Party in Phuket

Aloha from across the ocean,

I’m writing to you from Thailand, where I’m traveling with my girlfriend Mel. In my last post, I wrote about our time in Singapore. Our next stop was Phuket, the island in southern Thailand, where we stayed from January 13-16. We didn’t have many concrete plans after Singapore, so we spent some of our time there figuring out where to go next and decided on Phuket, followed by Koh Phi Phi (or Phi Phi Islands).

We’d heard Phuket was a nice island but didn’t really know what to expect. As we researched it, we recognized the island had a reputation for partying. Since we were leaving Singapore on a Friday, we decided to embrace the mayhem that could come with being in Phuket on the weekend and booked two beds in a hostel in Patong Bay, Phuket’s biggest party area.

We got in a little later than expected on Friday after losing some time in the airport waiting for a minibus. The airport offers taxi services to the popular beaches in Phuket and one of the options is a minibus, which is basically a 12-passenger van where you ride with other people going to the same area. We chose it because it was cheaper, but it didn’t end up being worth it. We waited by the vans with other passengers and after about 10-15 minutes many of the passengers were loaded into a van. We thought our time would be coming soon, but after a half hour nothing had happened so we asked what was going on. We were told the minibus wouldn’t leave until there were ten people ready to go, which confused us because there had probably been a dozen people in the waiting area. The lady telling us tried to upsell us to get a private taxi, saying we could leave immediately if we did that. We waited a bit longer, but after an hour of waiting we decided it wasn’t worth it, and called a Bolt (Thailand’s version of Uber), which was cheaper than the airport taxi.

We were tired from traveling to and from airports and still feeling jetlagged, so we took it easy the first night in Phuket. We walked around town for a bit and got some ice cream before calling it a night.

The next morning, we ate breakfast at our hostel. After eating we went for another, longer walk around town and got a decent feel for the place: restaurants, taxis, tour services, SIM card stores, and massage parlors were everywhere. We came back and relaxed by our hostel’s pool, which was very appreciated after not having easy access to swimming in Singapore. We were worried after seeing the temperatures for Thailand because they were even hotter than Singapore’s, which got us sweating almost instantly when we went outside. Luckily we found Thailand to be much more comfortable and less humid.

In the afternoon, we walked along Patong Beach. The beach has tons of tourists, but it’s also very wide and long so we were able to find our own space. There’s tons of activity going on: jet skiing, parasailing, swimming, eating, drinking, and more. We stopped when we found our favorite activity of all, beach volleyball. We didn’t realize how much we’d missed it until we started playing again. In Hawaii, we probably play more days than not, so we’d been going through serious volleyball withdrawals. The competition was decent and we got some super fun rallies in.

We cooled off afterwards by swimming in the ocean and drinking smoothies, which are about as easy to get as drinking water in Phuket, since smoothie stands are all over the streets. They also cost 60-70 Thai Baht (roughly $2 USD), so it was hard for us to say no.

Back at the hostel, we freshened up and enjoyed some happy hour drinks with our roommates, Ryan and Paul from England and Australia. They were fun to chat with and Paul gave us some helpful advice from his extensive travels in Southeast Asia. Mel and I treated ourselves to Thai massages after our drinks for the impossibly reasonable price of 200 Baht (~$6.50) for an hour. We got full body massages and felt blissful and relaxed afterwards. The highlight for me was the masseuse standing up on my legs, which I hadn’t realized was a real part of some massages.

We got some kebabs at a festive night market nearby, which consists of many vendors selling all kinds of cheap food. It’s almost like a food court but the vendors are selling from little stands instead of restaurants.

We brought some beers back to our hostel and started socializing with a group that was planning to go out later. We eventually walked with a big group to Backpacker Bar, which was a fun bar with a lot of young backpackers (duh). The bar was on a side street just off of Bangla Road, which is the biggest party street on the island, possibly in all of Thailand. The street was absolute mayhem, with many bars playing music so loudly that you couldn’t talk to someone next to you even if you shouted, strip clubs with dancers performing publicly, and advertisers on the street trying to lure tourists into lurid shows with content too explicit to describe in this blog. It was fun walking down the street for the experience and to see the crazy night life of Phuket, but I don’t really think many of the places on Bangla Road would be a good time just because of how deafeningly loud the music was. It’s a very gaudy scene that clearly caters to tourists and there wasn’t a lot I’d want to go back for, at least on Bangla Road. The Backpacker Bar was decently fun, since it was slightly removed, at least enough that we could talk and have space to dance and play games.

