Tag: Phuket

Travel Journal – Phuket, Again…

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It has become almost an annual pilgrimage since my first visit in 2009, with only a break in 2011. I had wanted to post this right after I came back in April but only these few days I had only found time to sort out the photos I have taken over the past few months. No thanks to Ingress, in particular.

I almost had to cancel this trip because for the better part of the week before my flight, I was down with flu. It was particular bad two days before, when I was shivering in cold in spite of the warm weather. It would have been really sad if I had to cancel the trip, because I love Phuket and I would miss it dearly if I can’t go.

This time round I stayed again at the Woraburi Resort. There wasn’t much changes and the staff are still as friendly. What has changed, is that some of the staff can now speak Mandarin, perhaps as a reaction of the tourism industry in Phuket due to the number of mainland Chinese tourists flooding all parts of the world. Two of them attempted to speak to me in Mandarin even though they heard me conversing in English with my companions. When I told some friends of this, their reaction was horror, and even revulsion for being mistaken as mainlander Chinese. I have to say that Singapore appears to be the only place in the region that rejects the new reality of a resurgent China, even though we had no problem adapting to the influx of Japanese and Korean tourists in the past. For a predominantly Chinese place to reject Chinese, it has got to be another first for Singapore! The eradication of Chinese education in Singapore has been so successful that many Singaporean Chinese have become OCBC – Orang Cina Bukan Cina. Well done, PAP!

Anyway, rants aside. I had once again visited Phuket during the Songkran. The reason being that is the only time where I can play with water with abandon and not worry about getting soaking wet. While I would admit I hated being sprayed in the face and eyes with high-powered water guns, that doesn’t really happen very often anyway. It helps a great deal to get the stress and frustrations out of me as well.

I will end here and let the pictures speak for themselves. Unfortunately I ain’t very good at photography so I might not have captured the essence of what I saw very well. But I do hope it manages to bring out the beauty of the place so others may visit the place to experience it for themselves.

Travel Journal – Phuket

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It was pretty dramatic before this trip. On April 11th, a large earthquake struck near Sumatra in the afternoon and a tsunami alert went out over the entire Indian Ocean. I was crestfallen when I heard Thai authorities closed the Phuket airport. I attempted to find out the situation in Phuket over social media but after 2 hours I was none the wiser as fools repeatedly retweeted outdated messages and rumors, drowning out most of the useful information. For e.g. at 8pm Phuket Time someone was still retweeting a message that the first tsunami waves will hit at 5:45pm Phuket Time. Just how that information would still be useful to anyone was beyond me. I ranted to my friends that the strength of social media – its users – will also be its undoing. Fortunately, the tsunami warning was lifted by 10pm Singapore time (information which I obtained from NOAA) and the Thai authorities re-opened the airport an hour later (information passed on by a concerned colleague who was following the news on traditional media). I quickly packed my stuff as the trip will go ahead.


Photo Courtesy of xinyun.sg

This is my third visit to Phuket and the first time I stayed at a resort near Patong Beach. The last two times I had stayed at resorts in Karon Beach and then Kata Beach respectively. Personally I prefer the other two beaches as they are more tranquil and far less commercialised than Patong. That’s of course not mentioning that the resorts at the other two beaches are much cheaper and they have better amenities like swimming pools, and in my opinion better breakfast included. But Silver Resortel isn’t bad at all, the staff are polite and it comes with free Wifi. It’s also just about 5 minutes away from the beach, and within walking distance is Jung-Ceylon (perhaps the largest Shopping Mall in Phuket itself) and Bang La Road where all the interesting pubs are. In the case of my previous visits, I had to pay 500 baht at the hotel counter to purchase Wifi access and a lot of money is spent on transportation between the resort and Patong.

While I had enjoyed my last two visits (and still very much enjoyed it, considering the company I had), I enjoyed this visit even more because I get to experience the Songkran – the Thai New Year. I was however told that the Songkran in Phuket was way milder than other parts of Thailand, for e.g. Chiang Mai, which lasts several days. Basically, everybody just keeps making me wet (no pun intended!) on April 13th itself.

