We checked into the Coast Mansion where the 3 boys shared a room and the 3 girls shared another one. It wasn't too bad--definitley an upgrade from our hostel in KL. It was a private room with our own TV, Bathroom, A.C., and Refrigerator. What more could you ask for? Oh, they also gave some weally good advice about Phuket:
And you know, they were not lying. the sun is brutal here. But more about that later...We decided to get something to eat before exploring the night life. Bushrangers is an Australian bar and grill that looked nice, so we decided to eat there instead of going to a Thai restaurant. Jackie, Alice and I were a bit disappointed that we weren’t at a Thai restaurant but we wanted to accommodate our european friends so we all ordered Pad Thai.
We waited for at least an hour and a half for everyone to get their food but OH MY GOODNESS. This was hands down the best Paad Thai in the entire world. It was simply amazing; we are talking last meal kind of amazing. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of it because I did not know before I tasted it that it would be an explosion of deliciousness in my mouth. baaaah. But seriously, I would fly back to Phuket just for this pad thai. mmmmmm.
Anyway, so after dinner, the six of us headed out to Bang La road. Thailand is known as being a sex tourism destination and it was very apparent on this street. We just walked around and went to a few outdoor bars and played these funny games that local girls play with tourists to get them to buy them drinks. For example: the game is very simple. find a pick piece of wood. place it on a stand. stick nails into the wood. go around in a circle and try to hammer the nail into the wood. first person who gets their whole nail into the wood wins:
1.
(the set up)
2.
(jackie's attempt)
3.
(me hitting the nail, YES!)
4.
(Us wit the locals)
It was a pretty fun night :P
1.
(the set up) 2.
(jackie's attempt)3.
(me hitting the nail, YES!)4.
(Us wit the locals)It was a pretty fun night :P
The next day (Thursday) we were planning on waking up early to go to the beach in the morning. But it was harder than expected to get out of bed so we didn’t make it to the beach until noon…which wouldn't have been a problem if we weren't supposed to take a ferry to Ko Phi-Phi at 1:30. So we took a quick swim and then headed out to the pier. The water was beautiful and the perfect temperature to just lie in. The beach itself was a little touristy, but oh well, we still had a great time. Here is us with our friend J.J. (who is teaching English in Korea):The ferry ride to Ko Phi-Phi was not what we expected. We were stuck on the bottom of what seemed like a cargo ferry, there was oil leaking on me, and it smelled like cabbage. But other than that, we made it there in 2+ hours safe and alive. We had to wait a little bit for our water taxi to take us to Phak Nam (which is the bay that our bungalow was on) so we walked around Phuket Town for a little.
Side note: There are no cars on the island so wherever you travel, you must hire a water taxi. even if it is 3 am and the tide is low...
Once we got to Phi-Phi Relax Resort, we knew we had made the perfect housing decision. The water is an indescribable turquiose and the sand is so white.
Side note: There are no cars on the island so wherever you travel, you must hire a water taxi. even if it is 3 am and the tide is low...
Once we got to Phi-Phi Relax Resort, we knew we had made the perfect housing decision. The water is an indescribable turquiose and the sand is so white.
It was the only one on that beach and I felt like we had the whole thing to ourselves. This is where we met up with the other SMU students. We split into groups of three and got little bungalows. They were so cute and cozy, but they were not airtight so we have more than a few mosquito bites.
On Thursday night we just stayed at our resort and watched the stars on the beach. The five girls and Guillaume (my roommate from France) decided that we wanted to go on a 7-hour snorkeling tour the next day, so we went to bed early.
Friday morning we headed out in a little boat with our boat driver/tour guide who could NOT speak English to snorkel and see a few of the other islands that were around Phi Phi. The snorkeling was incredible because the water was so clear. We saw all kinds of different fish and coral. We also saw jellyfish at Mosquito Island, which was my favorite snorkeling stop. The movie “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed in Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh, so of course we had to go there and take lots of pictures. It was probably the most impressive and beautiful of the places we saw, but because it is so famous there were a lot of people and boats. This is a picture of me in Maya Bay! The opening to the left of me goes out to the ocean.
We had lunch on Monkey Beach, which is so named because of the wild monkeys that live there. However, they are so tame to tourists that they weren’t that cool to see.
They were so fat from being fed bananas by tourists that they wouldn’t move AT ALL to get a banana. You literally had to shove it into their hand for them to take it. The lunch that our resort made for us was amazing and they packed fruit as well. The fruit here is absolutely amazing. The pineapple is my favorite; it is so sweet! But we also had a whole watermelon and bananas. This is a picture of the girls at Monkey Beach...we though we should take a classic 'beach bums' picture.
They were so fat from being fed bananas by tourists that they wouldn’t move AT ALL to get a banana. You literally had to shove it into their hand for them to take it. The lunch that our resort made for us was amazing and they packed fruit as well. The fruit here is absolutely amazing. The pineapple is my favorite; it is so sweet! But we also had a whole watermelon and bananas. This is a picture of the girls at Monkey Beach...we though we should take a classic 'beach bums' picture.
