Thailand - The beaches of Phuket

Doru and I land in Phuket airport and make the 55 minute taxi ride out to TC and Tookie's condominium in Kamala beach. When we arrive at his place we are treated to a full time security guard who greets us. It's nice to know we will be safe in Phuket. TC and Tookie's condo is awesome. It is ultra modern, well decorated, and Doru and I are excited to be spending 3 days here in luxury.

What we quickly realize is that we are a bit isolated out at their place as it is off the main road about 1km inland. So we decide we are going to need some transportation over the next several days. I quickly search the internet and discover that Doru and I can rent motor scooters for 3 days for a total of 180 baht roughly $6 USD. Not only that the guy will deliver us the scooters and helmets directly to the condo even better. In Thailand and as I later discover in other Southeast Asia countries the motor scooter is the main mode of transportation. More popular than cars and more popular than bicycles. About an hour later our 2 automatic Wave 125cc motor scooters arrive with an entourage of three people. 2 women driving our scooters and another guy to take them back. Yes in Southeast Asia more then 2 people can ride on a motor scooter, and the guy takes the 2 women and himself back to the office on one scooter.

With our blue and red scooters Doru and I head to the beach for some lunch and lounging. Doru takes his usual daily training run on the beach and I sunbathe and opt for an afternoon massage on the beach for $5 USD. On this trip I'm taking things easy. There will be plenty time to exercise when I get back.

Lunch Time in Paradise!

Kamala Beach

That night we head to Patong beach which is the main tourist area and home of the famous Balang Road. and ping pong shows. Balang Rd. is this street that runs about 3 city blocks and is packed with normal bars, gogo bars, and ping pong show bars. Normal bars are normal bars. Gogo bars are bars with Thai women that try to lure men into their bars and then take them home and who knows what happens from there. And ping pong show bars are bars where women do tricks with ping pongs and I'll let your imagination go from there. As we walk down this street we are constantly harassed by men trying to drag us into a ping pong show and women trying to lure us into their gogo bars. Women and men are clawing at us and quite honestly it gets uncomfortable after a few blocks. So we head to a bar to grab drinks. Me and Doru sip on a couple of beers and are approached by a couple of Thai women wanting to play a game of Connect Four. Apparently this is another scam because if you lose you must buy them a drink. What you don't know is that these women practice daily in the game of Connect Four and are experts that rarely lose. Being a naive "Farang" (Thai word for gullible white tourist), I lose a game of Connect four against this Thai girl. I buy her the typical drink which is Thai whiskey for an expensive 200 Baht equivalent of $7 USD. This is outrageous as that drink is typically 90 Baht or $3 USD. And oh by the way Thai whiskey is cheaper to make then bottled water. So of course I hate to lose so I challenged her to a rematch and miraculously win the next game. She storms off upset and we leave the bar and move on to the next place.

Famed Tiger Bar Alley filled with tourists and Thai women. Look out!

The next day Doru and I opt for a 5 and 1 safari that includes riding and feeding Elephants, riding a Water Buffalo yes I said "riding",visiting a Gibbon Monkey Rehabilitation Center, trekking to a Waterfall, and Kayaking up a river. When we get to the Elephant place I cannot help but feel sorry for these elephants as they are chained up awaiting our ride. I was hoping they would be a able to roam a little bit, but this did not appear to be the case. Doru and I hopped onto this bench that was strapped to our elephants back from a second story platform. Our guide, trainer, elephant man whatever you call him sat literally on top of the elephants head and with his bull hook enticed the elephant to start walking. The sight of this bull hook brought back visions from the movie "Water For Elephants" and I only could hope this this hook never had to be used. Our Elephant obediently led us on an hour trek through a stream and rubber tree farm. The ride was a lot of fun and I have to admit and at one point our trainer let each of us take a turn riding on the elephants head and leading him through our Trek. Feeling guilty at the end of the ride I paid the extra 100 baht to buy some apples to feed our Elephant as a thank you for the ride.

Doru and I begin our Elephant Trek

I take a ride up front on his head.

Doru takes a turn at driving

Look No hands!

A little reward for the ride

Thanks for the ride!

