The Andaman Sea Islands Part I - Phuket

So I was able to survive a little over a week in one of the most over-touristed (yes, I realize it isn’t a word) areas in the world. But did I have fun? Read on for our adventures on the Andaman Coast in southern Thailand. We split our time between Phuket (the LP claims it is pronounced “poo-get” but I think it is “poo-ket”) and Koh Phi Phi (“pee-pee”). Yep that’s right, poo and pee in the same sentence. Does it get any better?

Phuket is famous for its beautiful beaches (the white sand and various amazing shades of blue water), nightlife and swarms of farang – and of course the Tsunami of late 2004. Rest assured, the areas hit by the Tsunami have been rebuilt and the tourists are back. Phuket is a huge island – the main town (interestingly enough, called Phuket town) has a population of over 70,000. There are quite a few good beaches on the island, each with its own little town – built up for the tourists. In fact I have never been somewhere with more tourists or more catered to tourists. I knew this going in, but I was still amazed at the craziness of it. But more on that later.

Finding a Place to Stay
We decided to just show up in Phuket and find a place to stay. We knew it was still the high season for tourists, but figured it wouldn’t be so hard. However, it was Chinese New Year and one of the busiest weeks of the year, so it turned into a little bit more of a challenge than we thought. We decided on the plane that we should stay in Kata Beach, which the LP said had great beaches and was a bit more laid back than other areas. Our cab ride from the airport took around 45 minutes – and our cabbie actually had a Chicago key chain! He basically did a double-take when I told him I was from Chicago (and yes, I do realize I am not from there) and got all excited and showed us the key chain. He then told us how long he works and about his family. And then he got a call on his cell phone and was on the phone for the rest of the ride (turns out “cell time” is the majority of the time he gets with his family).

So he drops us in the middle of town and we decide to walk down (note we have all of our stuff with us) and check out the beach and check out some hotels. After about a 20 minute walk I am completely dripping in sweat. We stop at a little café to get some coffee and come up with a “strategery.” After making about 10 calls and finding 10 places that are booked, we decide to divide and conquer. Which means Margaret goes and finds a place and I sit and drink my coffee (someone had to watch the bags dammit!). Anyway I think I got the worst of the deal as some British dude sees me sitting alone and decides he can play me for the chump. So he sits down and tells me that he is sorry to bother me, but that he got his ass kicked by some “Thai youths” last night (he did look like someone smacked him around) and they stole his wallet which had all his money and credit cards and blah blah blah – and could I “lend” him some money. And when I said no he looked at me for a second and then slammed his fists down on the table. And I’m thinking I haven’t even been in Phuket for an hour and here we go. But he just got up and stormed off. So I finished my coffee and then saw Margaret walking up.

So it turns out she checked 8 places and the first 7 were full. The last one had one room left that we could have for four nights, so we took it. It was a cute little place called P&T Kata Guesthouse – small, cheap, clean (read the sign if you don't believe me) and family run. The AC kicked ass, the shower had hot water and other than the hardest bed ever, the place was a great deal. On one of the busiest weeks their racked up rate was $18 a night. And the family was so nice – one of them was always there, and it was usually most of them. A lot of the times they were all in the main room (lobby) watching TV and eating. And that is another thing I have noticed about Thai families – they probably rival Americans as far as how much TV they watch. One morning we were up super early to go on a Sea Kayaking trip (much more on that later) and as we were waiting for our transportation we saw the morning ritual for the family – breakfast (while watching TV of course) and then they got their little daughter ready for school and a moped came to pick her up and the family saw her off. So adorable – and yes I realize that sounds dangerously conceded of me – but it really was. So, even if it is Chinese New Year, not booking ahead of time can be a great idea (this of course reminds me of Oktoberfest – Nehm, AJ and “Orange Max”).

