Oh, Phuket!

While at the Grand Palace we had the opportunity to see the changing of the guard. In Prague, like London, this was a big event full of pomp and circumstance with large groups of colorfully liveried soldiers marching precisely in step, chins tucked and rifles twirling. In Bangkok it was…cute. Three soldiers sort of marched somewhat in step, smiling every time they made a mistake. They did two or three simple moves with their rifles, exchanged places, and marched in precision to within five feet of the guard house where they relaxed and walked the rest of the way. After the changing one of the new guards on duty chatted with a tour guide. Our own guide, Cindy, told us the next day that they stand motionless for an hour. Mike said, “or at least 54 minutes.”

I checked out around noon. There were no surprises on the bill, which was in baht although the rates were quoted in U.S. dollars. Phone calls were 15 baht (40¢) regardless of length. We took a taxi-meter to the airport (183 baht plus 40 baht toll or $6). As usual the driver waited until he was about 50 meters from the turnoff to ask us whether we were going to the domestic or international terminal. When Mike replied “domestic” (in Thai) the driver said, “oops,” smiled sheepishly, and cut across four lanes of traffic to get to the exit.

We went to the Business-Class checkin line and were helped by the least friendly Thai woman I’ve ever met. She did not smile once but took our mileage numbers, checked our bags, and handed us boarding passes. We waited in the VIP lounge for an hour while waiting for our flight to be called, snacking on complimentary chicken-liver savouries and iced tea, then took the secret VIP passage to the security checkpoint. We passed the Burger King, where hungry passengers were ordering “Whop-pers,” and got to gate 63 as they were already boarding our flight.

I’ve said before that Thai short-haul domestic service should be a model for the world. Even though they’ve eliminated wine and non-mealtime meals, the service is still great. As we boarded there was a rack with enough newspapers for everyone on the plane to have one if desired. Instantly upon sitting down we got a hot towel and a choice of water, orange juice, or iced tea. This was an Airbus 300 and we got the undesirable bulkhead row (11) with little legroom so when the door closed we moved back to the second row. The flight was one hour. Snack service was limited to crispy baby clams because of the time of say (2 p.m.). Business class was a comfortable 2-2-2 and coach was a 2-4-2 slave ship. $20 more for Business.

We landed in Phuket on schedule. Our bags were first out with their Royal Executive Class tags and we booked a VIP car to Patong Beach. Regular taxis cost 480 baht ($12) and VIP cars (Volvos) cost 700 baht ($18). We decided to go First-Class all the way and took the Volvo for the 45-minute drive. The driver took us to our usual hotel, the Sand Inn, an inexpensive but very friendly establishment with a good Western breakfast in the restaurant and Internet access from the rooms. Low-season rent was 700 baht/night but we got it for 600 baht ($15) because we are good customers. This includes tax and service. The rainy season had arrived in Phuket. Torrential cloudbursts punctuated our trip down the highway to Patong Beach. Drenched Thai schoolchildren rode bicycles and motorbikes two or three at a time, still smiling.

We relaxed and unpacked, then had an early dinner at Mr. Good’s seafood restaurant. Mike was looking forward to slurping down a dozen oysters. I was looking forward to the great Phuket tiger prawns. We pigged out with a bottle of Chilean cabernet and spent a total of 2080 baht ($53.50), quite expensive for a Thai meal. They love us at Mr. Good’s. The piano player remembered I had tipped him six months ago and sent the waiter over to ask if I had any favorites. I asked Mike what he wanted to hear and he came up with “Desperado” by the Eagles. I wondered aloud if the pianist would know it. Mike said of course he would—it’s like the Thai national anthem. He did indeed know it and play it, then segued into “Sentimental Journey” followed by another Eagles hit, “Hotel California,” in honor of me being from California.

