Phuket, let's drive!

In the words of Winnie the Pooh, this is a long story, and even longer when I tell it.

Driving in Phuket seemed like such a good idea. It's not Bangkok, the traffic isn't crazy, crazy, crazy (just one level of crazy) and my hotel was only about 1km down the road from work.

There's a work vehicle, so if I crash it, the worst that can happen is that Robbie keeps my salary for the rest of my life, and I get a job cooking muffins in the Brisbane office full-time.

As it turned out, the driving to-and-from work bit was fine - it was on Sunday when I decided to head to the shopping centre I'd read so much about on Phuket.com - Phuket Central Festival - that I got myself into trouble.

It looked pretty straight forward on the map - head down the main road the hotel is on, turn right at some street I can't pronounce, which runs into the street where the giant shopping centre is. I'd been past it before as a passenger, so once I got my bearings I'd be fine.

I did get to the shopping centre without any serious drama, although I ended up driving in through the service entrance at the back, rather than the main entrance like a normal tourist. I still don't know how that happened.

I wandered, I shopped, I had a latté (can someone please tell Thailand what a flat white is?) and I decided at 12pm that it was time to make a move back to the office to drop the car off, so I'd be back at my hotel in time for my 1pm airport transfer.

What I hadn't noticed on the way to the shopping centre was that some of the streets were one way (it's hard to tell over here OK?!). This meant that I couldn't simply follow the same route I'd taken to get there. I had to deviate.

No biggy - I figured that I'd just follow the signs to Phuket Town (where the office and hotel are located) and I'd recognise some roads, and David wouldn't have to sit in this little car for over an hour hurling abuse at the town planners of Phuket.

That's where I was wrong.

Every street I drove down, I would come to a point where I thought, "oh, I know where I am", and dutifully take the direction my brain told me was correct. Wrong. After 35 minutes, I ended up back at the shopping centre. So I followed the same route again, only this time taking care to drive what I envisaged would be parallel to my original route. Wrong.

At one stage, I even got back onto the road that the office is on! There was much joyous singing and celebrating in the confines of that little car (Jazz never sounded so good!) as I drove down Thepkasatri Road. But alas, the party was short-lived, as Thepkasatri Road turned into Phuket Road and I drove down the same street I had been in three times already.

At last, after dodging left where I had previously veered right, I found myself a mere 20-30 metres from the office, and at about 1.30pm I locked the car and raced to the office foyer to return the keys to the weekend CS staff.

Naturally, being a Sunday, the elevator was away visiting relatives down the coast, so I had to run up four floors to get to the front door. My Phuket swipe card would not let me into the office, because this was a secure workplace on the weekend, and I had no business there.

By this stage, my nerves were a little frazzled. I couldn't help thinking about my driver who may, or may not, be waiting for me at the hotel 1km down the road.

I rang the doorbell which summoned one of our champion Phuket Customer Service staff, whom I have never met before, and who no doubt was wondering why this farang was ringing her doorbell on a Sunday when she had work to do.

I reached into my pocket and grabbed the keys and handed them to her with my swipe card saying - in my best Thinglish - "For Khun Tasnee". She nodded and repeated "Khun Tasnee". I thanked her in Thai, and exited the building as fast as I could.

This was about the time that I discovered that the proliferation of taxis and moped taxis in Thailand is unique to Bangkok. I walked (very quickly) all the way to the hotel without seeing a single taxi, or person who might be cajoled into giving me a ride.

I got to the hotel, asked if a driver had been for me and they said no. The desk staff offered to call me a taxi for the airport, to which I heartily agreed.

As it turned out, taxi here referred I think to a friend or family member who owned a car. When he arrived at 1.50pm, the driver asked me what time my flight left, and when I told him 3pm, he gave me a look and said "you not much time". I couldn't have said it better myself.

He was very nice, and we chatted all the way to the airport about his family and my family and what it was like living in Bangkok, which is where he was born.

At one point he asked me "OK I speed?", and used the internationally recognised hand signal for pushing the accelerator flat to the floor. "Sure, if you like." I'm not sure if that word choice would get me off on a technicality in court or not. Sean?

