Christmas in Phuket

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! We definitely missed spending time with our families and friends around the holidays. While there is no good substitute, we made the best of it by celebrating on the beach in Phuket!

Phuket is an island though you’d never really know since you can drive right in from the mainland. Compared to the laidback islands we visited off the east coast, Phuket is much larger and has more of a clustered big city feel. Initially, we stayed on Kata Beach, which is the most pristine beach and clearest water we have ever seen. The water was like bathwater, and you could walk out 20m and still see your feet (and even some small fish)! And we were quite impressed by the vendors that came to our beach chairs with fresh fruit drinks served in coconuts and pineapples! Not surprisingly, the beach is dominated by large resorts catering to packaged tour groups and families. While we fell in love with the beach, the food all around Kata was the worst of the whole trip so far and there really was nothing else to do there, especially at night!

After two days in Kata, we moved up the island to Patong Beach, a huge contrast to Kata. While it has its share of resorts, the beach was just okay (still loads of people) but the atmosphere was a lot more our speed – many more restaurants and shops, lots of young people, big bar scene, etc. Phuket is known for a strip of wild bars along Bangla Road – clubs open all night, lots of bar games, go-go bars, and lady boys dancing on every stage and bar table available. And stuff stays open late – which was a welcome change from Kata!

Quick sidebar – Something unique to Thailand is the number of lady boys you see walking down the street. Especially at the bars on Bangla Road, lady boys are out in force. Unlike in many other countries, they are pretty accepted in Thai culture and are even fighting to have their own gender listed on their passports here. They commonly work in bars, restaurants etc. Lady boys are basically men dressed like women who have undergone either a sex change operation or injection of female hormones. They are often quite attractive (of course, Rutvik never thought so…) and can be amazingly hard to distinguish from Thai women – your best bet is to guess based on height and voice. We’ve heard more than a few stories of foreign guys being unpleasantly surprised by their lady “friends”. We went to see the Simon Cabaret (highly recommended by the touts), an all lady boy dance show, which was hilarious with gaudy costumes and uncoordinated dance moves. Before we knew it, we had shelled out 100 baht (about $3) for Kel to have her picture taken with 2 of them. The consolation was that they were the best looking lady boys on offer! An interesting experience for sure.

After debating between snorkeling and canoeing, which must be done on separate tours, we decided to go snorkeling on a one day trip to Ko Phi Phi and Khai Island via speedboat. The water was very choppy and the ride was pretty rough on our backs, but it was a lot of fun to be out on the water. If nothing else, this trip has convinced us that we need to live in warm weather by the ocean! We snorkeled twice – once off the boat into shallow Loh Samah Bay and the second time off the beach on Khai Island. Khai Island had amazingly clear water and tons of coral right off the beach. The fish were totally unafraid, and we could see entire schools of fish swimming right to the beach! We had paid extra to rent fins, which seemed a total rip off until we got to Khai - we would have cut ourselves badly on the coral if not for the fins. We also made a brief stopover on Monkey Beach, where despite being warned excessively about rabies from monkey bites, Rutvik went right up to the wild monkeys with bananas, and they eagerly grabbed them from his hands. So cute!!

We made sure our Christmas days were action packed and we loosened up on the budget a bit (somewhat required to stay in Phuket anyway). We spent Christmas Eve doing some last minute shopping (a lot of fun with only each other to shop for in the markets that we walk through every day – our Christmas presents consisted of pirated DVDs, some knock-off Billabong shorts, a paddle ball set for the beach, a new book for the long bus rides coming up, and, best of all, a sugar scrub/massage) and then went to Phuket Phantasea, a Thai cultural show that is a combination of dancing, magic tricks, and an elephant show. The twenty or so elephants (including some really cute baby elephants) were by far the best performers but the whole show was well done. Pre-show was fun as well – they have a buffet of traditional food and a carnival outside the theater. We want to give a shout out to the really nice Finnish family we had dinner with (who we are sure by now are avid followers of the blog!), who made the experience all that much more fun. We bought some bananas and sugar cane to feed the elephants and played a few games at the carnival. The best was one we’d never seen before - a game where a hen rotates rapidly in a circle shooting out “eggs” and you are supposed to catch the ones aimed at you. Rutvik dominated Kel (obviously) and won her a baby elephant stuffed toy.