Impressions, Thoughts and a Few Stories
Ok – so impressions of Phuket, a few stories and some random thoughts. And not in much order I’m afraid. Phuket is almost beyond belief. It is so crowded with tourists – and it almost seems a shame – like westerners have taken over a Thai island. Almost all of the Thais you will see there are running the guesthouses, restaurants, shops, tour companies, etc. And I have always thought of the whole townie/tourist conflict when I have been in resort areas – but add to that the fact that all the tourists are farang – I have to imagine it isn’t easy. We thought the Let’s Go guidebook I had for Thailand (and we hate Let’s Go – so much so that we bought a LP Thailand’s Islands and Beaches b/c the Let’s Go was so inadequate) was being a bit chippy when it said that tourists who go to Khao San Rd. in Bangkok and then to Phuket “safely avoid almost anything to do with Thailand.” But it is really true – and more on that soon (I can feel a rant coming on). Anyway – easily the touristiest (yes, it is a word!) place I have ever been.

We stayed at the Hat Kata (Kata Beach) area – as the LP had said it was a great beach and not as crazy at Hat Patong (which is the big party area – tons of girlie bars, etc.). Hat Kata Beach is really two beaches, Hat Kata Yai (North) and Hat Kata Noi (South). Our first day we went to Hat Kata Yai – and even with the amazing white sand and incredible blue waters, both Margaret and I were pretty disappointed. It was wall to wall people – chairs and umbrellas covering the beach. Although it may rival my two favorite places for people watching: amusement parks and Guns n’ Roses concerts. I mean it is just astounding – so many Europeans, and I’m sorry but the whole European its ok for males to wear banana hammocks thing just doesn’t work for me. And on top of that I think Europe is catching up with the U.S. in terms of obesity – and they aren’t afraid to let it show on the beaches. Really – quite disgusting. One guy we met at a dive shop where we stopped to ask a few questions referred to many people on the beach as "disgusting things.” And the whole topless thing is kind of troublesome – as much as people think of Thailand as a huge sex trade country (and don’t kid yourself, it is) the Thai people are pretty conservative and find topless women on their beaches to be offensive. One of the FIRST things any travel book will tell you. But the Europeans certainly don’t care at all. And I realize that I can get frustrated by cultural differences, and certainly enjoy having fun with it, but I also try to do the bare (no pun intended) minimum not to be an offensive jackass. Here it is from the LP under Beach Etiquette: “Avoid public nudity on the beaches. Thais are traditionally modest and all but the most flamboyant Bangkok Thais will swim fully clothed.” It goes on to warn “Men should wear shirts away from the beach unless they want Thai people to think that they are real lowlifes.” Good thing for me – therefore I am wearing a shirt to be cultured and not to cover up my gut and man-boobs. But the amount of people who just have no regard for even basic cultural sensitivity is amazing. Margaret and I had some good laughs on the beach people watching and wondering what the hell the Thai people must think of westerners.

After the first day on the crazy busy Hat Kata Yai, we decided to try Hat Kata Noi, which wasn’t as packed with tourists. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t an empty beach by any stretch of the imagination, but much smaller and not as many people. The blues of the water are amazing – and the temperature is like bath water. You have to get pretty deep for any cold water. The clearness of the water is unreal as well. We did have issues with the food on the beach here, as we ordered papaya salads (made with unripe papaya) and ended up with mango salads (with ripe mango) – friggin’ sick dude. Again, all in all both of us were pretty disappointed with the beaches of Phuket. In all fairness, we were both battling a pretty nasty cold from minute one and that never puts me in a good mood.

A few more random things – first, a couple of dinners and a bar. We had dinner at a place called “Kata Kitchen” – we had noticed it walking into town from our guesthouse a few times – it had a big outside seating area. We made a mental note to try it. One night we saw a menu along the main street and decided to try it – and the hostess walked us through an alley and by a few stores and then into a courtyard. And it took about five minutes before we realized we were eating at “Kata Kitchen” – too funny. Our waitress was hilarious as well – she pulled out her note pad to write down our order and after each thing we ordered she wrote it down and then said in the most monotone voice, “What den?” The other waiter we had was this dude who was so attentive – running to bring beers when ordered – and just about sprinted to get our change when we paid the bill. He also high-fived the cook when he showed him the tip we left (and this is another thing I will get into later – but tips are not very common – and they were high-fiving over a tip that would get you banned from a restaurant in the States).

