It started right on my return from my last business trip to the U.S. I'd arrived back in China at about 8PM, and less than 24 hours later, we were on our way to the airport again for a red eye flight. In retrospect, what better way to take advantage of your jet lag?
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| Packed and ready to go! |
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| Shanghai Pudong airport finally updated their lounge! Good eats all around! |
We arrived at Phuket airport at a groggy 2 AM, when we had our first encounter with Phuket's extremely inefficient night time airport operations. For starters, despite at least four planes arriving in the middle of the night, there were only 3 customs agents that seemed to be working. Secondly, the first thing I looked for when arriving was a deck of "arrival cards" - I have experience having to fill these out in China. When I saw there weren't any, I assumed that we wouldn't need them, that is - until we got nearly to the end of the line when Cherry decided to wing it and go back to the information desk to ask for them. Why wouldn't you have these cards more readily available if every entrant needs to fill one out?!?
We didn't leave the airport until about 4:30 AM, at which point we took a taxi, which I found to be very clean and generally pleasant, quite in contrast to most taxis we find in China and in fact more similar to those we experienced in Japan. There is still a difference, however - taxis in Phuket don't have meters; instead there seems to be pre-assumed prices depending on the general region you want to go to.
We finally arrived at our resort at about 5:30 AM, at which point we took a shower and went
'sploring before we had the first of many excellent breakfasts at the resort:
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| Exploring our resort |
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| We see our beach at low tide |
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| The pool system is pretty sweet |
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| Not the first, but one our many excellent breakfasts! |
Then we took a loooooong nap.
After we got up, we took another overpriced cab ride over to Jungceylon Mall, which is in the Patong Beach area, where we got our first look at life in Phuket:
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| Phuket is quite clean and seems to have good infrastructure, but what is with these crazy telephone wire nests?!? |
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| The mall is pretty huge |
Not having any plans for the day, we decided to go and catch a movie - what better movie than Rogue One: A Star Wars Story?
The tickets were cheap, and it was actually my second time seeing the movie (I'd seen it on opening weekend a few days before at a company event). I enjoyed it just as much, if not more, the second time - I really think it might be my favorite Star Wars film of them all, despite some flaws in character development and spooky looking CGI human faces. Lukas especially loved the Darth Vader scene at the end!
After the movie, we took a walk down the (in)famous Bangla road, which is Patong Beach's main bar and club street, but also has a lot of cool seafood and Thai food restaurants along the way.
Finally, we took an iconic Tuk Tuk taxi back to the hotel - it's kind of like a tiny pickup truck with a tarp over it. Quite an experience careening through the mountains to get back to the hotel!
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| Our first (and sadly only) Tuk Tuk experience in Phuket |
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| Two riders per elephant for an hour in the wilderness |
Strictly speaking, the mahouts, or elephant drivers, are not supposed to dismount the elephants, but they did anyway to help us take some great photos!
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| Feeding the elephants after the hour-long ride |
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| Muay Thai Demonstration |
The photos above are from the pre-show activities in the park area, which included a Muay Thai demonstration as well as an elephant military procession!
Clearly, Thailand likes its elephants!
Stay tuned for Part 2!