After dinner we segued over to the Rock Hard A-Go-Go where Mike had a Piña Colada (peen-YAH) and I had a Long Island Iced Tea (not on the menu, pronounced long-eye-LEN) prepared by my favorite bartender, the chubby “tom” Nung, who loved working at the club and ogling the lay-DEES along with the customers. The Phuket ballet doesn’t really compare favorably to the Bangkok troupes but the atmosphere in the Rock is very comfortable. We went upstairs and missed Larry the cowboy who used to run a country a-go-go up there but married a Thai girl and moved to the small town of Trang. We keep hoping he’ll come back.

We walked around a bit but I got tired and decided to crash early. The monsoons continued on and off through the night, slapping big raindrops against the window like the crashes of waves. It was very relaxing and I slept well.


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Thanks for a great report. I will be in BKK next month. Flying in from Sydney on BA 10. Thanks for your wonderful descriptions.

"or at least 54 minutes" LOL! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I love your descriptions of the pronunciation of words. I'll have a Black So-DA and the ga-RU-pa, please. And a peen-YAH for my friend. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I feel like I'm right there!

HB, if you were right here I'd know it! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Four in a row

It was monsooning when we woke up so we went upstairs to Chopsticks, the sukiyaki restaurant in the Sand Inn for lunch. Sukiyaki, usually just called “suki,” is popular in Thailand. All the suki restaurants are open for lunch but Mike and I are the only ones who ever actually show up at lunch time. As usual, we ordered a wide assortment of meats and vegetables and cooked them in the pot of boiling water at our table. Prior to leaving for Thailand I had discovered in my mail a “Sand Card” good for 10% off room, food, and beverages at Sand Inn and its two restaurants, Euro Deli and Chopsticks. I whipped it out as we ordered and sure enough we got 10% off bringing the total to 585 baht ($15) for the two of us. This is about five times as much as a simple meal of Thai food in one of the local shophouses.

We waited for the rain to stop and then went for a long walk. Mike was looking for an apartment to rent to stay here for a few weeks. We wandered around but didn’t find the perfect place yet. Mike thought it might be a good idea to look on line. After a few hours of walking we had a cool drink at Baitong, a seafood restaurant on the beach road. Mike had a Long Island and I had Mai Tai Served in Pineapple. Inside our rooms at Sand Inn was still another savings card giving 10% off at a few more places, this one included. Being a high-priced tourist place, Baitong charged 270 baht ($7) for the two drinks, but we got our 10% off.

We then crossed the street and proceeded to walk along the beach. We passed a topless black lady-boy enjoying the cool ocean air and the unnerved stares of passers-by. We found ourselves at the No. 7 restaurant, nearby the No. 6 restaurant where I have eaten lunch many times, and camped out on a picnic table facing the ocean with a bottle of Song San Thai rum, a bucket of ice, and several bottles of soda mixer. We drank the cold weak rum drinks, munched on salted peanuts, and watched the sun put on a stunning show for us as we felt the cool wet breeze underneath a pineapple tree. A smiling girl named Bap, about 14, kept our drinks refreshed and warned us to go under the shelter seconds before the rain blew up. The rain clouds obscured the sunset but we saw a bright orange pinpoint burning through, low in the sky.

The show over, we decided to head to Buffalo for dinner. They were having a special on their signature disk, Plank Steak, with salad and a glass of red wine included for 199 baht ($5). Plank steak is a steak served on a wooden plank. Mashed potatoes extruded through a pastry icer divided the plank into partitions containing the steak, gravy, and béarnaise sauce. Even though we ordered it medium-rare the steak came out cooked through. I’m not even sure it was beef, but it was tasty and the potatoes and wine were first-rate.

After dinner we headed over to the Rock for happy hour. The place was full of U.S. Navy personnel and signs all around town welcomed them. Mixed pairs of sailors and marines patrolled the streets, presumably to be available in case 80,000 youngsters who hadn’t had a drink in six months got into any trouble on their shore leave.

I told Mike I had been practicing the Four-in-a-row game on the plane over here. The Cathay Pacific 747 had some games built into the interactive video system and one of them was the popular Thai bar game Four in a Row. We wandered around and found a bar where they played it. Mike and I alternated losing game after game to the bartender while munching popcorn and drinking. Despite my being able to beat the computer I still couldn’t beat the Thais.