Another dinner we had was at “Kata Minta” and it was such a cute place and the food was amazing and the presentation rocked too. It was another place we made a note to try when we walked past it – it was just a cute little place (yep – I realize I used the word cute in consecutive sentences).

And the cooks stood outside on the streets to greet people and try and get them to come in. So cool and the gang. And one night we had a couple of drinks at a bar that had a bunch of games (a lot of the bars do this) – and we played some Jenga. Of course it was a generic version of the game, and they were being sold all over the place. Anyway, if you must know Margaret is better at bowling and Jenga (although I will claim that had it been the official version then I would rule!).

Just a few more impressions:

• The tailors (not of Panama) are ridiculously aggressive – really annoying – and there are maybe a million tailor shops in Phuket. The tailors stand outside their stores and try to start conversation with anyone passing by. And they do this in a way to make you feel rude by not replying. They will ask you how you are doing, where you are from, what’s your name, etc. And if you answer them they are all over you, actually trying to pull you in – using a handshake as a way to try and pull you in their store! My “strategery” was to answer them quickly and move into the street away from them as I went by. Aye Carumba!
• The traffic is nuts. Nuts, nuts, nuts. It is like a mini-Bangkok. And like Bangkok there is a great lack of sidewalks. So you really take your life into your own hands when you are walking around. And we didn’t even dare rent a moped as I figured that would just be tempting death.
• Phuket is “Little Sweden” – much like Dearborn, MI has the highest concentration of Arabs outside of the Middle East, Phuket has the highest concentration of Swedes outside of (you guessed it!) Sweden. It is crazy talk – I honestly felt like I was back in Stockholm a few times. And it isn’t just tourists – many of the restaurants, guesthouses, shops are all Swedish owned. I honestly don’t know how this happened. We met a few Swedes while there, and one of them told us that there is a three week vacation period in Sweden in the winter (you would get only one of the three weeks – and which week you got for vacation depends on where you live in the country – can this be true Anders?) and that flights to Phuket are booked up during this period more than a year in advance. Uh, as Shaq would ponder, say what?
• We had dinner at a place called “Rico’s” – another Swedish owned place – and I had my first Swedish style pizza since leaving Stockholm. Not too bad. And Anders, they had a sign hanging that read “Snus sold here.”
• Our last night on Phuket we decided to walk around a bit and just randomly started walking by the Club Med. 30 minutes later we had walked around the whole facility – it is enormous.
• On the way back from dinner at Rico’s we passed by a row of “girlie” bars. It was the typical scene – scantily clad Thai women chatting it up with old, red-faced fat white men. Those Thai women who weren’t “busy” were standing outside the bar trying to get passers-by to drop in. They were aggressive, but not quite as bad as the tailors. Anyway, in the middle of this stretch of bars was a little family owned ice cream store. And it had some mean ice cream – so good. But as we were walking out with our ice cream and by all the girlie bars we had to laugh at the contrast.
• Gordon Shumway lives!

Sea Kayaking – An Adventure to Remember (For Many Reasons)
This was just an amazing trip. And a good lesson about Phuket – take one (or more) of the many trips offered – because you can get away from the crowds and there is really a lot of cool stuff you can do. We were trying to decide between a snorkeling trip and the sea kayaking trip. We chose the sea kayaking trip because we feared the snorkeling trip would put us on a boat with a million people that drops all million off in the same places. Once we decided on the sea kayaking, we had to decide on which trip and what company. We decided on the self paddle tour (which was such a great choice – our only hang-up on the self paddle is that we wouldn’t get to see as many caves or be able to kayak through them – but that turned out to be false!) and the most expensive trip as they limited the number of people. We had 20 on our boat, and 12 of those were self paddlers, like us – so it was a small group.