On Sunday morning, we checked out of our hostel but left the bags there so we could move around more easily. I was interested in parasailing and wanted to put my haggling skills to the test. There are many guides offering parasailing along the beach, so I knew I’d have several chances to hone in on a price that they’d agree to. We’d talked to a couple guys yesterday and had been able to work the price down from 3000 Baht to 2500 instantly, so I felt like there was more room for them to budge. We engaged in some more sustained bartering with one of the first guys we saw on the beach and were able to get the price down to 2200, but I thought we could still do better. After striking out on our subsequent attempt, we tried our luck at the next guy, who was just a couple more minutes of walking along the beach away. I worked him down to 2200, where he started to become more rigid with his price. I was thinking that there might be some unspoken agreement among the parasailors to not dip below certain prices that we were approaching so that they wouldn’t undercut each other. I was offering 2000 and he was saying 2200 and we stuck there for a while before he came down to 2150. I went up to 2100 and held firm there, hoping he’d budge. He stayed at 2150 and wouldn’t move, so we started walking away. He feigned disinterest momentarily, seeing if we’d bite and come back, before following us and agreeing to 2100. We were all smiling when we agreed to that price; it’s a win for tourists getting to feel like they’ve scored a “deal”, and it’s a win for the locals who are getting considerable money by Thai standards for an experience that takes less than 15 minutes all told.

After agreeing to the price, we walked over to the stand where the parasailors were set up and they got us into harnesses and life vests. Before taking off, I asked the guy if I could give them my phone to record us in the air and he said yes, so I went and grabbed my phone. I had my phone in hand to pass it off when one of the guys told me to come towards him. I walked a couple steps towards him and then all of a sudden we were taking off. I hadn’t planned to have my phone so I was gripping it really tightly throughout the ride because it would have disappeared into the ocean below if I’d dropped it.

The parasailing itself was sweet. We were up in the air for about 5-10 minutes enjoying the views, smooth flying, and sensation of being that high up. It was a cool way to view the bay and soak in the sun and salty breeze. The landing was fun, too. The guys running the operation basically just yell at everyone on a large swath of beach to get out of the way and then they track the parachute as it comes in and grab the people and ropes and gently pull them down. It was my first time parasailing and it was a great experience. It was much cheaper than it would’ve been in the US and we didn’t need to fill out any waivers.

After parasailing, we went to the same spot as the day before and played more volleyball with an international group, including people from Thailand, Russia, and Finland. Our only common language was the love of the game. We played until we were too tired to keep going. Then we ate lunch and went back to the hostel and got a Bolt (taxi) to our next housing, a hotel in the town part of Phuket away from the beaches.

Our hotel in town was high quality. The room was large with a balcony, a massive bed, a TV, and AC. There was also a gym and a nice rooftop infinity pool. We wanted a place where we could recharge for a night and enjoy our living accommodations a bit. We relaxed in the afternoon and got our first gym workouts in since starting travel, which felt great.

We started looking for food after working out and it turned into quite the fiasco. We decided to walk to a night market, but after walking for less than five minutes on the road right by our hotel we realized we were going to have to walk along crazy roads with minimal sidewalks and intersections that were really difficult to cross on foot. So, we settled with ordering food on a delivery app called Grab and having it delivered to the hotel. We thought that was all fine but then we received a notification saying that there were no available drivers. We got the same message a few more times before giving up and looking for a local place on the street. We found one on Google Maps but when we walked to it, it was closed. We finally settled on getting microwaveable sandwiches from the mini mart on the busy street. We were walking around for so long to end up with such lame food in the end. Despite that, we kept our spirits pretty high and enjoyed dinner while watching TV.

The next day we ate a lot at the breakfast buffet and then went to gym and rooftop pool. We wanted to take advantage of the amenities of our nice hotel since they might be few and far between. We left our hotel at 12:40 and got a Bolt to the pier to catch a ferry to Koh Phi Phi, which I’ll write about next post.

We enjoyed Phuket. It’s a very popular area for tourists, and overcrowded in places, but I understand much of the appeal for why it’s so popular. The beach is lovely, there are plenty of food and drink options, and the streets are buzzing with vendors galore and constant activity. It was not uncommon to see a motorbike with three or more (the most we saw was five) people on it swerving past a tuk tuk already swerving past a car. Despite parts of it being gimmicky, the island has a lively energy and much to offer in terms of natural beauty. Next time I’d opt to see one of the other beaches of Phuket to get a more laid-back feeling than Patong can offer. Maybe we’ll swing by Phuket again as we leave Thailand. That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

P.S. (In case you missed it last post) I have an international SIM card and I haven’t been able to receive texts with it. The situation might change in Fiji, New Zealand, or Australia, but in the meantime you can reach me via email (thomasdjones4@gmail.com), WhatsApp (you should still be able to text my American number, 860-558-4333, through that app), or Instagram (@tommydjones4).