After the show, we stuck to the usual Christmas tradition and went to the only midnight Christmas mass we could find, at Le Meridian resort. It was funny to see them set up the whole altar and nativity scene in a small ballroom five minutes before mass started, but it was nice to have the connection with home and the spirit of the season, and it was fun to celebrate with such an international group. On Christmas Day, we went to a nice Christmas brunch at the Holiday Inn (probably the most upscale Holiday Inn we’ve ever seen) that had an international menu – traditional Christmas pudding and cookies alongside sushi, dim sum, seafood, and all sorts of Thai food. We happened to be seated with an Australian family from Perth, who let us crash their family brunch. They were very charming and the mom kind of reminded Kelli of her mom, so that and watching all of the little kids sit on Santa’s lap added a bit of a family touch to Christmas. Good times. Then, we went to enjoy our Christmas present from Rutvik (a 2 hour spa treatment to pamper ourselves), watched Fred Claus (they didn’t have The Christmas Story DVD!), and called the fam back in the US late at night (their Christmas morning). Other than really missing family, we had a great Christmas.

The next day, we took a grueling 14 hour bus ride to Bangkok followed by another 10 hour bus ride to Nong Khai in northeastern Thailand. (Two overnight bus rides on the bumpy Thai roads is something we’re hoping not to have to repeat) We then crossed the border into Laos, where we’ll spend New Year’s Eve.

Here’s to a super fun New Year’s Eve and a wonderful 2009!!

Where We've Been...

Myanmar (Burma) – Our Run for the Border

Due to the number of expats living and working in Thailand, the “visa run” has become standard practice. People from most countries can get a 30 day visa on arrival in Thailand, after which time they must leave and re-enter the country to get a new visa. The amount of time (usually 15 or 30 days) you get on the second entry is not standardized and the rules are constantly changing. It seems to depend on which guy you get at the border and what kind of a mood he’s in at the time. Our visas expired on December 19th but we wanted to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Thailand, which is how we found ourselves en route to Myanmar (Burma) on a packaged tour “visa run” from Ko Tao. If you don’t know much about Myanmar, it is ruled by an oppressive military regime called the “junta”. For the most part, you can’t visit the country without a prearranged visa, except that they have opened a few stations along the Thai border to make money providing entry and exit stamps for the purpose of renewing a Thai visa. You buy a “day pass” to Myanmar, but ironically you can’t even enter mainland Myanmar from these entry points. Our experience was as follows: Took a catamaran from Ko Tao to mainland Thailand (which was so choppy that half the boat was seasick), took a bus across Thailand to a town called Ranong, got Thai exit stamp (provided alongside a new arrival card – they know the drill), took a ferry to a place called the Andaman Club in Myanmar. Handed passport to Myanmar officials upon entry. Got taken by bus to the Andaman Club, a deserted upscale casino resort (possibly a big money laundering facility?). Took some pictures with the numerous Santas and Christmas displays set up in the lobby (Random…). Picked up some cheap imported chocolate and a bottle of Bacardi at the duty free shop. Drank some free soda and won 40 baht at video blackjack in the casino. Headed back to pick up our now Myanmar stamped passports and reboarded ferry to re-enter Thailand. Our entire visit to Myanmar was approximately 45 minutes… Bizarre, huh?

Chilling on the Islands: Ko Samui, Ko Pha Ngan, and Ko Tao

After all the people in India and the craziness of Bangkok, we headed off to a group of islands off the eastern coast of southern Thailand for a few weeks. We took an overnight train to Surat Thani, which is the travel hub for the islands. The Thai trains are much worse than the ones in India. There are no separate compartments and your bags seem unprotected in the aisle. We woke up several times in the night to intense jarring. It almost sounded like the train was going to come off the tracks! The train was also over 2 hours late getting in (we had gotten used to the punctual Indian trains), though fortunately we had booked all of our transport together, so a bus was waiting to take us to the ferry port.