To cut this long story short:

• I arrived at the airport and stood in line to check in - my flight was delayed by almost an hour so there was no real rush after all;
• traffic from the airport in Bangkok was terrible so I sat in a taxi for about an hour and a half listening to Thai talkback radio;
• I arrived back at my apartment only to find that I couldn't get in because I had given the wrong set of keys to the smiling CS staff member in Phuket;
• I had to mime leaving keys in Phuket and not being able to get into my apartment to the security guard;
• I had to explain leaving keys in Phuket and not being able to get into my apartment over the phone to the building manager who speaks no English;
• I had to wait for the caretaker to let me in with a master key;
• I then went to bed wondering how I was going to lock my front door when I left in the morning.

And all because I decided to drive in Phuket. Next time I'll walk.

D.

PS. I received a very nice email on Monday morning from the airport transfer company apologising for not being there to pick me up at 1pm, as they thought my pick-up time (and not my flight time) was 3pm. I told them, no harm done - don't worry about it.

Don't poo-poo Phi Phi

Phi Phi Island. It's a beautiful place. Beaches, rock outcrops, cliffs, and jungle, all thrown together into the beautiful warm blue waters of the Andaman. With tourists as far as the eye can see.

I've been to places with a a lot of tourists before - Great Barrier Reef tours, The Coca-Cola factory in Atlanta, Bondi Beach - but never in such numbers.

My speed boat tour to Phi Phi islands happened on a miserable, wet, rainy day in March, after a full week of unseasonal rain in Phuket. And still the tourists came out.

On a good day in peak season, it's apparently hard to see the beach for all the tourists looking at the beach. I can believe that.

Does the tourism spoil the experience? Well, not completely. You have to shut out the hords (one of whom, is you) converging on beach after beach in turn. One speed boat full of farangs (and whatever the word for non-white farangs is) from around the world pulls out while another waits to take its place.

You just have to step back, and see the beauty. You have to look past the cigarette butts, empty coke bottles, and roaring marine engines to look at why all these people are here. A place of natural beauty, with the people of the "land of smiles" as its caretakers.

I saw the famous limestone cliff islands, long-tailed macaques, clown fish, sea cucumbers, and beneath it all, a reef still recovering from a tsunami most of the world has left behind.

They talk of the tsunami - of its devastation, the people killed, the height of the wave, where it hit, what they were doing when the three waves came. Our guide, Mr Boy, told us that when someone called him to tell him to stay away from the beach because a tsunami was coming, his response was "what's a tsunami?" He knows now. We all do.

I was disappointed not to go to the last stop on our tour, and visit the tsunami museum. The other farangs on our tour were feeling wet and miserable and wanted to go home early. I caved to peer pressure. 31 against 1 isn't very good odds.

So to wrap it all up - I loved the islands. They were amazing, and I would like to visit again. I would not like to be a tourist again.

The low-point in the trip was sitting in the speed boat, among a few Russians, one or two Britts, a Dutch couple and the balance of Aussies, and having the Australian compatriate next to me equate one of our flamboyantly gay guides with being a "kiddy fiddler", presumably because he was flamboyantly gay.

This is a beautiful, welcoming place you have here Thailand; please don't let us tourists take over.

D.

Banging on about Bangla Road

Up until now, this blog has been PG-rated - as in, no graphic or what may be considered adult's only content, I don't mean "rated Pretty Good".

This is where I need to touch on some racier topics, so if you're easily offended or don't want to lose your image of me as a sweet, innocent, 42-year-old, then perhaps you can skip to the next article where I document some of Phi Phi islands wildlife, and not Patong Beach's nightlife. You will however, miss a great restaurant review - it's up to you.

OK. All of that said, it's not like I was running naked down the main tourist strip of Patong. You need a licence for that sort of thing, or at least an understanding with some of the local law enforcement representatives.

My guide on this mid-week sojourn into Phuket's most famous (sometimes infamous) street was an expert. A man who has lived here for about 16 years, and actually gets paid by some crazy company to write about and review this area of Thailand (along with others) so that people all around the world will know what to expect when they get here. Where to go, where not to go, and how to avoid buying a round of drinks for everyone in the bar. All good stuff to know.

We started our night in Patong with a visit to the legendary Sea Hag restaurant, recommended by several locals, including our guide. The food was stunning. I can't remember how many different dishes we had, or what their Thai names were, but I have not had better seafood in Thailand.

We looked at menus for ten minutes or so, and when we were ready to order, or host, Khun Kenya, ignored all our selections, and chose a veritable smorgasboard of Thai dishes that were so full of flavour and all so different. Some were spicy, but none painfully so.