Next we headed to the field where this very large Water Buffalo awaited us with a cart strapped to his back. When we got there the keeper of the Water Buffalo asked if anyone wanted to drive the buffalo while the rest road in the back on the cart. Of course I volunteered to drive this 2000 lbs beast. So I hopped on his back and was given a long bamboo stick to smack his back leg with to entice him to go. We did one lap around the field and of course the guy comes up to me afterwards asking for more Baht because he let me drive the Buffalo. In Thailand you are always upsold additional things, extra fruit, pictures, etc. They know how to get additional Baht out of you.

Giddy Up!

I know this looks ridiculous

Got to love Doru in the back under the green umbrella

The Gibbon Rehabilitation clinic was quite interesting because here they are trying to rehabilitate injured Gibbon Monkeys and set them back into the wild. It was here that we got an explanation about how Gibbon's have been exploited over the years. Apparently a few poor Thais try to exploit this Monkey to make money off of tourists by charging tourists to take pictures with the Monkey. Of course most of us see a cute monkey and oblige to get our picture taken with it. What we don't realize is what that Thai person did to aquire the Monkey. Apparently in order to train a Gibbon Monkey to take pictures and interact with tourists that monkey must be captured closely after birth. When they capture a baby Gibbon the rest of the Gibbon family reacts and tries to attack the person or persons taking away their baby. The Thai poachers end up killing the rest of the family to prevent from getting attacked by the Gibbons. So whole Gibbon families are wiped out just to capture one baby Monkey. This was extremely sad to hear and of course when I saw a Gibbon on the beach I refused to shell out one nickle knowing what the cost was. It's interesting in 3rd World countries the lack of respect animals seem to get from people. This will be a re-occuring theme throughout my trip of Southeast Asia.

Gibbon Monkeys

The Trek to Bangpae waterfall was just okay as the waterfall was at a near trickle. Probably the most interesting thing about it was the Thai boys jumping off a cliff 40 feet above and landing in a pool no bigger then 3 feet in diameter. Doru and I then head to the river for Kayaking and what they did not tell us was that someone would be Kayaking for us and that we would just be passengers. As we get in our Kayak we have a Thai women hop in the back with a paddle. She will be our guide and immediately notice something is not right about her. She seems to have some sort of mental disability as she cannot communicate even in Thai. Nevertheless she did manage to keep poking me in the back every few minutes and pointing to Thai Baht which is there currency and saying one word "tip" over and over again. I gave her a few baht just to keep her quite so we could enjoy the rest of our river cruise. In Southeast Asia you will find you are constantly being pestered to hand out more money.

The Bangpae Trickle!

Fish farm on our Kayak Trip

Fellow Kayakers

Chazz the monkey hanging out on the river

His cousin Leroy hanging out at the boathouse

The next day we spend more time at the beach but this time we cruise Laem Singh beach which is a little secluded spot that you park your motorscooter above and hike down a trail to the beach. The day here is spent with me lounging around and of course Doru doing his usual training swim and run. I hope Doru kicks ass in his race he certainly put in the training hours when we were in Thailand.

Laem Singh from the trail

Happy to be here!

We then headed to the beach club for sunset cocktails

Would be a nice spot to have dinner with your woman

That night we head to our first Muy Thai Boxing match which is essentially kickboxing. Oh no I think Jean Claude Van Damn I hope it's not as cheesy. We get to the ring and notice it is an international line up. Essentially it is a bunch of different Australians paired up against Thai and other fighters from around the world. That would explain why the arena is filled with a bunch of drunk and belligerent Aussie guys yelling throughout the fights, "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oye, Oye, Oye!" One guy in particular was so drunk he could barely stand and provided me and Doru hours of sideline entertainment. Before the main matches kicked off we watched a few amatuer matches with kids as young as 10 years old fighting. Kickboxing was more brutal then I thought it would be and we saw a couple of matches end quickly with brutal kicks to the head and legs. The other interesting aspect about this kickboxing event is that you can bet on who will win. Not only can you bet before the match but you can also bet during the match quite different from the states. So if you see a guy is getting tired or getting his butt kick you might bet on the other guy. Only problem being is in order for your bet to be placed the guy collecting the money must find another guy who is willing to bet against you. This gets tougher as the match goes on especially if it is clearly uneven. Seeing my first fighting anything match was quite entertaining and I would definitely recommend anyone visiting Thailand to check out Muy Thai Kickboxing.

Those were the highlights of Phuket as Doru and I head off to catch our plane to Koh Samui an island in the gulf of Thailand.

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