From Surat Thani, we took a ferry to the biggest island, Ko Samui, which has mostly large resorts and caters to package tourists. The island was pretty quiet for two reasons - the monsoon season was just ending and the Bangkok airports were closed due to the political protests. Chaweng Beach, where we stayed, is known for being the most popular Samui beach with the best restaurants and nightlife. We loved having some lazy days to lay out and read on the beach, with the background interruptions of vendors peddling everything from ice creams and fruit shakes to handmade jewelry and henna tattoos. (Rutvik was probably the first brown guy ever to lay out on Ko Samui!!) We also loved running barefoot on the beach just before sunset – rarely do you enjoy the run itself as opposed to feeling great after the run! The best part of Samui, though, was the little area around Ark Bar, where restaurants set up lounge chairs on the beach at night to lay on while you eat, drink, and do hookah. You can get freshly caught fish or choose from a menu of Thai, Italian, and all sorts of other food. Fire dancers perform.every night and people walk around with animals. Kelli got to cuddle with a very cute monkey (somehow the iguana and the python didn’t make the cut). We had a lovely vegetarian Italian meal here to celebrate Thanksgiving island-style.

Though we spent most days on the beach, one day we rented a motorbike to explore the island. With Rutvik driving, this was an adventure in itself, but it also gave us the chance to check out other beaches on the island and some of the local temples and cultural sights. We visited the Big Buddha and the Mummified Monk (check out the picture – this guy apparently foresaw his own death and his body remains “undercomposed” today), got blessings from a monk, sampled the wares at a local rum distillery, toured a local Muslim market, and went to check out the Hin Da and Hin Yai rocks shaped like male and female genitalia! We had a good laugh at the “gas stations” on the side of the road, where we bought gas from liter bottles to fill the bike.

Next we headed to Ko Pha Ngan, the less developed neighbor of Ko Samui, which is known for its monthly Full Moon beach parties and backpacker friendly courses in yoga, reiki, cooking, massage, etc. Haad Rin Beach was ideal - superfine sand, clear water, and blue skies. Because the water was shallow and clear for quite a ways out, it helped Kelli to begin to get past her fear of the ocean, and we took numerous dips in the waves. While the beach was smaller and had fewer vendors than Ko Samui, the crowd was more fun for us - mainly 20-something Aussies, Brits, and Israelis.

At night, locals set up a line of stands, selling beach buckets containing small bottles of liquor and mixers. The vendors get creative and decorate their stands with funny signs and make jewelry out of straws to try to get our business. Our favorite bucket was Thai Sangsom rum mixed with mango juice, a splash of Red Bull, and fresh lime. Like on Khao San Road, there is lots of good cheap late night street food, like crepes, noodles, and fruit shakes. We fell in love with the noodle and “smooty” stand outside of our guesthouse and made friends with the owner. Most restaurants on Haad Rin show movies throughout the day, and, for some reason, episodes of Friends were especially popular. Internet on Haad Rin was very expensive, more than three times the price in Bangkok. It was also strange that laundry and all travel packages from the island cost exactly the same from every shop. We later found out that Haad Rin has a council that sets fixed prices for all these services and shops can be fined or shut down if they don’t stick to the set price structure. More noticeable in Ko Pha Ngan than the other places we’ve been in Thailand are the massive number of stray dogs and all sorts of insects. The mosquitoes were worse than anywhere else (India included, which is saying a lot). Kelli was concerned that she might need a blood transfusion after the first night on the island. Fortunately, they say there’s no malaria there, though we’re not taking any chances and continue to take our pills.