Baked whole fish in tamarind, mixed seafood cooked in a claypot, a fish mousse, and huge prawns wrapped in super thin noodles and deep-fried. Wow! And for us, a very cheap feed indeed. I hate leaving food on a plate, and will often stuff myself so food doesn't go to waste (but instead to my waist) - but there was no way I could eat another mouthful, and some of our security guards got some great leftovers that night.

With our taste buds truly satiated, it was time for a full-on assault of our other senses. The sights, sounds, and yes, smells of Bangla Road.

I've never seen so many Australians in one street before. It was like being a kid lost at Sydney's Royal Easter Show again. Of course there were also Britts, Russians, Americans, those from the Middle East, and various other assorted nationalities.

All in one main street - and its various sois - being coaxed into bars, urged to look at menus of the performances available in some of those bars, and huddling around groups of katoey (lady boys) to take photos. You could also purchase various fluorescent toys that flew into the air, wooden frogs that croaked when you stroked their back, tailored suits, DVDs, and the usual cacophony of special offers available to the tourist in Thailand.

How could I describe the scene for you? If you took the cars out of Kings Cross in Sydney and made it for pedestrians only, took out any of the legitimate cafes and other businesses that might operate there during the day and replaced them with bars that have no walls and instead just have bars with seats and bands playing and girls dancing on the bars, and then added about 100 times more people than you get on an average Saturday, swapped the risk of getting stabbed for your wallet with the risk of getting fleeced of the money in your wallet, and put smiles on everyone's faces, than that's pretty much what it's like.

Actually, it's not. I suspect there's nothing like Bangla Road in all the world. It has it's own attraction for some - clubs, shows, girls, lady boys, cheap knock-offs of everything from designer jeans to stun guns... And for others the exact same list would make them want to stay away, or condemn those who work and make their living here. I wonder what Fred Nile would do in a place like Bangla Road? Anyway, I digress.

As a sample, we had our first drink at an ice bar. There's plenty of these around in a lot of cities. Everything is made of ice including the glasses, it's very cold, and you drink vodka shots.

This ice bar turned out to be the freezer room at the back of another bar, where you paid to step out of the hot and humid night air, and into about -15C. We were given drinks in glasses made from ice, which we were told we had to smash against the concrete floor. That was how we started.

It was a truly memorable experience. I've been to bars before, but Bangla Road has a life and spirit of its own. Its not just that there's bars where weird stuff happens, it's that they're all here in one place and everyone knows about it. So everyone comes. Tourists mostly.

In one bar, I even questioned my command of English (let alone Thai), when I order a vodka, lime, and soda, and received a soda, lime, and soda. Or maybe they have that special Thai vodka that tastes like water. Same price though.

The word "exploitation" crept into my head a couple of times as we walked around. But it was more of a question than a comment. I'm not being deliberately naive, but I didn't see unhappy people on either side of the bar, or on the bar. Going back to the Kings Cross parallel, there is a note of desperation there. The stench of drugs and other addictions seep out from behind the lights and glitzy veneer, so you know it's false.

Here there is no veneer. There it is as you walk down the street in front of you - the question is asked in a thousand different ways: "Is this what you want? Well here it is."

I'm not ignorant of the fact that there have been many cases, recent cases, of child and female exploitation in and around Thailand. But so too in Australia, and Britain and America...

Like the beaches and the amazing natural beauty in this country, the tourists come for this, and the tourists spend a lot of money because of this.

D.

A word on Patong

Last night was my first night ever in Patong, so I feel I have to say something.

Wow.

There was so much happening, I don't know where to start. So I won't.

I'm out on a tour to Phi Phi Islands tomorrow, so I'll have the whole day to process my Patong experience. So watch this space ...

D.

My Phuket shower experience

This is just a quick post to vent my frustration with the shower in my Phuket hotel room. I'm having trouble enjoying my showers here, and not for any of the reasons you're probably thinking someone might not enjoy a shower in Phuket.

I work in a team called User Experience and Innovation — part of our job is to take care of the little things that some people over-look until they're not there, or they don't work properly.

Like search and booking functions on a website, proper design and layout, and muffins on a Monday morning. You don't notice they ain't there until they ain't.

Well the shower in my room here Phuket — a lovely room by the pool, where they fold your towels into elephant shapes — is neither innovative, nor conducive to a pleasant user experience.

The shower head itself is fine — the general hand-held hose attachment you would use to easily apply water where it's needed. However the bracket that it is supposed to sit in to give you a worry-free and hands-free shower experience, makes the shower head point directly out at your face.

