Well, with less than two weeks to go before we have to return to the UK we decided to squeeze in another trip out of Kuala Lumpur. This time we find ourselves on the Island of Phuket in Thailand. We only arrived yesterday afternoon and having gone through immigration we went to the nearest taxi rank to find a ride to the hotel. At the booths outside the airport building they wanted 800 Baht so we decided to go with Grab which was priced at 750. The app found us a driver pretty quickly and we tried to wait in a spot where we could see him when he turned up. Unfortunately the app then notified me that he had arrived but we couldn’t see him anywhere. Then my phone rang and it was the driver asking where we were. A long conversation ensued during which I could barely understand anything he said other than he was not allowed to enter the airport. Not a lot of use when your customer is in the airport and absolutely unfamiliar with the surrounding area! I went into the app and cancelled the booking and off we went to pay our 800 Baht (about £20). Within a minute we had a driver and were on our way. It was a slightly nervous ride for 50 minutes or so as the driver was somewhat erratic in his driving. At one point I got the impression we were in a race with a large people carrier as the two of them seemed to compete with one another to be further ahead in a stream of quite fast moving traffic. The countryside along the way was very lush and green but most of the towns or villages we saw, looked run down and decrepit. There are telegraph poles (I think) with wiring of all sorts coming into them from all directions and each pole takes on the appearance of a huge ball of black spaghetti. If repairs were ever needed I wouldn’t want to be the poor bloke that has to sort that lot out.
On arrival at the hotel we walked into the reception and were instantly underwhelmed by our first impression of the place. After the magnificent reception area of the Wyndham Legend in Halong Bay, the reception of the Wyndham Grand here in Phuket was a bit of a let down to say the least. I get the impression that the hotel was probably built in stages as, since we’ve been here it turns out that there are at least three areas which function as receptions. To get to our room we have to go up three floors in the lift, then a short walk through what looks like a second reception and up another two floors in a different lift to get to the room. Once in the room, we both noticed a quite strong smell of musty wood. I’m guessing this can be attributed to the extreme humidity and the icy cold air conditioning. The room we had booked was meant to have two single beds but the receptionist asked if we would like a king sized bed. Obviously we said yes but we were unprepared for the actual size of the bed. We’ve travelled numerous times to the USA and seen some big beds in our time, especially in Vegas but this one certainly took the prize for the biggest. Later that night, instead of kissing goodnight as we’ve done for the last 30 odd years (romantic isn’t it?) we actually just waved to each other from a great distance! For some reason it reminded me of an old Spike Milligan sketch where he took the piss out of an Indian family sleeping in shifts in the same bed. That was back in the days when you could indulge in harmless piss taking without offending the snowflakes and then finding yourself vilified by the PC brigade. Anyway, they could have slept six or seven at a time in this bed or even more if they didn’t mind sleeping head to toe!
While we sat on the balcony after unpacking we watched a troop of elephants stroll past the hotel. There is an elephant sanctuary just round the corner from the hotel but these ones were heading in the opposite direction. Looking at the website for the sanctuary it appeared that they encourage people to take rides on the elephants with pictures of 3/4 people at a time riding one elephant. Lynne and I really don’t like this kind of thing and because of that, I don’t think we’ll be visiting. I also couldn’t help wondering why all of the men riding the elephants had to have what looked to me like a vicious looking rusty ice pick kind of thing. I’m including a not very good photo just to illustrate my point. I wonder if anyone knows, what on earth would they use that for?
Since writing that last paragraph I’ve looked at reviews of said elephant sanctuary and the prevailing sentiment seems to be that the general practices there are quite cruel. Lots of stories of the keepers hitting the animals with their spikes when they refuse to move and one reviewer points out that elephants aren’t naturally given to having humans riding on their backs. The ugly truth is that as young elephants they are tortured to break their spirit. The process even has a name, Phajaan or ‘the crush’. I make no apology for pulling the following excerpt from a review which details this horrific practice and perfectly answers my question about what I thought was some kind of ice pick but I now realise is the bull-hook mentioned in this review.
Phajaan or ‘the crush’.
It involves ripping baby elephants away from their mothers and confining them in a very small space, like a cage or hole in the ground where they’re unable to move. The baby elephants are then beaten into submission with clubs, pierced with sharp bull-hooks, and simultaneously starved and deprived of sleep for many days. Elephant mistreatment doesn’t stop after they’ve been tamed. Many elephant camps continue to employ bull-hooks to control the animals. While they may not be stabbing them constantly like they did in training, it’s the fear of being stabbed that’s used to motivate them to work. Elephants never forget!
As I write we are actually into our third day in Phuket and examples like the above have tipped us towards not liking it much so far along with the fact that there is also a so called Tiger sanctuary not far away, where, from everything I’ve been able to glean from the internet, it seems certain that the animals are kept in tiny cages and sedated so that the visiting public can safely pet them and have photos taken with them. At the risk of sounding self righteous in my outrage, I find it difficult to imagine this kind of thing can still be happening in an apparently civilised society and what kind of moron would pay to help perpetuate such practices? The human race? I despair! Rant over!!
