle back to our hotel. It was late and we hadn't had dinner. With the light drizzle, we decided to just have dinner at the coffee house in the hotel. Expensive and nothing to shout about. Just get our tummies filled.

And that's Day 3 in Phuket.

Adventures While On Vacation In Phuket - Day 2

Day 2 started with an early breakfast at the hotel. Nothing specific planned for the day. After breakfast, headed back to the room and watched 2 movies on HBO. I can't even remember what movies they were.. haha...



We took the 2pm shuttle to Patong coz we were hungry and needed food. This time we headed again to one of the lanes around the beach. We decided to head straight to the place that was packed with patrons the night before during dinner time. Prices were reasonable but quality of food was still much better at Break Point, the night before. Still less than 400 baht for 3 dishes and 2 drinks.

After our late lunch, walked around Patong area slowly exploring every nook and corner. Did some window shopping. And finally we decided to get a hairwash. No massage for us this time. Just a plain hairwash. 100 baht for men and 150 baht for women. Not too bad. Although it's cheaper in KL.

More walking around after our hairwash and we stumbled upon a bar that had a sign saying... A-Go-Go Boys. Hmm.. this is a first. All the other bars were a-go-go girls. But the show starts only at 11.40pm. Very specific timing. We probably wouldn't be able to catch the show since our hotel shuttle leaves Patong at 12am.

After all that walking, we decided to stop for dinner. Saw 2 stalls. The roast pork was tempting us. I decided to opt for noodles instead. Steven decided on roast pork rice. Ordered some pork satay too. There were so many choices, I asked the lady to put in crab meat, cuttlefish, deep fried prawns and I can't remember what else. The roast pork was just superb and we ordered another plate of it.. haha... Well dinner costs 120 baht if I remember correctly.

And then greedy ol' me saw a pancake stall. I have been missing the pancakes since my last trip to Phuket which was pre-tsunami. I couldn't resist and ordered a chocolate & banana pancake. It's basically roti canai wrapped with sliced banana and beaten egg. Then topped with chocolate sauce. Heavenly...



After my indulgence, we headed back to Bangla Road. Ready for some excitement. More shows to see ;) This time we headed to another bar. More interesting shows and a fantastic pole dancer.

By 12am, my eyes can barely open so we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

Adventures While On Vacation In Phuket - Day 1

My long awaited trip to Phuket finally came. Booked them AA tickets way back in Feb when they had the 5 sen promo. My round trip air ticket cost me less than RM200 per person which is a steal!

So the day came and I packed my bags and head along to the airport. Of course I got a good friend of mine to send us to the airport that morning. I woke him up really early (coz he's well known for being late) and it turned out that I woke up later :)

Anyway, check in at LCCT was smooth. Albeit feeling more like a bus terminal than an airport. But hey, who cares?! As long as I travel at the lowest cost possible, I'm not gonna care how the airport feels like.

Landed just after lunch. Still hungry even though I had my favourite turkey ham & cheese sandwich on the plane. Now what's the cheapest way to get to Patong area from the airport? The bus of course. Hopped onto a bus waiting outside the terminal and the fare was 85 baht per person all the way to Phuket town. I had asked the bus attendant to stop me somewhere I can catch the bus to Patong. She did stop the bus as we were approaching town and asked me to wait across the road. 5 minutes later a bus to Patong came along. The fare was only 25 baht per person.

Now the problem is from the main road, it was a 1km hike up the hill to the hotel where I was staying and with my luggage, I wasn't going to hike all the way up. This is vacation. Not a hiking trip. So we decided to stop for lunch first and then only think of a way to get to the hotel.

Lunch was at a noodle stall. Didn't catch the name of the shop but there was so much options there I just told the lady to put a bit of everything into my bowl. That cost us 115 baht in total which included a bottle of mineral water.

After lunch, we decided to buy a local prepaid card and called the hotel. Told them we were lost and couldn't find our way to the hotel and asked if they could pick us up. We had the noodle stall operator explain to the hotel staff exactly where we were. 5 minutes later a van arrived to pick us up.

Checked in at the hotel and discovered that the hotel wasn't so nice after all. But then again, free hotel stay, better not complain so much.

The hotel has a shuttle to Patong beach every 2 hours on a daily basis. So we decided to take the 6pm shuttle to walk around and have dinner.

The shuttle stopped us right at Bangla Road. Happening!

Walked around a bit all the while looking for a place to eat. Thai food a must of course. Nothing western for me, not in Thailand.


Finally we found this quaint little restaurant tucked in one of the alleys by the beach. It's Japanese owned and they had the cheapest beer in town. A small bottle of Chang beer costs only 25 baht and a large bottle costs 50 baht. We ordered tom yum koong, stir fried morning glory (make a guess what's morning glory), stir fried chicken with cashew nuts (koong poh kai ting) and green curry pork. I had a strawberry shake and Steven had a large Chang beer. Our dinner costs us just under 400 baht. That's a steal. 4 dishes and 2 drinks. Go check out my food blog for more yummy info.

After dinner, it was time to walk around again. The sky was dark and the street is coming alive. Suddenly we saw a lot of activities at one of the small lanes. Ooh... there were transvetites dressed up to the nines parading about. You can take a photo with them for 50 baht. No way am I going to pay that kind of money.

We bumped into touts who kept on inviting us for 'shows', if you know what I mean. No cover charge some more. Just order a beer for 120 baht. Interesting shows. For me it's a first. So it was an experience. Had heard all about it from others. Well, it sure was an eye opener for me. We went to another bar the following night. Caught more interesting shows :)

We caught the 10pm shuttle back to the hotel and decided to call it a night.

And so ends Day 1 of my vacation.