After spending so much time lounging on the beach, we were ready to be more active and signed up for a five day massage class affiliated with our guest house. We spent 30 hours learning oil based full body massage. Our instructor, Wi, was a very sweet Thai girl and an extremely good masseuse. She meticulously taught us how to massage the back, legs, arms, shoulders, head and face using other Thai masseuses as models. One day, while teaching foot massage, she noticed that Kelli had a knot in her foot in an area that related to her intestines. At the time, Kelli hadn’t recognized any issue, but her insight proved spot on later that night and we were pretty amazed. It peaked our interest in reflexology. On the last day, Wi supervised as we gave each other 2 hour long full body massages. We are now Government of Thailand certified masseur and masseuse!

The massage class ended a few days before the island’s famous Full Moon Party. The massive influx of people arriving for the party crowded the beach, restaurants and stores. Walking on the streets became a hazard as motorbikes driven by first timers whizzed by us. The locals take full advantage by spiking the room rates and scheduling lead up parties at different locations every night. There was the Half Moon Party, Shiva Moon Party, and other parties sponsored by local bars. Unless you attend these parties, you miss out on the fun as every other location feels deserted. To get to the Half Moon party, we agreed to take a songthaew (a truck taxi with benches lining the back) at an inflated price, since it was the only way to get to the party, of course. Not satisfied by fleecing us once, however, they staged a “Thai accident” about halfway to the party, parking a truck in the middle of the road so that no songthaews could pass. Not surprisingly, there were plenty of songthaews that simply happened to be waiting on the other side to take us the rest of the way for the same price we had originally paid. Crooks. Such annoyances aside, the parties were hopping, the music was generally top notch, alcohol was moderately priced, and the hordes of crazy people made it all that much more fun. The Full Moon Party definitely lived up to its billing. There were literally thousands of people drinking and dancing on the beach, dressed in costumes and covered with glow in the dark jewelry and body paint. The party lasted all night and a few hardcore partiers were still passed out on the beach when we rolled in the next afternoon. It’s a party we won’t forget anytime soon.

After the Full Moon Party, we headed to the third major island in these parts, Ko Tao, which is scuba diver central and certifies more scuba divers than anywhere in the world other than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. We had signed up for an entry level PADI Open Water Diver course (certifying you to dive up to 18 meters in the open ocean) at Crystal Dive Resort. The academic portion of the course consists of five lectures followed by a final exam. Then you spend several hours in a swimming pool learning the basics of breathing under water, operating the equipment, emergency measures for equipment malfunction, etc. Once we passed the academics and learned various skills in the confined pool session, we were ready for the open water. Kelli did not feel comfortable with a few skills in the pool and decided that she wasn’t ready for the open water dives. Rutvik went on without her. The conditions for the first open water dive were far from perfect, with choppy waves and low visibility. Rutvik was definitely nervous at first but his confidence increased with each dive. By the last dive, the group had mastered most of the skills and spent about forty minutes exploring the coral and fish at the bottom of the ocean. To celebrate the end of the course, every diver jumped off the top deck of the boat into the ocean. The last two dives were captured by a videographer and then shown in the resort bar on the last night. Very cool! We’re looking forward to doing more water sports soon as we plan to head to the Phuket area on the other side of Thailand for the holidays.

Four Nights in Bangkok

Upon landing at the Bangkok airport, we immediately noticed a difference from India – the number of foreigners. Whereas in India, we could seemingly go days without seeing a non-Indian, there are tons of expats in Thailand. Tourism here is big business and is treated as such. The airport is only a few years old and very modern, catering to tourists with a variety of hotel stands, fast food chains, and information desks. It was very easy to navigate and to find transport, etc. Little did we know at the time, this airport would become “home” to many tourists stuck during the major political protests that followed a few days later.

