Day 21 - Saturday, March 5 - Phuket

A very happy Thai Birthday to Bert!

sa·rong ( P ) Pronunciation Key (s-r๔ng, -rng)n.
A garment consisting of a length of printed cloth wrapped about the waist that is worn by men and women in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Pacific islands.

Ditch the towel. All you need is a sarong. It's extremely multi-functional. It can be used to mop the sweat off your brow as you are walking and melting. It can be used as a towel in the guesthouses that don't provide them, a beach blanket, and it dries real fast. Towels take too long to dry!

Decided to pay a visit to Phuket Town today and also bring some excess baggage to the "recently opened" Mail Boxes Etc store that Lonely Planet mentions. Caught a bus at around noon from outside the hotel to Phuket Town. The bus took an hour and when I got off in Phuket, I had a brief conversatiopn with these 2 English guys who were on the bus. I went on my way and tried to find MBE. Finally, I hired a tuk tuk to take me to where I thought it was. Phulet tuk tuks have a scam going. It's not that different from the scummy ones in Bangkok. It's not really a scam but it works like this: You get in the back and tell him where you want to go. He then tells you that he will take you to a shop first and then take you to your destination. At that shop, he, being the driver, gets a stamp in this little book. When his book is filled, he gets free gas. The shop owners do this to get people into their stores especially now that the tourism is at an all time low here. A lot of the driver will not take you if you refuse the "shopping" part. All you need to do is walk in the giant store, walk around for 2 minutes and leave. You are not obligated to buy anything nor does anyone pressure you to. I got in, went to this giant gem store, looked around for 3 minutes, left with nothing and got back in the tuk tuk. He let me out on the road I wanted but nowhere near where I wanted to be. Yes, I was on Th Puket (that's the street name) but after looking and reading the map for 15 minutes, I realized I was about a mile from where I needed to be. I walked to where MBE was according to Lonely Planet and after asking 36 people and walking up and down, I figured out that the MBE has closed since publication of the edition I have.

An hour later, I stumbled across a DHL office and dumped my stuff off, paid an arm and a leg to ship it home and then decided I had seen enough of Phuket town and I tired to find the bus stop. Along the way, I ran into Pete and Simon, the 2 English guys I met briefly on the bus ride over there. This time we had a formal introduction. They informed me I was heading in the wrong direction back to the bus and showed me the way.

While waiting for the bus, we found some guy who offered us a ride back to Kata / Karon for 50 bht each IF we allowed him to take us "shopping". I wasn't so keen on the idea being that I just did that 2+ hours ago, but we figured it was the best way to get back. Who knows what time the next bus would arrive and it takes a lot longer on the bus than a car. We hopped in, went back to the same gem shop I had visited with the earlier driver and within minutes were back on the road to the beaches. Along the way, the sky darkened and the wind picked up. There was dust, sand and dirt flying everywhere and if I didn't know better, I would have though it was a tornado or a monsoon. Then the thunder, lighting, and RAIN came. Torrential rain. It was nice to see some weather for a change.

We made it back to the beaches, dropped off Pete and Simon in Kata and made a plan to meet for drinks / dinner at the reggae bar at the south end of Kata Beach at 7:30P. Got back to the "Mermaid" and hung out for a bit before it was time to shower and head out again. At this point, it had stopped raining and cooled down slightly. There was a period of about 6 minutes that it even felt as if the humidity dropped.

Got a tuk tuk to Kata and walked along the beach a bit before I got to Kta Bar. Reggae it was. On the beach it was. It was exactly what I wanted out of drinks and dinner on the beach in Thailand. Everyone soon showed up and after being introduced to 12 of the remaining members of the group, I assessed the future of the evening and had an inkling of the possibility of ending end up face down in the sand only to be awoken at sunrise by a stray dog finding my head as good a place as any to relieve his own self of an evening of his own debauchery.

We had a few beers and got a table for 15. Dinner was good. I had some FRIDE NOODLES WITH PRAWNS (yes, that's how it was spelled). After paying the bill, we headed back over to the bar and 4 of us proceeded to order from the specialty drinks menu starting at the top and making our way to the bottom. We made it to the 5th or 6th one down and I'm not quite sure what happened after that. I believe I arrived back at the "Mermaid" at about 3AM and fell into bed. My alarm had already been set for 7:20A so I would be in the lobby by 8A for the bus to the boat to Phi Phi.

A great time was had by all tonight.