After a full but relaxing evening I was ready for bed.


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http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif "plank steak" lol. Originally, QL thought it was a typo and should be "flank" steak, but sure enough, it came out on a plank. When I was there with him a few years ago, I was witness to a functionality of mashed potatos that I never even dreamed possible. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Great trip report, QuietLion! I believe the last time I was in Bangkok my c0-worker and I were ripped off in the same upstairs bar. I think the name was "Cleopatra's". Anyone going out drinking in Patpong should be very wary of going into this place. It also seemed full of lady-boys. There are many places to go and have a reasonably priced beer! Anyway, thanks for a great report. I have not been to Phuket yet - but I plan on it soon.

-RKG

you know, QL, i'm taking a trip vicariously and enjoying the moments, the food, the women, and the savings -- wishing you a safe journey -- and looking forward to our time together soon http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cool.gif

You're having fun....wish I was there.

Butterfly

The Thais enjoy talking about family relationships and unusually sized body parts. I can’t count the number of conversations we had with various waiters, clerks, and taxi drivers about the fact that Mike was nong chai and I was pee chai—younger and older brothers. Why was I picking up the check? Pee chai! “Oh, pee chai!” All was understood. Many of the playful younger Thais liked to comment on our pum pui—round bellies. Thais all have perfectly flat abdomens without an ounce of extra fat on them. They find it very amusing that Americans waltz in more than a couple of pounds overweight. They find many things amusing. Amusing Thailand.

It rained on and off all day today. We stayed in the hotel all morning working, watching TV, and playing computer games, then headed out for lunch and a walk during a break in the rain. Mike had heard about an apartment building called Phuket Grand Condotel so we walked over there to see if they had a suitable place for him to spend a few weeks. We met a Hungarian-Austrian who showed us a couple rooms and then recommended a Thai-Chinese restaurant that served escargot-mussels. We took a cab over to Lair Le Tong, nestled at the end of the unmarked Soi Wattana where the clinic of Dr. Wattana was located. The Thai escargot (mussels) were an interesting novelty but the shrimp fried in garlic was a 10. Our waiter couldn’t remember three dishes ordered by his only table and we had to remind him. With three seafood dishes the check-BEEN came to 350 baht ($9).

After lunch we slowly walked down the beach road looking into several of the hotels. Almost all of them are on the opposite side of the road from the beach. The one or two that are on the beach are outrageously expensive. All the hotels had standard, superior, and deluxe rooms. We asked what the difference was and one place told us “more facility.” When Mike asked what that meant, the clerk replied “facility is more.” I told Mike I bet that translated into “upgraded amenities.”

We walked by a place that gave foot massages. Mike had been wanting one so we went in. I was going to wait while he had his, since as a rule I don’t get massages, but I decided to take the plunge. What followed was 50 minutes of rubbing, prodding, and tickling of my tender feet. I only cried out in pain a couple dozen times. When it was over my feet felt refreshed, like I’d rested them for an hour.

We strolled back to Sand Inn and cleaned up for dinner. Tonight we decided to try another place operated by the owners of Ban Rim Pa: Da Maurizio, an Italian restaurant right next door. We saw in an ad that they had a complimentary limo so we asked the clerk at the front desk to call and have them pick us up at 7:30. Sure enough an air-conditioned van pulled up shortly before 7:30 and whisked us to the spot in the northwest corner of Patong underneath the Novotel. We were shown to a table 12 inches from the beach on a planked platform underneath a thatched roof. Spotlights illuminated waves crashing thunderously over smooth and jagged rocks. This has to be one of the best settings in the world for a restaurant. It was so beautiful that my first thought was of sharing it with Hunnybear. My next thought was of Rudi and PremEx in Wengen. I ordered a sidecar and toasted them. It tasted like a margarita. Is it supposed to?

