We weren't exactly in love with Khao Lak. It was quite a touristy town, with many overpriced, touristy restaurants. Our hotel was nice enough, but there wasn't anything to do in Khao Lak. We had one more night before we had a luxury resort stay planned for a week. We were really looking forward to that. We decided to head down to Phuket and stay in the old part of town for a night, before heading to our private resort island. We walked out to the main road to catch a bus down to Phuket. We weren't waiting long before I spied a couple in a big, nice SUV. I asked them if they happened to be heading towards Phuket, and they were, so we hitched a ride with them. So, the German man, Thai woman couple, with their 6 year old daughter, took us to Phuket. We sat in the back with the little girl as she played Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja on her phone, and sometimes recorded herself singing along with the car music. They were nice enough to go out of their way to drop us off in the vicinity of our hotel. That's the nice part of travel outside the US. There are certain places where you can do things like hitchhike, and feel completely safe. I mean, it's not like we hopped in the back of a truck with guys in fatigues carrying machetes, so don't use our experience to go and get yourself killed.
Phuket is an island, with the feel of a city. It's a big island and it seems like all of it is very developed. We stayed in Phuket Town, which is considered the old historical part of Phuket. Some of the main attractions in Phuket are the Sino-Portuguese style houses. There were many of those.
We found a bustling restaurant, filled with Thai people, so we ate there. The food was delicious and spicy.
After a tip off from a woman in a boutique in Phuket Town, we made our way down to the weekend night market. The night market is a place for locals and tourists alike. People go to the night market to buy clothing, backpacks, souvenirs, and dinner. Seth and I bought some snacks. Some of them were more tasty than others. In the adventurous spirit, we sampled some insects, grubs and hoppers to be exact. The grubs were ok, but now that I've tried them I'm not going to be searching them out for a late night snack. The grasshoppers were not my favorite. The flavor was too much like chewing on a stick that you pulled out of the mud, and the legs had spikes that pricked my tongue. I think I'll stick to snacks like sausages and jack fruit from now on.
In the morning we went in search of a special type of spindly, white noodles, a Phuket traditional breakfast. We found the noodles, I think, but we realized soon that we were in a Chinese restaurant eating dim sum, rather than Thai food. Awesome. The dim sum was the same as at home and different. We had har gow, but also little bowls of fish soup with ginger. And when we ordered our noodles, they came in a soup, not a curry. But, it was all very good, and a great way to start our day.
We, finally, made it over to the dock to catch a water taxi to the private resort island of The Village at Coconut Island. We were, almost, immediately disappointed when we saw the beach was quite unexceptional. And, once we made it to our room, the disappointment grew. The room was not the same as the ones advertised on the website, and it was dirty. Gross. The hotel sent someone to tidy up, but it didn't change much. There were so many other things wrong with the situation, but not worth getting into, because we got out. We had to wait until the next morning to talk with the appropriate people, and after doing so we left to another island. We finally escaped!
Now we are on the cozy little island of Ko Yao Noi. We're staying in the Suntisook Bungalows and it feels like paradise.
Yesterday, we rented a scooter and scoot around the island to check it out. We found a hard to reach beach, and Seth showed me his muscles as he opened a sprouted coconut. For those of you who don't remember (or do) we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. While there, our friend Annie told us that there was a chunk of coconutty goodness hiding inside a sprouted coconut. But, when we tried to find one, we spent over an hour opening the coconuts with no reward. This time we opened the coconut to find a delicious coconut foam, with the crunchy texture somewhat like a watermelon. We learned later that the coconut tree grows on this foam and the coconut meat for 2 years before sprouting roots. While we were enjoying our delicious coconut snack on the beach, a man approached us and helped us dislodge the coconut meat for eating. He then went and found us some fresh tamarind from a tree nearby, and ended up climbing it to fetch us some more. Though he spoke no English and us no Thai, we hung out for a bit before leaving the beach.
We had to leave, because we didn't want to be late for our cooking class. Mena, of Mena's Thai Cookery, taught us how to prepare a variety of Thai dishes. She was a wonderful woman with a wealth of knowledge when it comes to cooking. And, to top it off, we ended up with a very, very good Thai meal in the end. She should open a restaurant.
We have a spectacular view of the sunrise over the Phang Nga Bay and I'm laying in a hammock as I write this post, watching the tide roll in. Today we will spend the day relaxing, but we have about a week to do what we want, on this island or another, and in our near future we have kayaking, snorkeling, and perhaps fishing. It's pretty exciting.