Even if you duck, or stand to one side of the shower head, the water then shoots out past your head, against the back wall of the bathroom, soaking everything that gets in its path.

I haven't yet come up with a solution (no pun intended), besides holding the shower head under my arm, or turning the taps off every time I want to go hands-free.

I'd appreciate any tips from seasoned travellers who may have similar bad user experience in non-innovative showers.

And for those who are disappointed because you were expecting to see photos of me in the shower, these are for you.

D.

Cheaper than chips

If you've never been to Thailand before, but have heard stories about how cheap it is, I'd like to try to convey something of the reality of this for you. Allow me to use two common scenarios to illustrate.

Think about the last time you caught a taxi to the airport in a major Australian city - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane - take your pick (my apologies to our West Coast readers - I'm not being deliberately Coastist, I just have no recent experience of catching taxis in Perth).

Say you're in the Harbour City, staying with friends around the Eastern Suburbs, or Northern beaches (hi Anthony! Hi Lisa!); or you're at West End or Coorparoo in Bris Vegas (hi Nikki, howdy Burgo); or you're holidaying in charming St Kilda (no friends there yet, but I'm working on it). Now imagine you arrive at the airport, and you hand the cabbie a $50 note.

If you're in Brisbane, you may get away with it, depending on what the traffic and roadworks were like on the day. If you're in Sydney or Melbourne, you'd be lucky to get out of the cab alive.

Now take that same 30-45 minute ride in Bangkok, from Sukhumvit or Siarm. You hand the driver a 1,000 Baht note (about AU$35) and you'll get an objection just as vigorous, albeit less violent, though for the opposite reason.

He can't possibly give you change from a 1,000 for the 2-300 Baht fare (about AU$7-10). You better come up with something smaller or you'll be giving him a very large tip (snaps to Kirsty by the way, who told me to make sure I had some small change in Baht for the taxi when I arrived in Bangkok - thanks pet!).

My second scenario was lunch on Friday. Five of us from the office went to a local food market. Picture the food court in your local shopping centre on a busy Saturday, but replace all the Maccas, greasy fish and chips, and over-priced Chinese buffets with local vendors, all making fresh Thai dishes from scratch. Woks, charcoal grills, clay pots and freshly chopped fruit everywhere.

It cost the five of us $11, including drinks. Total, not each. And there was food left on the plate because we were all full.

I kind of feel sad for everyone in the Brisbane office today deciding whether to save money by getting a $7 subway special.

Kind of...

D.

A path for my feet

Philosophically, I am opposed to the encroachment of US English into the Australian vocabulary. But I have to say that in Bangkok, "sidewalk" is a much more appropriate term than "footpath".

There are very few roads that have any sort of path for either foot, let alone both feet. Most of the time, you just walk to the side of whatever thoroughfare you are on.

As soon as you turn off the main road and onto a Soi (small street), you find yourself dodging and weaving, trying to stay out of the way of on-coming, off-coming, sideways coming traffic, and there may or may not be a raised area at either side of the Soi for you to walk on.

Even if there is, this sidewalk will be broken in places, non-existent in others, and when it is in good repair, you will still have to wander onto the road at times to avoid food vendors, parked motorbikes, and scuffling stray dogs.

Even sidewalk doesn't really cover it, because where it does exist, it's not just used for walking. On main roads, where there is what you may consider to be a dedicated footpath, you will have to share this with scooters and mopeds ferrying people to work or the train.

On several occasions I have been beeped at (it's more of a beep than a honk usually) to get out of the way, because I wasn't looking behind me to see whether a motorbike needed to get past me on the footpath. Sidewalk. Raised concrete area at the side of the road for pedestrians, street vendors and motorbikes. Doesn't really roll off the tongue does it?

The other problem I've encountered as I walk the streets (whether on the side or not) is that even though they drive on the left-hand side of the road in Thailand, they appear to walk on the right-hand side. If I'm passing someone coming the other way, my natural instinct is to move to the left, but they move to the right - which of course is my left - and while we do a little dance, nobody makes a little love, and nobody gets down tonight.

I just end up trying to remember how to say sorry before they move on, and am left mumbling something that probably translates into Thai as "no horse biscuits for me please".

The really surprising thing again is that it all just works. No-one is shouting at anyone else to get out of the way, there aren't thousands of daily traffic casualties, and people still get where they're going.

My Thai isn't very good (nit noi), but I haven't once heard someone yell "Hey! I'm walkin' here!"

D.