I wasn’t originally aware that I will be there during the Songkran. When I was told, I wasn’t particularly thrilled and in fact I felt dreadful since I don’t really enjoyed getting wet. I arrived a day before the Songkran and was exceptionally pissed when I repeatedly get sprayed on the face by irritating foreigners (not the local Thais!) with their super-soakers. Thinking back, I still didn’t enjoy that in particular because unlike the Thais who douse anyone with water as a cleansing ritual and to welcome the New Year, these foreigners were simply just picking on any unwary or unsuspecting passer-bys whom they know cannot retaliate. I really dreaded what is to come the day after.

Oddly, even though a lot of the Thais may are also just playing with the water, the Thai people themselves give us a lot more respect than the foreigners. Even while they might not actually be discriminating when splashing someone, they warned me in advance so I am ready for it. When they don’t, they just throw the water at my torso or lower body. Since this is part of their culture, I take it in my stride and either smiled or wave at them when it happens. Unlike the foreigners, no one deliberately “cums to my face” with their hoses or super-soakers, even when they are clear that I don’t mind getting splashed. After that, it’s no holds barred. I get splashed by the mobile squads on a pickup coming in the other direction or passing me by on the road. At times they come at me from the sides when I passed by their shops. I even recalled the Tuk-Tuk stopping by a traffic light and a pickup was just 2 car lengths ahead. A Thai chap smiled at me and then dipped his scoop into his barrel of water. As the Tuk-Tuk started moving past him, I quickly shout a warning to my friends to be ready and before I am even done with my warning, we were splashed. I realised that once I am wet from top to bottom, it simply means I am a “free-for-all” target for anyone. After a while, I just get used to it since for the entirety of April 13th, my friends and I went through several cycles of drying up and then getting completely soaked again. My only regret is that I didn’t have to equipment to keep my camera dry or the water resistant cameras which would allow me to snap photos of the Thais enjoying themselves, and I should have gotten myself a super-soaker too.


Photo Courtesy of xinyun.sg

The Songkran allowed me to experience the Thai culture up close and unlike Chinese New Year in Singapore, it was a lively affair. From the chap spraying water at us with his water soaker while dancing to the loud music (see photo), to the chap running after our Tuk-tuk with a bucket of water shouting in Teochew – tan! tan! tan! (meaning: wait! wait! wait!) – it brought my friends and I lots of joy and laughter. Perhaps this is what happiness is all about, as for that one day they forget all their worries and enjoy themselves with abandon. Comparatively, we find Chinese New Year in Singapore a chore of constant feasts and dealings with pesky relatives asking dreadful questions. I find Singapore exceedingly boring, pressurised and mundane. Perhaps that’s the difference between a tourist and a resident of the area, though I will still insist the food in Phuket – even just their fried rice – is way better than that of Singapore. I won’t be surprised that at the rate we are going, sooner or later tourists will find no better reasons to visit Singapore where things are expensive and food really taste terrible. (Just today my colleagues from Germany who are here on business told me that the Pad-Thai at a Thai restaurant was terrible. The portion is small and there was more tofu than meat. Whatever happened to our reputation of being a ‘food paradise’? While those who own homes may not be affected by housing rents, this is a testimony that commercial rents is certainly killing businesses – at least the eateries. They are resorting to cutting down on costlier ingredients to stay profitable.)

Anyway, here are the photos I managed to take on this trip when it is relatively safe to take out my camera (or my mobile or tablet).

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Revisited – Phuket, Thailand

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This my second visit to Phuket. Before the trip, I have been repeatedly asked by many kind people why I am still going to Thailand in spite of the chaos. Even my parents are worried.

Either way, I confirmed with friend who went up the week before and he told me there was no trace of tension or unrest over in Phuket. On top of that, another friend was in Bangkok. If I am not wrong, he stayed just a few junctions away from where the red-shirt protesters were holed up and the fact that he could tweet about his situation there tells me that even in Bangkok, much of the Thai capital is safe. I was not very concerned with what goes on in Bangkok and to be frank, I was actually more concerned with an earlier quake down at Sumatra. After all, I had already taken leave, booked the tickets and hotel rooms. I am quite sure I would be perfectly pissed for the rest of the year if another tsunami wiped out the beaches in Phuket.

