Phuket: Expats and Australians

The second day we had to wake up way early. We had scheduled a boat tour stopping at three places the day before. I’m still not completely sure where we ended up going, but it was definitely worth the money and the devotion of one full day.

At something like 7:40 a.m. we pushed ourselves out of the hotel’s front door. There, after a five-minute wait, came a minibus to pick us up and transport us to the boat dock on the other side of the island. Along the way, the bus gradually filled up to the brim with passengers from other hotels as well.

We got to the dock to find crowds of people there. It kind of reminded me of my hometown—it was 80% white, which, while not necessarily a bad thing, was definitely unexpected.

Snooping around and listening to the noise, it became clear that a great deal of them were Australian. There were some French and English people, but the Australians were so prevalent that one of my friends who is Australian herself told me that their stereotypical accent was annoying. I have often had the same sentiment as of late, I’ve noticed. Copious amounts of the word “like,” in conjunction with rising intonation at the end of every sentence—“They talk in questions!”—has really begun to irk me.

The boat that we loaded onto had three decks—the lowest and cheapest, the middle V.I.P. section, and the upper deck not reserved. As expected, the crowds flocked up to the upper deck, for the views, for the air, for whatever. We claimed the cheap seats that we were meant to claim, which was fine, because there was plenty of open space on the middle deck for fresh air and water viewing—or so I thought.

We arrived at the first stop about half an hour after disembarking. With white-sand beaches, there were plenty of lawn chairs (that turned out to cost money, so we moved), and colorful fish to go around. To get off the boat, we had to get onto smaller (motorized) boats to get to shore.

One of my friends bought bread for the fish (that they were selling onboard), and she shared it with us. Like little kids, we threw the bread into the water and watched the fish converge. I started with small niblets that were consumed quickly, but I ended up submerging the rest of my piece in the water, allowing the fish to take hits at it while I still held the other side.

My friends proceeded to have drinks out of pineapples while I consumed a can of Coke. They then posed with the tops on their heads like hats. The weather wasn’t overly sunny. In fact, it was more overcast in nature, and it seemed like it was going to rain.

I know that I have trouble with weather. I complain in rain, I know, and whine when the temperature is less than 60 degrees. The thing is that I have trouble predicting weather as well. The first time it rained while I was in Hong Kong, I stepped out of the front door of the hall with a short-sleeved shirt, short pants, and flip-flops. That day, I slipped twice, and bought an umbrella. The next day I slipped again and waterlogged my right foot in a wet shoe. At least the second day I had a sweater. In planning for Taipei, I figured that since the temperature said 29 degrees Celsius, I wouldn’t have to worry about rain. Wow, was I wrong. The first two days it poured like I’d not seen in a long time. There, I bought another umbrella (this time plaid). I guess in California, it has to be under a certain temperature to start raining, and if it’s about to rain, the temperature will first drop.

And it started to rain when we were back on the big boat, going from the first destination to the second. (The first I can’t remember the name; the second Maya Bay). All the people lounged on the upmost deck started coming down, and I had the pleasure of informing them that the seats around me were taken. When it stopped raining between the second destination and the third (Maya Bay and Phi Phi Island), they selfishly went right back up to their undeserved seats.

Also, sitting down on the boat took longer than necessary, specifically and definitely because people filing on wanted to get their hands on the buffet onboard before sitting down. They just couldn’t sit down and allow everyone else to sit down so that the boat could start going before they crowded the buffet trays. Oh well.

Maya Bay was amazing. With sheer cliffs surrounding the bay, except for one private beach area, the water was deep. The tour came with snorkeling equipment, so we went snorkeling around the bay, diving and encountering fish. The water was cold (though not as bad as my parents’ pool) and the fish remained systematically unfriendly, but the experience was amazing. I had snorkeled before, the latest that I can remember being in La Jolla Cove (near UCSD).

I also learned about some sea critters that I had no knowledge of. In the water, it felt like I was getting pinched all over, but not by fingers. My Australian friend enlightened me to the fact that those were sea lice, and that she has them back home. Apparently, I could feel only around a quarter of the bites plaguing me.

Between the second and third destinations, there was about an hour of travel time. Getting seasick inside, we headed out to the deck. The spacious room seemingly apparent earlier in the trip seemed to disappear under the crowds—and by crowds, there couldn’t’ve been more than fifteen people on the bow of the vessel. The three-to-four person benches were being occupied by but a few (large and) inconsiderate people. To onlookers, they gave haughty looks, like they deserved those seats. And maybe they did deserve those seats, because the four of us got a deal on that daytrip. The price advertised for the day was ฿2200 THB per person ($66 USD), but when the four of us asked for a discount (because the travel agents give them out left and right), they quoted for the four of us just ฿3600 total, or ฿900 per person ($27 USD). In short, anyone who didn’t ask for a discount got gypped. We resorted to standing along the edge of the boat with plenty of fresh air but not seats.

The last stop on that trip was a town on Phi Phi Island. It was most definitely a tourist town, but walking through it, hawkers weren’t nearly as aggressive back on Phuket Island. They only started if you walked into their shop, having of course shown interest.

Wondering what I bought in Thailand, then? Well I bought a few postcards to send back home, but also I got a few novelty-type t-shirts. One said Red Bull (as in the energy drink brand) in Thai along with the iconic logo. Originally, Red Bull is from Thailand and its English name is a direct translation from the Thai name กระทิงแดง, and not the other way around. The other was a Coca-Cola t-shirt in Thai. My friend going to India said that if she found an iconic logo in a foreign language on a t-shirt, she would post me one.

The town was more peaceful and quiet than Patong Beach, and when we went exploring, we ended up on a different beachfront and had to retrace our steps to get back to the proper beach (and eventually the boat). Along the way were multiple companies offering diving and scuba certification. If I had free time and unrestricted money, I would do that.

The journey back to the dock on Phuket Island was an hour and forty-five minutes. This was followed by a cramped minibus ride back to Patong Beach, with me keeping my knees firmly touching so that I was not nudging the guy on my left and so that I didn’t hit the gearshift on the right. (The driver sat on my right, as the country drives on the left for the most part).

That was a tiring day and a tiring night. We went through many more markets and I found myself buying like 24 fl. oz. of Thai tea from the neighborhood 7-Eleven. Going through the markets was much more fun than going through markets in Hong Kong and Mainland China because the semblance of those places (such as Stanley Market on the south side of Hong Kong Island) to Chinatowns back home (I’ve been to those of Los Angeles—Chinatown and Monterey Park, San Francisco, and Chicago), is quite high. However, in Thailand, the merchandise and the approach to salesmanship were so different.

That night, I did little studying. The next day, we flew back to Hong Kong. After the same minibus ride, we arrived at the small airport to find lines flying like rat-tails out of the entrances. After waiting and entering the building, we realized that it was because they do security checks upon entrance into the building, rather than after check-in, as I’ve seen in all other airports.

I ended up studying less than imagined on the plane because I was super tired. Though the test went alright, I wondered a mere day earlier what was with the plane that I was on. The airplane (an Airbus I believe) was billowing steam from the joints between the overhead compartments and the walls and ceiling. It became more disconcerting as it became so noticeable that people began taking pictures of it as it obscured the ceiling. Eventually it subsided and I was never so glad to land as I was during that flight.

It’s a shame that I didn’t get to travel more outside of Greater China, this trip has made me realize. No matter how much Taiwan tries to act independent and no matter how much Hong Kongers look down at Mainland Chinese habits, the fact of the matter is that the places are so much more similar to each other than to other east Asian countries, and for that I feel I’m missing out.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
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