But just because it was a small group doesn’t mean it wasn’t diverse. We had just about every sexual orientation possible on the boat. Straight couples, straight singles, gay couples, gay singles, lesbian couples, and a few questionables. There were also two old white man / young Thai boy couples – which was just plain sick. The men were at least fifty and the Thai boys were so young – I’m guessing mid to late teens. And one of these couples was into the whole infantilism thing – this just nasty old white guy treating this Thai boy as a baby. I mean you see everything here – and nothing is hidden and nothing is shocking. Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

We met a couple of really fun people on the boat – one was this woman from Newbury, England on the trip solo (she was vacationing with her daughter, who was scuba diving) and she could talk – very interesting though. The other person was this guy John – probably in his late 40’s – funny and crazy life. He has been HIV positive for over 20 years and said many of his friends died of AIDS in the early 90s before the drug “cocktail” came out. But he had so many life stories – and could talk as well. Currently he was involved in litigation with his insurance company over disability. I guess he retired early and was able to draw pension and disability as his doctor said the stress of working would kill him. But his insurance company found out he was traveling and claims that if he is well enough to travel he is well enough to work. I believe he lost originally, won the appeal and now the appeal is being appealed. He never would have been able to afford the litigation if an attorney didn’t agree to be paid off of any settlement money. My favorite quote of his had to do with how he got HIV. He said that he had a massive blood transfusion (before they screened) after a nasty motorbike accident and that could have been how he got it. But he added with a laugh that he fits every HIV risk category except being a hemophiliac.

Ok – on to the action! So the boat dropped us near an island in the Ao Phang-Nga National Park Archipelago. So the 15 of us were off (12 tourists and 3 guides) and paddling. Margaret and I were in a two person kayak – and man is it a good workout! The scenery was absolutely amazing – just gorgeous – limestone cliffs and tons of small little rock outcrop islands. And when our boat was out of sight it was just the 15 of us all by ourselves paddling in the ocean! The first cave we visited was a walk through cave. We stopped at a little beach and took a break (our 3 guides are in the first picture), and then climbed the ladder to the mouth of the cave. The cave was dark and small – and made me a little claustrophobic – but there were some cool sights. The glittering of the rocks inside was cool. And at the end there was a little lagoon – untouched and pristine – and the view through the rocks was magnificent. Our guide kept making jokes about someone who stepped over the edge and fell, and is still there. When we left the cave, we saw more people for the first time since our boat left. A few long-tail boats had brought some tourists from their big boat here – and they all looked pretty envious of us, as we climbed back into the kayaks. One of the new arrivals was this older Indian man – and he stayed put on the beach while the others went into the cave, calling it an adventure for “young people.” And then he said we must be absolutely crazy to be paddling ourselves around. I smiled as we started paddling, and as my back began to hurt realized this is a young person’s adventure and I’m not so young anymore.

On to the real caves! We paddled through two caves, one was a pretty short paddle to the middle lagoon and the other one was a bit longer. The lagoons are accessible depending on the tides. Sometimes you can walk to them, other times you can paddle to them and other times the water is too high and you can’t get to them at all. There were areas where you had to lie down in order to pass through. The first cave was pretty scary – it wasn’t very far to paddle, but Margaret and I went second to last. And because the water was so high at that point, our guides had to let us know when to go and when to stop. When waves came through you couldn’t pass some areas. And of course, as Margaret and I are waiting for clearance to go under the last bit to get to the lagoon, some waves come crashing in. And it was scary – as the waves lifted us close to hitting the top of the cave. And then our guide told us to go, and we lay down in the kayak and pressed on. At one point Margaret tells me that there isn’t enough room, but our guide assures us there is. And we made it, but for the last bit my face was inches away from to top of the cave. Getting into the lagoon was such a relief and I kept thinking about how it would be easy to get yourself into trouble in those caves when the tide comes in. We spent about 20 minutes paddling around the lagoon - here our two of our guides zooming around: Then it was time to head out. The water level was lower, so it was easier than on the way in. Except some other tourists were there now, and they didn’t let us all out before they started in. And these tourists were being paddled by guides – anyway – as we were one of the last ones out we got about halfway through the cave when there was a traffic jam. And in such a small area it was kind of unnerving. We had to wait a bit and then take our chance and get out!