Later that evening we walked out to a local restaurant that was Thai/Mexican called Salsa/Mexicana. We wanted to sit at a table overlooking the sea but it was raining and the waitress who I think might also have been the owner said we couldn’t as it was raining and she was concerned that we might get wet, however, the rain stopped soon after and she came over to see if we wanted to move. Consequently we had a glorious view over the sea for about ten minutes as we studied the menu, then it went dark and we couldn’t see a thing! We both ordered a huge bottle of beer each and I had steamed squid. I asked if there was anything else I might need with it just in case it wouldn’t be enough on it’s own. The waitress assured me that it would be plenty. I definitely needn’t have worried because when it came, it was the biggest squid I’d ever seen and I struggled to eat it all in spite of the fact that it was delicious! This was the only restaurant I’d ever been to where, amongst the many condiments on each table, was a mosquito spray! That was our first day in Phuket and not withstanding the elephants which we can do nothing about other than not patronise the place and therefore help to perpetuate their practices, it was just ok. I don’t want to go into another rant about the fact that somewhere in the hotel’s sales blurb was mention of a walk through to the beach. Never mind the fact that the nearest beach was in fact private and unavailable to us. The nearest beach we could actually access was almost two kilometres away!
The next day, after breakfast, which I have to say is probably one of the best we’ve ever had, we got the hotel shuttle into the main town of Patong. This is about 5 kilometres away and we can see it further along the coast from our hotel room. The shuttle dropped us in the car park of a large modern shopping mall. On entering the mall we immediately found ourselves in a large modern food hall. Within minutes I was drooling at the sight of lots of displays of cooked meats that looked so appetising that I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Lynne had to drag me away as I was making involuntary mewling sounds at the sight of a beautifully cooked brisket! Damn her and her vegetarianism!!😩
Having failed to pack a pair of shorts for swimming we proceeded to look around the mall and soon found that this place was not gonna be cheap. The only shorts I could see that I liked would have cost £77. Needless to say we carried on looking. Once we left the shopping mall we bumped into an Indian guy who sounded Australian. He engaged us in conversation and seemed nice until he gave us a ticket each. Then he asked us to open them at which point it turned out I had won a t-shirt. Can you see where I’m going with this? Lynne’s ticket turned out to be the jackpot. I can’t remember exactly what it was she was supposed to have won but one of the choices was a cruise amongst others. The only catch was, yes, there’s a catch. You already knew didn’t you. The catch was you had to go down the road and try to look interested in a presentation for some kind of new club. No, not time share, we’ve been had like that before. The whole thing would only take 90 minutes which as far as I was concerned was 90 too many. As I grabbed Lynne’s hand and started to walk away, our little Indian guy didn’t want to give up just yet because he could see his 1000 Baht commission slipping away. However, having had a similar very unpleasant experience years ago in Bali there was no way we were getting talked into wasting 90 minutes for some ‘prize’ which would most likely turn out not to exist anyway! When Lynne politely tried to decline by saying our ride back to the hotel was booked and we would miss it by giving up this 90 minutes he then said we will get you a taxi back to your hotel. At that point I had to tell him quite bluntly that we weren’t interested and it was not gonna happen! We left our Indian friend looking ever so slightly disgruntled and carried on walking.
I wish I could say that was the end of it but I would estimate that in the space of a little more than an hour walking the streets of Patong we were approached 7 or 8 times by similar people. Some would pull up on a motorbike and want to tell you about some amazing opportunity down the road somewhere and others would profess to being an ‘Aussie tailor’ wanting to make you a cheap suit. I’m walking along in shorts and a t-shirt sweating my nuts off in 35 degree heat, do I really look like I want a new suit just at that moment? Looking around at the array of clubs and pubs in such a small area Lynne and I both agreed that this place at night would probably be our idea of hell on earth. Shit, it wasn’t far off in the middle of the day when we couldn’t walk a hundred yards without being accosted by someone or other, whether they be pushing timeshares or shitty cheap sunglasses. I look around and wonder about the British people there, if that’s the kind of place they want, why not save your money and flight time and just go to Benidorm? By now you’ll be getting the impression that we didn’t like Patong very much and you’d be absolutely right. I can’t see any good reason why we would ever go back! I did manage to get a pair of shorts which cost slightly less than £77 at £12 so all is not lost! I’m including one photo taken on the beach at Patong just to break up the textual boredom in the unlikely event that anyone should ever read any of this! This image stood out for me as an illustration of how miserable it must be to be a Muslim woman. I don’t intend to be offensive in any way, but can you imagine dressing like that in such intense heat. Also, why on earth would you choose to push an empty pushchair around on a sandy beach?
That night we walked past the Mexican restaurant to the next one along which was called The Paradise Viewpoint Restaurant. As we arrived at the front door we startled a guy who looked like he’d just gotten comfortable and seemed shocked to see two potential customers. Walking in, a waitress led us to a table overlooking the sea. As we sat down I had the uneasy feeling that the whole deck upon which we were now sat was leaning precariously towards the sea. Our waiter turned out to be a frail old guy who looked to be having trouble standing up, let alone walking and there were lots of steps to negotiate between wherever the kitchen was and where we were sitting. We ordered two large beers which for some reason appeared to cause considerable consternation for the old chap. Three times he came back seeming to want to confirm that we wanted two large beers by using gestures to denote big and then two. The last time he came, it became obvious what the problem was. He asked, once more using gestures rather than words if we definitely wanted two large beers. YES! 🤬 Sorry, we’ve only got one, was the eventual answer. We had to settle for one large and one small as they only had one large bottle of beer. I can only imagine what might have happened if they’d had more than than one table to serve. What kind of restaurant has a menu but only keeps one of each item? The food was average at best and it won’t go down as even slightly memorable in terms of dining experiences but I felt so sorry for the old man who sat close by as we ate, presumably so that he could attend to anything else we might want, that he hadn’t got, that I tipped him as we left and shook his hand. Occasionally, just occasionally, mediocre food and questionable service can be negated by the sheer graciousness of the host who I’m sure for all his obvious frailty was doing his absolute best!
So, our second day in Phuket and not exactly a resounding success. I can already say with some certainty that we will never be coming here again!
Wandering Wildman 