We headed to Khao San Road, a major stop along the backpacker trail through Southeast Asia. Khao San is like a world unto itself – a carnival of street vendors, street performers, food stands, roadside bars, and massage parlors, with plenty of cheap places to stay. You name it, you can find it somewhere on this street. The food stands sell delicious pad thai, fried rice, fresh fruit shakes, mango and sticky rice, spring rolls, and banana pancakes, along with fried caterpillars, roaches, spiders, and other unidentifiable things that are apparently edible (not for the faint hearted). You can buy all sorts of funny t-shirts, clothes, jewelry, swimsuits, books, and local handicrafts. Rutvik decided to branch out from his usual Brooks Brothers polos (totally uncool with the backpacker crowd) and bought some t-shirts and surfer shorts. We had a good time playing the vendors off each other. There are also plenty of stands where they’ll do piercings, tattoos, and dreads right on the curb. We skipped those and opted for Thai massages instead. It’s hard to say no to the endless touts practically begging to give you an hour long massage for $7!! The roadside bars officially close at midnight (which is our one big complaint), and the cops drive down the street every night to “shut them down” but mainly to collect their bribes from the owners of unlicensed bars setting up shop on the curb. We had fun drinking cocktails out of buckets and people-watching, especially the white guys picking up the Thai girls (and vice versa!). No white guy in this country can stay unattached for long. From what we can tell, these are not typically one night stands – these women actually become “girlfriends” for the entire duration of the trip and sometimes for multiple trips thereafter. (As you might have noticed, we have a count of these pairs going… though in hindsight, it probably would have been way easier to count unattached white guys!) Anything goes on Khao San, it seems. We were offered all sorts of illegal substances and even women, especially when Kelli’s head was turned. We even saw a Thai guy walk a baby elephant down the street around midnight one night, hiding it in an alley as the cops came through.

During the few days we spent in Bangkok, we walked a lot of the city. It is a pain in the butt for foreigners to try to negotiate for transport, and we actually prefer walking anyway. We decided to check out the Grand Palace (the King’s residence) on a Saturday and were shocked to see a massive crowd of Thais at the Royal Grounds adjoining the Palace. It was hard to see much or take pictures. We eventually found someone who spoke some English, who told us that the King’s sister had died a few weeks earlier and people were there to pay her their respects. The King is extremely revered by the Thai people. There are images of him all over the country, and, while he has no official power, his blessing is important for the stability of any democratically elected government. The Grand Palace is beautiful, a blend of European and Thai architecture, but the King’s temple, Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) next to it is simply stunning. We were also impressed by nearby Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). We’ll let our pictures speak for themselves.

On Sunday, we heard of the political unrest in Bangkok (which we talked about in our Thanksgiving blog entry) on BBC while getting ready and got assurances from a few locals about safety in Bangkok before we headed out for a day of shopping. We first took an extremely overcrowded local bus to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, which brought back memories from India (both the number of people in the bus and the number of people in the market!) For all the rave reviews we had heard, we didn’t buy much and were disappointed because we couldn’t fit into any of the clothes meant for the tiny Thais!! We then ventured into the modern part of Bangkok, with Silom, its version of Wall Street, and Lumpini Park, its version of Central Park. Especially interesting were the many Thais participating in outdoor aerobics classes and working out at workout stations set up throughout the park. There was even an outdoor concert that we somehow mistook for a funeral. (The music sucked, what can we say?!) Then we walked to Siam Square, a street of huge modern malls. It was funny to be able to bargain for knock-offs at the mall and also strange to see that the stores were all decorated for Christmas in Buddhist Thailand!

The big annoyance in Bangkok is getting around in the city. We decided that if we lived there, we’d have to get a car and brave the chaotic traffic. There is a SkyTrain, but its route is limited and it is quite expensive. The local buses are overcrowded and seem to change their routes often. The tuk-tuks (auto-rickshaws) and taxi drivers like to fleece foreigners and typically refuse to use the meter. On one specifically memorable occasion, we stood in a taxi line for a half hour to get a metered taxi after we had trouble finding one on our own. We were amazed at how many cabs were willing to leave with no passengers instead of taking us with the meter! When we finally got a driver to agree to a metered fare, he quickly changed his tune as soon as we left the mall lot and instead demanded a fixed fare. So frustrating!

Despite the minor annoyances, we enjoyed soaking up the culture for the four days that we spent in Bangkok… but after that and all the people in India, we were definitely ready for some chill time on the islands!!