Why am I going Phuket again? It’s because I just wanted to get away from Singapore – where every road is always congested and everywhere is full of people. I just want to go to a place where I could get away from the crowd here to just laze around and relax, even if I am not doing much sightseeing or shopping.

Either way, this round I didn’t get out to Phi Phi Island again, even though I originally wanted to go. The reason was that I was running short of Thai currency and end up spending a lot of time near the vicinity of the resort (Phuket Island View) at Karon bordering Kata and two nights sipping beer and looking at ‘ladyboys performing’ over at Bangla Road in Patong.

If I compared it to the last resort (Woraburi) I stayed in, the room Phuket Island View is just passable. I didn’t quite like this because there wasn’t enough power points in my room to go around (I had to ‘steal’ from one of the bed lamps), the air-conditioning was weak on the first day until a technician came by to fix it, and the water pressure at the shower was pathetic. However for the price difference (almost 6000 baht if I remembered correctly) between Woraburi and Phuket Island View, it is difficult to complain. The consensus is that we’ll still go back to Phuket Island View as long as prices stayed at that range. After all, we don’t really spend that much time in the room.

So as usual, here are the photos from this trip.

~~~ * ~~~

Back to the situation in Bangkok, as I am writing this post the Thai army is clearing and in fact, has cleared the area where the ‘Red Shirts’ are holed up in. Around 1500 ~ 1530 hrs Singapore time, it was reported that the leaders have surrendered, and two of them have been arrested. The rest will surrender to the police soon after.

My personal opinion is that democracy cannot come to a land when there is no rule of law and a strong and vibrant middle class. The government gahmen must also have a vision for nation building – a ground plan on how the country should proceed for the next 10 ~ 15 years, whether it remains in power or not. A gahmen can claimed itself to be democratic, but it is not just about free elections and universal suffrage. When a country does not have these fundamentals, then its elected gahmen will be as fragile as Thailand’s.

Anyway, I sympathise with the ‘Red Shirts’ for several reasons. First of all, it wasn’t the ‘Red Shirts’ who started this entire mess. The so-called People Alliance for Democracy or ‘Yellow Shirts’ did much worse back in 2008. While the ‘Red Shirts’ have generally stationed in central Bangkok, the ‘Yellow Shirts’ created trouble not only in Bangkok but all over Thailand. Secondly, most of the ‘Red Shirts’ are generally just poor people from the poorer north and northeast regions of Thailand. The People’s Power Party (PPP) gahmen they supported after the last election in December 2007 was removed through a combination of street violence, political intrigue and what I called ‘judicial wizardry’. Not only were two Prime Ministers, Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat ousted, the PPP was ultimately dissolved. It was the political equivalent of razinjg the stronghold to the ground after killing the leaders. Lastly, while the police had issued arrest warrants for Sondhi Limthongkul and 8 other ‘Yellow Shirt’ protest leaders on charges of insurrection, conspiracy, unlawful assembly and refusing orders to disperse, no action has been taken against them until today.

The military operation in central Bangkok may have ended the protest and the violence but it will not end the deep rooted resentment of the poor in Thailand against the more affluent or those considered to be the social elite. The people will pay close attention to the action taken against the ‘Red Shirt’ protest leaders now in custody and it is unlikely that the political situation in Thailand will normalize in the near future.

I will remember Bangkok May 19th, 2010 the way I remember Beijing June 4th, 1989.

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Phuket

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This is my first visit and I arrive on Wednesday (16-Sep) to a… rainy Phuket. It was quite a turn off and all of us were quite disappointed, since the main objective was the sun and the nice beaches there. Anyway, the weather did start to clear up a little in the afternoon and the days after, though we get rain often in the early hours of the morning.

The sand on the beach is very fine, not the variety you get at the old playgrounds in Singapore (which we don’t see anymore these days). The waves are rather deceptive and while it laps harmlessly at the shores some distance away at times, the next one could rush up all the way and one would find himself knee deep in water. The pull back of the waves is so strong and I almost fell into the water once. My friends who went swimming had a ‘near death’ experience as they struggled against the waves back to the shore when they got too far out. The lifeguard appeared a little upset as he blew his whistle loud and repeatedly while he waited impatiently for them to come back nearer to the shore. (I personally didn’t understand why he wasn’t down in the water though, but it was later we saw him running back with a surf board while we headed back to the rooms.)