Exhausted and tan, we arrived back to the resort at around 6pm. Because we had stayed at the resort the night before, we got a taxi boat into Phi Phi town where we had dinner and danced until about 2am. There was a fire show and lots of swedish people...apparently Ko Phi-Phi is where Scandinavians love to go for Holiday... Anyway, we found a taxi boat driver who said he would take us back to our resort, so we piled in but when we got to our bay, we started having a problem. It was low tide and since our bay is lined by a coral reef…we couldn’t get in. So it is now about 3 am and our group is tired, cold, wet and...a bit crabby. Basically, we were not happy and things got a little heated. Finally, our driver gave up and we took the half hour boat trip back to town. He said he would take us back in an hour or two when the tide came back in.So we went back to the club, which was now dead (but strangely not closed?) and I passed out on the beach until everyone started pulling me up to get back onto our water taxi. The bright side of all this was that just as we were arriving to Relax Resort, the sun was beginning to rise and it was so beautiful that it didn’t seem to matter that I hadn’t slept in nearly 24 hours. As soon as it was light though, I fell straight to sleep.
On Saturday we laid in the sun a bit when we woke up but then we took the ferry back to the mainland of Phuket to see a little more of the city. (I managed to get a Thai massage in though before I left for about $15 dollars! Thai massages are more pushing on pressure points and stretching of your muscles than rubbing them, but it was great. I’ll probably need another one when I go to Bangkok, don’t you think??)This is the only night of the trip we hadn’t planned for a hotel or hostel so we just picked a beach off the map and decided to grab a taxi over there to see if we liked it. The beach we picked was called Karon beach and it was definitely different than Patong. You might say it catered to an older crowd (think Florida). It was hilarious though and we found a really nice hotel right on the beach for a good price so we were happy. I mean...look at how nice it was:
...For dinner we went to a buffet at a different hotel where they had a live band followed by an Elvis impersonator named "Elvis Prasoot". It was hilarious because he was old and Thai. His accent just made the whole thing. 
Next we went to an outdoor market where they had every fake designer thing you could imagine. It was fun to look around but everyone is so pushy. The show you a ‘Rolex’ watch and if you ask if it is real they will say, “Same, same. But different.” It is now such a famous saying in SE Asia they sell t-shirts that say SAME SAME on the front and BUT DIFFERENT on the back. It’s pretty funny. Jackie and I bought these nice beach dresses for $7 dollars. We made a good bargain ;)
On Sunday morning/afternoon we tanned on Karon beach and it is a very Scandinavian destination, so much so that most signs are written first in Thai then in Swedish and then in English. here is a picture of us in our new dresses!
For dinner we tried a Swedish restaurant, which my roommate from Norway really liked because he is not very adventurous with food. For lunch we went to a real Thai restaurant and I had Paad Thai with Chicken Satay and again it was excellent but didn’t even compare to Bushrangers.Well our dinner ran little late and we were kind of cutting it close on getting to the airport for our flight back to Singapore. Of course I was trying to be cool, but I was freaking out on the inside. But as soon as we got to the airport, we saw our flight was delayed an hour!! All that worrying for nothing, but we would have had to run if it was on time. It is only an hour and a half flight, so before we knew it we were back in Singapore! Once again, I had an amazing trip, but it is so nice to be back.
It is now the official two-day public holiday of Chinese New Year, so all my classes are cancelled for the week! For the past two days, I have been laying around doing nothing because everything is closed. On top of that, the sun has taken a holiday as well because it has been too cloudy to maintain my tan by the pool. To celebrate the new year though, Jackie and I went to her uncle's house for dinner. We had fish and duck and all other sorts of yummies and it was nice to be in a "home" home. I really missed my family though and memories of past new years at my old house where the smell of freshly deep-fried eggrolls would fill the kitchen...mmm...
Anyway, after dinner I went to my friend Marcus' house who lives out in Jurong East (the suburbs of Singapore). He was having a Chinese New Year get together with his friends so we spent the night/morning playing Mah Jong and Rock Band. We also decided to go for some Prata at around 4am. It was delicous. I promise to start taking pictures of all my food so you can see what it looks like. :P (btw, I won 12 dollars in Mah Jong. Quite a lot when the buy in was 20. haha. they were all pretty impressed at my skills. I was just happy I was able to pick up Singapore style which is 13 tiles instead of the normal 16 that I usually play).
I really didn't take any pictures of Singapore as they were celebrating the new year, sorry Mom... But here are a couple from the decorations in Chinatown:
(yay year of the ox!)Ok, I apologize that this post is RIDICULOUSLY long and I’ll be amazed if more than three of you make it to the bottom!
But, I Love you and miss you all!
GONG SHI FA TSAI!!!
<3 Hootie