We started with an assortment of baked shellfish, which was good. Next we split an order of very nice risotto with rock lobster and saffron. For the secondo, I ordered imported Dutch veal parmigiana while Mike had a delicious beef dish, thinly sliced and simmered in rosemary and white wine. Like Ban Rim Pa, this place was expensive even by Western standards. The bill came to 4411 baht ($113) including the mandatory 10% tip. We found the complimentary limo and got a ride back to Sand Inn, where we hopped across the street to the Rock and had a nightcap with Nung, the “tom” bartender. She had a cow-colored Band-Air® brand adhesive bandage under her eye. I asked her what had happened.

“Lay-DEE, not understand, think I am butterfly,” she said, flipping her palms up as if to say, “what can you do?” To the Thais, “butterfly” is the code word for a man who hops from flower to flower, cross-pollinating. Apparently she had a lovers’ spat.

Once you get out of North America all they ever show on TV is soccer. We watched Czech Republic tie up the score with Italy as the hours marched on.


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so, let me get this straight - does "tom" mean manly? Someone thought she/he was a man? (she's a MAN, baby!)

"Tom" (from "tomboy")... I just think it means she likes layDEE...

Outrageous phone charges come to Phuket!

Early in the morning the power went out at Sand Inn. With the air conditioning turned off I could hear the Thais whooping and hollering outside, excited by the big event. The outage lasted less than an hour, but then a construction crew started hammering with unprecedented passion next door to me. Eventually I gave in and got up. When Mike and I met for lunch he told me that he had just seen Kuhn Su and she had told him she had forgotten to mention it, but now they were charging by the minute for local calls. For 30 minutes, 30 baht. For 60 minutes, 60 baht. They figured out they only had three phone lines and, rather than rent another one for 100 baht/month, they were implementing these charges. Of course, 60 baht/hour ($1.50) was not sufficient to dissuade anyone who could afford a laptop computer (80,000 baht) from using it all they wanted, but it was sufficient to irritate their customers.

Mike and I had lunch at Sabai Sabai, a good local Thai restaurant I had eaten at many times before. Mike had calamari and I had chicken (stir-) fried with basil leaves, with a fried egg. Total with two bottles of water was 200 baht ($5). At some places in Vegas the bottled water alone costs $8 plus tax and tip.

As we walked by the beach we saw that the surf was still too rough for swimming. It wasn’t raining today but the humidity was oppressive. With not much going on in Phuket we decided to return to Chiang Mai for the final two days of my trip. We asked Kuhn Su to get us a taxi to the airport. I packed, got some cash from the ATM to pay the hotel bill to avoid the surcharge for credit cards, and popped into the Sweetland Travel Agency to see if they could make me a reservation at the Westin Riverside Chiang Mai. I spent about a half-hour there and waited through several phone calls, price changes, and so on, and finally was pleased to get a quote of 2900 baht ($75)/night, which was about the lowest I could expect to pay at the Westin. I was about to leave when it became clear that the clerk wanted me to prepay the reservation and get a voucher for the hotel. Well, this was a little out of my comfort zone so I declined and decided to go back to Sand Inn and try to book the room on line.

Unfortunately the Loxinfo node for Phuket was unusably slow this afternoon so I just went down to check out. The bill for the three nights, plus phone charges, plus 500 baht for airport taxi, was 2560 baht ($66). The Sand Inn porters brought my luggage down and the taxi driver loaded everything into the unmarked private car. We said goodbye to Kuhn Su and headed out to the airport.

A Thai confrontation

We were not out of Patong Beach when Mike and I saw our driver gesture and shout mildly to a motorcyclist next to us. We all pulled over and the driver got out of the car. “What is happening?” Mike said. The driver went to talk to the two people who were riding the motorcycle. All three of them had excruciating expressions as our driver waved his cell phone around and made as if to use it to make a call. After a minute the driver got back in, the two rode away, and we resumed our trip. “No good,” said our driver. “He stick my car.” Apparently the motorcyclist had brushed against the side of the car during a typical Thai no-margin-for-error driving maneuver. The driver was not pleased.

