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Thailand Page 3: Phuket
We spent a long holiday weekend in Phuket in October 2000.
Phuket, unlike Koh Samui, is on the west side of the Thai isthmus - near Langkawi (Malaysia) as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, this means it is fairly exposed to the wind and waves that roll in from the Indian Ocean. Although we visited in "dry season," it rained more than half the time that we were there. That cut down a little on our beach and pool activity, as did the red flag at the beach - no swimming in the ocean.
The good news is that the Thai food was excellent, as you would expect, and the other restaurants were also tasty, although one of them had real trouble dealing with a thunderstorm that dumped sheets of rain into the restaurant through the open spaces in the roof and walls. There's also a resident baby elephant who is very cute. It seems that they're training him to be a working elephant, but for the moment one of his main jobs is to mosey by the restaurant at breakfast time as a kind of morning greeter. The little kids who were there loved it, and we thought seeing an elephant at breakfast was pretty cool, too.
We went out for a day on a dive boat so George could get in some dives and Deb could do some snorkelling and beach-sitting. As it turned out, the dive guides said the weather wasn't good enough to go out to the Phi Phi Islands, and instead we did dives closer in, at Shark Point and Anemone Reef. Bad news for Deb: there's no beach or snorkelling place at those sites. So she spent the day on the boat, reading her book, getting some sun, and being fairly bored (though amused at the air-guitaring Meatloaf look-alike who was one of many annoying Germans on the boat). The diving was okay, and it was a long day so George was able to get in 4 dives including a night dive. Decent critters and corals, but fairly poor visibility and significant current. Didn't see much that was very exciting, aside from spotting a leopard shark. Also finally saw a seahorse. Sorry, no photos - we're still working on replacing our underwater camera.
Deb engaged in one small act of rebellion before heading back to the grind of Hong Kong. A little shop on the beach offered henna-based painted "tattoos", so Deb got one done around her ankle. We thought it would be good for tweaking uptight clients and lawyers.
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