Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Phuket, Thailand - August 2nd through 8th, 2009
We arrive at Phuket airport later than late after a very short flight.
Tarek and I take the first shuttle we find; it takes us to Phuket city with several other tourists. For the accommodation, we've been very smart on this one! A few minutes before boarding our flight in Bangkok, we realized that there were internet stations in the boarding room. I therefore went on the first helpful website to find cheap budget hotels on www.hostelworld.com (www.couchsurfing.com isn't really helpful for very last minute trips)
While Tarek holds the boarding doors, I try to choose a good hotel from all the offers on Phuket island. I choose a hotel, nicely called Ekkamon Mansion. A mansion in Phuket! Wow: so much luxury, so much comfort! I quickly write down the adress of this palace on paper. With such a name, I was expecting a to welcome us with a great smile in the Ekkamon Mansion Domain, I was expecting him to snap and have a bellboy take care of our bags and drop them into our suite with private swimming pool. I thought that in the luxury elevator, another bellboy would have pushed the button for us. To be clear, I had great expectations based on the name Mansion; however, I should have been more suspicious with a low price of 6.51 euros at the Ekkamon Mansion.
After a lovely time going around Phuket city without a map, repeating approximately 50 times (honestly) that we did not want taxi, massages, drugs, fake rolex and after having visited another hotel also with the name Mansion (even though it looked closer to the place from Les Misérables), we finally arrived at our Ekkamon Mansion. Our disappointment was as great as were our expectations! The entrance looked like an abandoned garage, the lobby was a rusty camping table and there was nobody to welcome us. It was approximately 1:30 in the morning: we clearly lacked any energy to look for anything else; I therefore started to walk around to find anyone who could help us.
I found an employee sleeping on an old garden chair from the 70's, amongst many diverse objects. He snores loudly and sleeps very deeply. It takes me a little while and many efforts to wake him up. There, we found a communication problem: he doesn't speak any English! (I don't know about French, I never dare trying). He finally understands our concern and calls his wife so that she can give us a room and a key to open it.
We cross the long prison hallway to our cell... hummm.... room for the night. The following day, we visit the neighbourhood around the manor to check where we could move to. One of our priorities was to be close to the beach, as we are only staying in Phuket for a few days.
Alas, to our great surprise, a passerby informs us that there is no beach in Phuket City: to find beaches and tourist centres, we need to go to the south eastern part of the island. We take our bags and get on the first bus to finally reach our Graal, our mysterious object of desire that made us run away from Bangkok. The town with great beaches is Karon (Katat Beach). Of course, we have no idea about which stops we need to get off at: Phuket is not covered by my Lonely Planet (only on the Mekong Delta and northern Thailand), we therefore use our feeling and hope to be lucky!
Once again, I used hostelworld to find a better hotel: the southern fried rice (nothing to do with my manor fantasy: I was just hungry when I was looking for a hotel). As soon as we got of the bus, a few (a little too) charming young Thai girls come to our rescue and give us direction to our hotel. They ask us to promise them to come back and meet them in the bar where they seem rather comfortable.
After the usual paperwork, we finally have a room in a nice hotel, not too expensive, close to the sea! Victory! It's getting dark: we decide to go and meet up those charming helpers. O crual and injust word, we notice that as soon as it gets dark, our neighbourhood becomes a kind of red light district. The young ladies "work" in those bars and call repeatingly and loudly on the European (and wealthy) client.
Our stay in Phuket tropical paradise is spent at the beach during the days, in restaurants in the evening to try different thai specialties and to play cards.
We get to know the hotel manager of the southern fried rice; he's Norwegian and has lived in Phuket for the past 7 years or so. He asks us how old we are, saying that we could be his grand-children; he's telling us he's 67.
Tarek therefore says "you are way too young to be our grandfather. But I guess you could be this young waitress' grandfather"
The hotel manager answers right away "She's my 23 years old girlfriend! We just had a child together who is now two and a half years old"
This little conversation illustrates fairly well a very common situation in Thailand: a young and pretty Thai girl in a couple with an older European.
After six days spent in Phuket and after having managed to shop a bit (DVD, Jeans...), we take our plane back to Bangkok.
A few days after we got back to Bangkok, a submarine earthquake has created fears of a tsunami in the Andaman sea (where Phuket is located).
Once again, I leave a place at the right time! Timing is everything... ;)
To remember :
Iran = I left Iran shortly after the presidential elections still contested 'til now
Pakistan = quick trip across this country where tension keeps on rising
Western China = I was in Urumqi three days before the riots that caused over a hundred deaths
Hong Kong = departure from HK the day a small typhoon was getting ready to hit the city (no dammage, it got smaller as it approached the coast)
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