We made good time to the airport, about 40 minutes, and headed to the Thai ticket office to buy two business-class tickets to Chiang Mai for 5770 baht ($148) each. Since this flight was two segments, the business-class upgrade was 1600 baht instead of 800. We proceeded over to the Royal Executive Class checkin and got our seat assignments after I requested “no first row, no last row.” We got seats 14E and F on the Airbus 300, middle seats in the third row with a good view of the airshow. Preflight service was a choice of drink, newspapers, and a hot towel set to “surface of the sun” temperature—Hunnybear’s favorite! Flight time was 1:05. Snack was crispy baby clam. Mike and I had hot tea. For some unknown reason they passed out blankets on this flight. I took one so as not to miss out.

We had only a half-hour to connect in Bangkok so we dashed into the Business-Class lounge where I tried valiantly to connect to the Internet using a spare RJ11 jack I found in the wall. I got a dial tone but it wouldn’t give me an outside line. They called our flight for boarding so we went back through security and headed to gate 8, which was a bus. We waited about 10 minutes then rode the bus to the airplane, another A300. It was parked right next to a plane with the Amazing Thailand special livery so I snapped a picture of it through the window when we got on board. This time we had seats 14A and B. On this flight they had cold-towel service, which hit the spot.

We arrived in Chiang Mai on time, picked up our bags, which had somehow got filthy dusty in the cargo hold, and got two taxis at 100 baht ($2.50) each. While waiting for the bags I had called the Westin from the free local phone in the baggage-claim area (free directory assistance is available by dialing 13, a little-known fact) and was offered a rate of “30% off, 4100 baht ($105)” I attempted to negotiate but they held firm and would not accept SPG or United 50%-off coupons. This was costing me $60 more than the travel agent quoted but I was more comfortable dealing directly with the hotel.

The taxi dropped me at the Westin, where I was greeted warmly by four or five different members of the staff, including the doorman dressed like an admiral. They took my passport information carefully as they always do here. I mentioned that they don’t even to that in Bangkok, but the clerk said because they are close to the border the immigration department wants to know. I wondered if they had many illegal immigrants from Burma staying at the Westin.

They were pleased to give me the same type of room I had last time, their largest (54 square meters). The clerk showed me up to the room herself, followed by one bellman with my luggage and another wheeling a huge bowl of fruit to welcome me.

I got on line and checked email, then met Mike for dinner. We went to Mozart, an excellent Belgian place with outdoor seating, and had the Chateaubriand for two with French fries and a carafe of house red wine for 1200 baht ($31) total. During the meal a couple of vendors came into the restaurant hawking their wares. For the first time in Mike’s 16 years living in Asia, he actually saw one of them make a sale—a wooden model motorcycle to a young Belgian woman for 100 baht ($2.50). Mike was dismayed. “That will be enough to keep him doing it for another 16 years,” he said. A smart salesman, he didn’t give up after making the one sale but hung around trying to make more. Everyone knows the first sale is the hardest.

We wandered around the Night Bazaar, which has the best wooden crafts in Thailand, and I bought a prize for Hunnybear. Mike helped me negotiate a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. He had always been successful in getting one for 40 baht, while if I did it myself I always paid 50. This is for a ride that in Bangkok, in an air-conditioned car, would cost 39 baht ($1). We were bargaining with one driver, who had come down to 50, and I said, “low season, 40 baht.” He replied, “low season, give me 50 baht!” That made me laugh, so I agreed and putted back to the hotel.


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Prize! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif
Is there still the "No Durien, Please" sculpture in the hotel?

"...I was greeted warmly by four or five different members of the staff, including the doorman dressed like an admiral."

(So that you know I'm paying attention:

"Doorman, call me a taxi!"

"Sir, I am an Admiral!"

"Well then, call me a boat."

-------- Henny Youngman, circa 1936)

Perhaps most of the current illegal immigrants these days are from Myanmar! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Thanks, as always, QL http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif