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Patong Beach in Phuket which was one of the beaches devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 |
It appears that four months down the road, Phuket has recovered from the tsunami that struck suddenly on Boxing Day in 2004. Though it's a stretch to say that you'll be hard pressed to find signs of devastation, you certainly won't notice it unless you're intentionally looking out for it. Well, in the Patong area at least.
Patong, 15km west of Phuket Town (which has recently been upgraded to city status), is the most developed and most crowded of the many beaches. The beach itself is an impressive 3km long stretch of clean, white sand lapped by crystal-postcard clear waters and ringed by lush, green hills, though I hear that it's much cleaner now after the tsunami swept through the coast.
While the tsunami has cost thousands of lives and affected the livelihood of locals, enterprising locals have tried to turn it into a money-making tool. Throughout the Patong area, you'll find tsunami souvenirs like VCDs, photos and even t-shirts for sale. One t-shirt in particular struck me. It says on the front: "2001 Bomb Alert, 2002 SARS, 2003 Bird Flu and 2004 tsunami, what's next?" I thought that selling such tsunami souvenirs bordered on bad taste especially when some of the photos were of dead bodies, but well, if there were no demand, there would be no supply. Also, I guess the locals do need to make money now that tourism arrivals are less than half of what it used to be. On Patong beach, you see more deck chairs than tourists and even during the trip to Phang Nga bay, there were only the two of us on the minibus that took us there.
In Patong, we stayed in Marine Inn, a small guesthouse which cost us 400 baht a night. However, it was situated in a quiet part of Patong. From our guesthouse, it was a mere five minutes walk to Patong beach but it took at least ten minutes to reach Soi Bangla which is where most pubs are bars are situated. And in case you're wondering, we didn't visit any. At night, Soi Bangla transforms into the entertainment hub of Patong. This is also where you'll see old Caucasian men holding on to young Thai girls as they stroll down the streets, transvestites dancing on bar tops, men shoving pictures of scantily clad girls into your face and, well, you get the picture.
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View of the Patong area |
However, Phuket is not all booze and sleaze at night. There're scores of places where you can shop for cheap imitation goods too. I must add however, that the goods look the same as they did 3 years ago when I visited Bangkok. Isn't it time to update your inventory folks? Besides shopping, there're also a couple of internet cafes where you can surf the internet for as cheap as 1 baht per minute.
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Food stall in Patong which sells barbecued chicken, squid, etc |
On day two, we got up early in the morning to prepare for our trip to Phang Nga Bay which was in Phang Nga province. We had booked the tour for 900 baht per person the day before. From our guesthouse, we were transported by minibus to Phang Nga Bay in a journey which took more than an hour. Along the way, we passed by the temporary mortuary for the tsunami victims. Also, as we headed north, we could see more signs of the destruction that the tsunami wreaked along the coast. In certain areas, we could see that trees had been uprooted and according to John, our tour guide for the day, Khao Lak which is further up north, is badly devastated and would take years to recover.
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Sea-canoeing into one of the many caves in Phang Nga Bay |
Anyway, as we reached Phang Nga Bay, we could see why it attracts so many tourists. It was simply beautiful. The entire area was dotted with limestone islands which soar perpendicularly from the water. To get closer to the limestone islands, it was necessary to go by boat. The package we had included traveling by a longtail boat around the bay. Our first destination within the bay was a place where we could go sea-canoeing. As we boarded a boat docked beside the area where we were supposed to canoe into, we had to leave all our stuff onboard and just take our valuables and cameras with us onto the canoe. And surprise, surprise, we didn't actually have to canoe. As we went on a canoe, our boatman did all the work paddling us around the limestone islands and into hidden passageways and caves while we relaxed, admired the scenery and took lots of pictures. It was a great experience especially when after going through a dark tunnel, we emerged into an enclosed area within the island, evoking a sense of adventure and making us feel like explorers, albeit with lots of camera-toting tourists around us.
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Khao Ping Kan- The longtail boat which brought us here is pictured in the foreground |
From here, we went on to Khao Ping Kan where we could see the famous Khao Tapoo, or what is commonly known as James Bond Island after a James Bond film was shot there. Anyway, the moment we landed on Khao Ping Kan, we were confronted by scores of aggressive souvenir vendors (okay I'm exaggerating here, one very aggressive souvenir vendor) who clung on to us and pleaded with us to buy their stuff. In the end, I succumbed and bought a shell engraved with the image of James Bond Island. After that, I decided to steer clear of the vendors. Khao Ping Kan itself is very small. You can walk around it in a matter of minutes. On Khao Ping Kan, you can see a huge rock that looks like it's been sliced in two and one leaning on the other. Also from Khao Ping Kan, we can see James Bond Island which is a shore-less island which juts out of the sea, and with its wide top and narrow bottom, resembling a nail which is what Tapoo means in Thai.