Once we got out we saw that there were a few big boats near the cave and tons of tourists coming in. And they were all being paddled. And we were so glad we decided to do the self-paddle as we got to kayak at least for awhile in relative peace and quiet. And then we all were like only self paddlers should be able to go into the caves! Travel snobbery at its best!

The second cave was not as small and claustrophobic, but was much, much darker. We had to use torch lights – and even with those it was hard to see. We were the last kayak in, and got a bit behind and for awhile couldn’t see anyone ahead of us. We bumped in the sides a few times before figuring out which way to proceed. And the smell was hot, damp and overpowering. Margaret coined it “boiled urine” which still cracks me up. We finally caught up with the others towards the end, as there was a build up of kayaks as the final passage was again very low and the water was high. So we had to lie down again and float on through. When we got through Margaret said she was never doing that again! We didn’t beat the masses to this lagoon as there were tons of people being paddled around. And there were monkeys everywhere. This is when my camera battery ran out, and my other one was on the big boat, so only got a few pictures here. There was a little area on shore where a few monkeys were hanging out. And we paddled over there into the line of tourists. And when we got near, this little monkey made a motion like he was going to jump into one of the kayaks. And it would have been ours or another couple getting paddled. And the expression on the girl’s face in the other kayak was priceless – pure terror. But the monkey didn’t jump – I think he totally did it for the “psyche” value – probably laughing all the way back into the forest. Again on the way out we had traffic jam issues. And the funny thing was all the people being paddled in by their guides were out of control. Like the guides were the worst paddlers, or just didn’t care. They smashed into kayaks left and right. Just a friggin’ zoo. As popular as these trips are, I can’t believe they haven’t figured out a better system yet. Anyway, we were so happy once again that we chose the self-paddle and got more than the two caves with the masses experience.

Then it was back to the boat for lunch, which wasn’t half bad. I had a fanta, two cokes and two waters and I think the crew was worried I was gonna drink everything on the boat! After lunch we had 40 minutes to kayak, swim or whatever. Most people (us included) were drained and chose whatever. It was a long day – the boat ride was an hour each way, as was the van ride from the guesthouse to the dock. But so worth it!

One last thing – our van driver (we were the only ones coming from Kata so had the van to ourselves) had his two daughters with us on the way home. One was around 2 years old, and the other one was probably 8 or so. The baby was so cute – she kept looking at us and smiling. He dropped off his older daughter at school (this was late afternoon) and told us she would study for two hours more and then we continued on our way. And his baby was just crawling all over the front seat – in and out of her dad’s arms and lap. And I know this will be met with shock (and outrage?) but it was the cutest thing. And I just kept thinking of how that wasn’t possible back home – and despite the safety factor, just how cool it was. And I realize we are brainwashed into the whole car-seat thing – but the laws are more for profit than safety. I mean car-seats until you are 8? I’m sure that had nothing to do with the car-seat lobby. Oh – and why do we keep seeing these reports about how car-seats used 5 years ago or whatever were actually more dangerous than no car-seat? Of course those reports never come out until the new (and probably just as dangerous) car-seats are out. I know, I know – I’ll change my tune when I have kids – by that time my kids will have to be in their car-seats until they are 21. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah – so when our driver dropped us off, we tipped him and waved goodbye to his baby girl, who blew kisses at us. It couldn’t have been any sweeter.

Stay tuned – next will be Koh Phi Phi – more crowds, sharks, cliff jumping and “The Beach” . . .