Phuket

Sunset in Phuket

After leaving Siem Reap it was off to Phuket, Thailand for beaches, beaches, and more beaches. If you're searching for beautiful weather, warm water, and relaxing massages and drinks on the beach under the sun Phuket's the place for you.

I stayed at Phuket for quite some time. It wasn't because I love the beach, I'm really not a beach person, but rather I was tired from traveling so much. I needed a place to rest and relax. I needed to stay put for a while, sleep in and do nothing. Now, I realize that all my traveling is probably viewed as a very extended vacation for most people reading, but traveling takes a lot out of you. My mind and body needed to rest so I did, and what nicer place to rest and relax than Phuket? I didn't do much other than eat, fix my computer's wifi problems, sleep, and I learned to scuba dive (more on this later).

Karon Beach Turnaround

Karon Beach

Karon Beach, very beautiful when it's not raining.

Karon Beach.. don't rent the Jet Skis... it's a scam.

You can rent a umbrella and chair... people come by selling drinks and ice cream.

It's not always pretty at the beach.


Speaking of not pretty... don't forget your sun screen at the beach. Me after 5 minutes in the sun with no sun screen... ouch!

It rained a lot while I was in Phuket. Lots of on and off showers. Pretty annoying for someone from Southern California.

My family freaking out over my stay in Phuket due to the huge typhoon! Huge typhoon? Yeah, the one that happened in 2004. Only problem? I was there in Nov of 2008. Yeah.....

I was surprised to see so many Europeans in Phuket. It was crawling with scandinavians. After that there were plenty of australians, english, and a few russians. There were very few americans, in fact I did not meet a single american while I was there. The lack of americans means all the restaurants showed soccer nonstop since none of their customers were american. Soccer? really? come on. Luckily for me if I needed my NFL fix I was able to tune into some games via the internet. See my post on how to do so.

I had an encounter with a rather large and fat sweedish man. My guess is he was about 6'4" and maybe 280 pounds. He was fat, but still, much larger than me. I'm 5'11" and while traveling dropped to 158 pounds. Well anyway I was eating dinner at a restaurant and he had too much to drink. He sat down at my table rather belligerently. Not wanting any trouble I tried to diffuse the situation by trying to find common ground. I asked if he was sweedish, and when he confirmed I brought up Peter Forseberg, one of the premier NHL players during the mid to late 90s and early 2000s. He replied with "Peter Forseberg? F*** you!" Not knowing how to respond, I said "what? Peter Forseberg is awesome, F*** YOU!" Yeah... that will diffuse a situation alright. He challenged me into why I thought Forseberg was awesome. Well, I was an avid NHL fan for many years and so I easily brought up his game winning shootout goal in the olympics for gold (which became a stamp), his beautiful abilty to handle the puck and protect it, and how while carrying the puck he'd hit the player trying to to hit him, not to mention the Stanely Cups he won... and even during penalty kills the time he just skated around by himself causing Chris Pronger to get so pissed and slash Foppa causing another penalty. Peter Forseberg is a national hero in sweeden for these reasons, but mainly for the gold medal in the olympics. Anyway, our big fat belligerent sweed here seemed rather impressed that I knew what I was talking about and said "I love you" and kissed me on the forehead. Um.... if he had been a smaller guy I might have punched him for that... but he was drunk and maybe it's a sweedish thing to kiss other dudes. I Don't know. Anyway, he put his hand in an arm wrestling position and motioned for me to clasp it sort of like shaking hands. It was a little risky, but I decided to accept and it wasn't the friendliest of hand shakes but I did it anyway. I said I was America. He said "How can you be American?" Um.... my country just elected a minority president....you know, there are lots of minorities in America. But whatever, dumb drunk guy.

An english man later told me that beer is so expensive in sweeden that sweeds don't drink a lot; so once they get to Thailand (a major tourist spot for sweeds) they tend to binge drink due to the low prices. Well, since they don't drink much at home they don't really know their limits and become known for being douches. I don't know how that is, after all it is a generalization, but this guy was the only sweed I met on the trip. It was interesting to say the least.

There are a few different beaches in Phuket. I stayed in Karon and Kata beach. These beaches are quieter and not quite a lively as Patong Beach. I skipped Phi Phi Island which is supposed to be the most beautiful beach there because it was quite expensive and I still had more places to go.

para gliding at Kata Beach

Kata Beach

Kata Beach

Kata Beach, it's not always pretty... man with nasty speedo.

Kata Beach



I posted this before... but I'm posting it again. While I was in Phuket protesters took over the Bangkok airport. However in Phuket this was about as bad as it got... as nasty old man with his bar girl.

Topless girl. The scandinavians and russian women are known for going topless. It's not always a good thing. yeck.
From behing it's not much better.... gag. Ok I know most people get pictures of the young good looking girls ... well let me tell you, thre aren't many of them. This is reality. Reality bites sometimes, either that or I've got a slight masochistic streak.

Thai kids playing in the water.

There's lots of bars lined up along the street. It's not in a building you can see everything going on. Lots of thai girls, or thai boys playing pool or looking bored. Plenty of foreigners visit them. I stayed in Karon and Kata which is not really known for exciting night light so I couldn't really give you the scoop on that sort of thing. Still, the women are cheap and I saw plenty of men buy the bargirl for the week or however long. The bar girls would then be the constant companion provided the man pay for all her expenses. It's a little nasty seeing all these old europeans with these young girls, but hey, whatever floats their boat. I heard the rate was about $30 USD for a week. I could be wrong, I only got 2nd hand information.

Lady boys inside for you!

Walking by these establishments can't be avoided if you're planning to get around by walking, though I should mention Phuket's not really a walking city. It has poor public transporataion. Anyway, all these "women" (I swear some were guys..... or really ugly women with deep voices) would yell at me to come join them. None of them though I was American so they'd yell at me with cries of "mushi mushi", or "ni hao" or "anyon ha say yo", basically greetings in japanese, chinese, and korean.

There are always cries of "where you from", not only from bar girls but from people trying to sell you things. The reason they ask this is so they can set the rate at which to charge you. If you come from a rich country, you get charged more. Just say you're from Jamacia. That's a tip I got from world ramblers.

Phuket Airport... time to leave.

I stayed in Phuket when the airport in Bangkok got taken over by protesters. In Phuket things were pretty calm, everything was business as usual. There was really nothing to be freaking out over. The airport did seem busy, but it was working. There were no hold ups in Phuket. I Think the extra traffic was from people trying to leave Thailand or trying to fly into Bangkok. They would opt to use Phuket as their airpot an then travel by train to Bangkok.

Map of Phuket