Our next stop was the Muslim floating village on another island, Koh Panyee. It is a picturesque village beside a limestone island which rests on pilings and extends across the water. However, we did not get to stay for long. After our lunch, we only had about 30 minutes to explore the place. The areas closest to the restaurants consisted of souvenir shops but as you move on further, you can see the folks going about their daily chores like fishing, watching television and cooking. There was also a mosque but that was about all the time I had and I had to turn back after seeing the mosque.
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Koh Panyee- a Muslim floating village in Phang Nga Province |
From here, we went back to the pier and proceeded by land to a place where we could do some elephant trekking. This wasn't part of our itinerary and we did it because our guide kept bugging us. Anyway, the ride itself was pretty bad. I didn't know that riding an elephant was this uncomfortable. As it was a trek through the jungle, it was very bumpy and luckily, it only lasted for fifteen minutes because if it went on any further, I would have gotten elephant sick. The ride was made scarier by the fact that our elephant was clearly hungry. She kept stopping to grab some foliage off the ground but the handler kept poking her with a sharp stick to prod her to move on. At one point, she even pointed her trunk at him and bellowed. Fortunately, nothing else happened after he allowed her to eat eventually. Though it wasn't a fantastic ride, I guess you really got to try it to experience elephant trekking for yourself. Also, it looks as if the place is in need of some tourist dollars so if you could spare 400 baht, why not?
Our last stop was at Wat Suwan Khuha or Suwan Khuha Temple. It is in a limestone hill with various caves. The big cave is the lowest and it serves as the entrance. Within the cave itself, there are various Buddha images including one big reclining Buddha statue and there was even a monk in there who looked like he was meditating. As we proceeded further into the cave, we went on into smaller caves which went by the names of Bright Cave, Dark Cave and Crystal Cave. Within these caves, we could see beautiful stalactites and stalagmites. However, there was also a distinct smell due to the bats who inhabit the caves. Outside the caves, there are many monkeys and you can buy bananas for just 10 baht to feed these monkeys. From here, we were driven back to our guesthouse in Patong. The rest of the day was spent walking around the Patong area and shopping.
On the third day, we woke up early to grab some sun on the beach before we left Patong for Phuket Town. The beach umbrellas and deck chairs cost slightly more early in the morning (100 baht) as compared to the afternoon (80 baht). In general, the Patong area of Phuket is extremely touristy. Everywhere you went, there would be people calling out to you to buy something, take the tuk-tuk or whatever. Also, food is slightly more expensive than in other places and in most cases, blander as they've been adapted to cater to the western palate. After we checked out of our guesthouse after 12 noon, we took one of the blue songthaew (like a minibus) to Phuket Town for only 20 baht.
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Night market in Phuket Town |
When we arrived in Phuket Town, we could feel the difference immediately. Other than the tuk-tuk driver who kept bugging us and even tailed us when we got off the songthaew, there wasn't a lot of people who were bugging us to buy stuff and so on. Thus, you get the sense that Phuket Town is not so much for tourists and indeed, it wasn't. Other than the immediate area around Robinson and McDonald's, the rest of Phuket Town was quite devoid of tourists.
In Phuket Town, we checked into The Budget Hotel which is just behind the Thavorn Hotel on Thanon Rasada. The old Thavorn Hotel itself looks grand and opulent, though slightly decrepit, and it even has a museum on its ground floor which is open to the public. Overall, the design of the hotel harks back to a bygone era and if you stood still for a while, you could just imagine yourself back in the past. However, The Budget Hotel itself was much less grand. In fact, the first impression that Chuan Yew had of the hotel was that it was haunted. And indeed, it was not too much a stretch of the imagination to imagine a horror flick being shot here. The facade itself was plain and simple but it was the interior that tends to let your imagination run wild. An old, creaky elevator transported us to the fourth level and when the door opened, all we saw was a wide space with three dark corridors leading in separate directions. And as luck would have it, our room was right at the end of one of the corridors. Luckily, the room was clean and simple and we didn't encounter any spooks while we were there.
After checking in, we decided to explore Phuket Town. As our hotel was situated within the historic old district of Phuket Town, we decided to wander around its immediate vicinity. Nearby was the historic On-On Hotel which was featured in the "The Beach" and as we walked further, I found a quaint second-hand bookstore which sold books in various languages. As I quickly browsed through the racks, I decided to buy a book, "Gustavo y los miedos" for only 20 baht. Yes, it's a children's book but hey, my Spanish is so rusty that I can't even understand most of it. From here, we kept on walking and passed areas like the prison and various temples before we finally surrendered to the heat and decided to escape to the shopping malls around Thanon Tilok Uthit. At night, this area also has a night market with cheap food. There's also a night market near Thanon Kra and it's an interesting place to go because you won't see any tourists there.
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Monks on their alms rounds |
Early next morning, we woke up early to take the tuk-tuk to the airport for 400 baht to catch our flight on Tiger Airways. Along the way, we also passed by many saffron-robed monks who were going around barefoot for their daily alms rounds. This was something that I wanted to see before when I was in Vientiane but I missed it, so this marks a great end to my Phuket trip.
