The Phuket holiday, nightlife and seafood

After months of planning, the Phuket trip soon came, and ended as fast as it could. For those who have been to this so called ‘resort town’, the experience is indeed different in many ways, as I enjoyed my brief stay in a place which is part of Thailand.

To be honest, I didn’t have much of an expectation of Thailand, or Phuket in this matter as it is quite famed for ‘wild parties’ and uh.. sex.

Anyway, behind that tagline, Phuket was indeed an amazing place to visit, with the people being super nice, and the beauty of its islands and culture, almost unmatched.

The hotel we occupied was a bit far from Bangla Street where everything is said to happen, but it was a blessing since I loved riding in the ‘Tuk Tuk’, well, regardless if it was RM20/THB200 to almost anywhere we went in Patong. Bet that was ‘tourist price’.

Food or more accurately Thai food and seafood was indeed found in abundance in Phuket, with choices for either ‘dining in style’, or simply doing it the local way; street dining.

Despite the risk of having unhygienic food, I prefer the later, and I somewhat managed to talk the rest to join me in following tips on popular social media Foursquare for a cheap yet delicious street food stall.

A local eatery named Linda Seafood came highly recommended in Foursquare, and at RM150 @ THB1500 for a 1kg lobster, I had no complaints splashing out more cash for a perfect bowl of Seafood Tom Yam, and about three more other seafood related dishes. Linda the owner, was also very nice as she willingly posed for a photo after taking our order.

Since Phuket is also famed for the nearby amazing islands, we decided island hoping was something we should really do.

For island hopping, we succumbed to the beauty of the above lovely tour agent nearby our hotel as she, without much hassle, offered us ‘student price’ for the whole Phi Phi Island hopping trip. I’m not sure if it was cheap, but it cost each of us THB1500/RM150 each.

The journey to the speed boat bay was dull, and it was even more of a dismay to myself when I realized I forgot to load my camera with the memory card.  The camera was bought for moments like this, and it was useless!  *sigh* Shots I could share here were from my smartphone, and a friends camera.

Nonetheless, the breath-taking scenery on the boat, and the excitement of being on a holiday proved to be stronger that I enjoyed the island hopping adventure until the end.

Along the island hopping adventure, we were also allowed to go snorkeling and swimming, in which my signature pose in water must be applied..huarrgghh!!

Another great thing to do in Phuket as said by many, was to enjoy the long white Patong beach. Unfortunately, it rained just as we sat on the beach chairs, and the so called hour long foot massage we tried the next day at the beach would be embarrassed to be even called a massage –  commercialism doing its magic. =(

At the end of the day, the swimming pool at the hotel proved to be a better option to relax with local beer, Chang.

As night came, there’s only one thing to do in Phuket, which is enjoy the night life of Patong, or specifically Bangla Road.

The nightlife here is indeed crazy with sexy pole dancers, live bands and ping pong shows going on in almost every corner.

We were tempted to see what was on with this well promoted ‘Ping Pong Shows’, but ended feeling utterly disgusted by what we saw, and feeling somewhat ‘cheated’ with the exorbitant beer prices we paid for.

However, I would like to believe that no visit to Phuket/Patong/Bangla Street would be complete without seeing one of these shows. – Bet you won’t see it anywhere else!

From Ping Pong shows, we moved on to live band performances, which I think was the best ever of live band performances I’ve ever experienced. The bands here not only don’t take breaks like most bands I’ve seen, but also go the extra mile to entertain their audiences. It was like going to a concert to say the least!

At some point, we also paid a visit to a gay street, but left almost immediately after reaching the end of the street as the ‘dancing small sized boys in white underwear’ was not a favored sight for any of us.

With our return flight to KL scheduled early in the morning, we opted to walk through Bangla Street for the very last time, and was more than pleased to find out that our goal of meeting and holding the ‘boobs’ of some very pretty ‘ladyboys’ could be completed with a mere RM20/THB200.

Of course, someone was a little too excited with the opportunity presented, and ended up having a photo as seen below.

With that done, we rode our last tuk-tuk ride to the hotel, and prepared for our journey to KL and then Bali.

To be continued with a trip to Bali…