Travel to Phuket

Now my parents are back in Oregon, and we are trying to get back to our "normal routine," so I will find time to chronicle our adventures together. The Monday after my parents arrived, we traveled by airplane to Phuket, an island off the west coast of Thailand. The girls were excited to fly, although I had warned them many times it would be very different from our last flight. Meriel kept reminiscing about her personal television screen and getting to drink lots of apple juice. On this one hour and twenty minute flight, there were no television screens and juice cost extra. Despite this, the girls still enjoyed looking out the window at the clouds, ocean, and coastline.

Upon arrival, we were to have been met by the Swiss manager of Patong Rose Guest House with a van. He was not waiting for us and had not left a message on my phone. When we called him, he explained that he had been involved in a vehicle accident and could not come to meet us. When my father asked him on arrival, he said something about a car door hitting another car, so I'm not entirely sure that it precluded his coming to pick us up. We found out that he manages (foreigners can't really "own" business or property in Thailand) three guest houses and a restaurant, trying to do most of the odd jobs himself and is really stretched too thin. This situation happens fairly often here, so we took it in stride and hired a van from the airport at twice the cost. This driver was impatient as we buckled our car seats and children in. (See my previous post regarding our decisions for "safe travel.") Then off he went, stopping at a travel agency on "the way." After looking at the map on his phone, Philip was later able to figure out he had taken us way out of the way. We had already booked all our plans for the trip, so it was not a profitable stop for the agency. The driver probably got a cup of coffee and who knows what else for his trouble; he also got an extra 20-30 minutes of Simeon screaming.

The guest house was clean with smallish rooms, barely draining sinks, and a broken light in one of the bathrooms. The staff was friendly and helpful, and we probably could have done much worse for the price in the touristy area of Patong Beach. The owner/manager pretended to be surprised by the number of children we had (he had been informed previously through e-mail and a phone call) and thus deigned to be gracious by allowing two children free of charge in each room instead of the usual one per room. We just told him, "Thank you." The main feature of our trip to Phuket was scuba diving. Scuba Cat had given us the name of a guest house right near their shop and was expecting my father and I to check-in with them. We got all our stuff up the narrow flights of stairs and into the rooms and then headed to the dive shop. The staff all wanted to meet the children. After the usual hand shakes and smiles and name exchanges, we explained that we were all very hungry. Debbie at the shop recommended Sabai Sabai as a local place that was not so expensive and had good food.

Sabai Sabai did have delicious food, expensive compared to our local Bangkok restaurants, but about on par with the eateries in the area. My first meal, the garlic shrimp, was delicious. Then we took Philip, Grandma, and the kids to play on the beach while Grandpa and I went back to the dive shop to get everything set for our dives the next day. We then made the three minute trip (two minutes to walk down the street, one minute waiting for an opening in the traffic to cross the beach front street) back to the beach. Philip had told the kids that they couldn't play in the water because we hadn't gotten them ready for it. With great restraint, I managed to keep myself from even touch the sea. I knew that it would cause my children frustration and resentment, even if they did not know how to express it, if I did so. We played in the sand for a few minutes before heading off to find a local grocery store for supper, breakfast, and snacks.

To get to the Big C, we had to walk down a street line with bars. Hollis called them "special restaurants" and kept saying, "No more special restaurants!" as we passed each one. We then had to walk through a fancy mall and finally reached the grocery store. It was crowded with Russians doing the same thing we were doing. After browsing back and forth, we managed to find chips, soda, bread, milk, yogurt, cups of noodles (we had a hot pot and refrigerator in our room), oats, and fruit. It was nearly dark by the time we checked out and headed home. We saw mini song-thaew (mini pick-up trucks) outside touting themselves as tuk-tuks (everyone wants to ride a tuk-tuk; nobody has heard of a song-thaew). We decided it would be wort 60 baht to us for a ride back to our guest house. I guessed they would quote 200 baht. I was right on, so we walked back "home."

We heated water, ate our noodles, and got ready for bed. Hollis, our most adventurous, chose to sleep with Grandma and Grandpa. We missed her some, but the five of us managed to settle down and get a fairly good, if a little restless night sleep after a busy day of travel and new experiences. Good night, Phuket!