Beyond the beach, my first impression when looking at some of the more urban areas near Karon beach was that it’s like Singapore stuck in the 80s. There doesn’t seem to be too much traffic around either around the beach areas (or at least the areas I am in) and all transport are either by hiring private cars (and if more than 4 then they are SUVs and Minibus) or the ‘Tuk Tuk’. One can bargain a little before the trip starts and usually you might get a 50 – 100 baht discount off the regular price from the drivers. As for taxis, I recalled I only saw one taxi on the way from the airport to the resort.

At the later stage of our trip we have given up on the ‘Tuk Tuk’ and just hire a private car to take us to the Phuket shooting range. There is a counter at the resort’s lobby which will call one for us. Surprisingly, one can also bargain at the counter. The driver will show up usually like 10 ~ 15mins later (or at an arranged time). This is where we befriended one of the drivers and he complained a little about how the ‘Mafia Tuk Tuk’ (i.e. ‘Tuk Tuk’ syndicates) makes life difficult for those driving hired private cars. For e.g. if he gets a call to pick up a passenger in Karon and then drop people off in Patong, he will have to return with his empty vehicle to Karon or respond to another call before he can pick up another passenger. If there’s a prior agreement to a return trip as well, then he park and serve as a tour guide as long as the passengers did not object to it. He seems to be unhappy that the ‘Mafia Tuk Tuk’ work in concert to drive the cost up for all tourists even though he agrees it doesn’t really matter to the White Men as their powerful Euros, Pounds and American Dollars makes everything cheap to them in Thailand after the currency exchange.

I joked with my friends that we have ‘Mafia Tuk Tuk’ in Singapore too, the largest being Comfort Delgro. We agreed that if the government gahmen isn’t strong enough to be in control, then another power will always step in. While it is not necessary good for these syndicates to fix prices and run others out of business, it also creates and maintain some semblance of control. At least now tourists don’t end up being charged / cheated by ‘Tuk Tuk’ drivers quoting ridiculous fares. In a way, it is really a double edged sword and nothing we would complain about.

As for the shops at normal tourist locations like Patong, the driver says that the prices for some items are usually inflated once the people there identify us as foreigners. The ladies in our group usually help us to bargain the prices down and that is when I noticed that some of those shops there are now run by foreigners from Myanmar and India.

After arranging with the driver for another trip, he took us to a place where the seafood is nice and cheap that night. The place looked a little remote and like Punggol in Singapore in the past. On the last day, he took us to the night market at Phuket Town, and also arranged for a minibus to pick us up and send us back to the airport. Apparently, it’s a business some of the drivers in Phuket run at the sides in the face of the limitations placed by the ‘Mafia Tuk Tuk’.

In general, the food in Phuket is nice, and I think they probably watered down their Tom Yam way too much to make it not spicy for the tourist. The coffee they made is great and it puts all the coffee made in Starbucks, Coffee Bean, TCC etc to shame. (Hey, at least I didn’t feel more thirsty after I drink their coffee and I can’t say the same about our coffee here!) There’s obviously no problem with hygiene there since I didn’t get a stomach upset for all the 5 days I am there. Even though the water from the taps in the hotel can come out brown at times, all you need to do is let it run for awhile and it will then be clear. That was a clear sign you can’t drink it off the tap though among the guys, we just boil it and drink it anyway, at times without checking whether the water that comes out of the tap is ‘naturally colored’ or not! Either way, it did taste a little funny but we couldn’t really quite sure what it tasted like.

As to the locals, most of them are friendly though not all of them are conversant in English. None of them were actually outwardly rude. However, it might take one some time to get use of their accent and English pronunciation. Being a non-English speaking country and where it only started teaching English in schools only recently, one has to give the Thai people credit for trying to accommodate us and attempt to speak our language to serve us.

It wasn’t long that our trip in Phuket ends, and because of the weather we didn’t manage to take a boat out to the surrounding islands like Phi Phi. I guess I’ll be returning again to visit those places some time next year.

So long, Phuket… see you again next year.