After big-city Bangkok, Alec and I said “Phuket” and headed south to Phuket!

It was well into Thailand’s dry season (which lasts November – May) so we were excited to experience the famous Thai beaches in all their glory.

Unfortunately Phuket was the end of our journey together – Alec was flying to Japan while I was going to continue with the rest of my trip. Nonetheless, we made the most of our final days together!

Overview

Pronounced “poo-kette”, Phuket is a Thai province located on the warm Andaman Sea 500 miles south of Bangkok (1.5 hr flight time). The province consists of the main island and a few dozen nearby smaller islands. Phuket is the largest island in Thailand, out of 1430 (!) total. It’s no wonder the country is called Thailand 😉

Phuket used to be on a major trading route between India and China; its biggest source of income 16th – 20th centuries was tin mining. More recently, Phuket’s economy has relied on its rubber tree plantations and tourism. Fun fact: Thailand is the biggest producer of rubber in the world!

Phuket’s fame as a vacation spot began in the 1980s, when beaches on its west coast started to be developed for tourism. Today it is a world-renowned resort destination with crazy amounts of visitors: in 2017 its population was ~400,000 but it welcomed a whopping 10 million tourists, mainly from China, Europe, Russia, and the US.

Phuket’s popularity is certainly well-deserved. In 2005 Fortune Magazine voted it one of the world’s top 5 retirement destinations. This place is basically paradise.

Arrival

Alec and I landed in the afternoon and Grabbed to our hotel. The drive was an hour of windy roads and the entire time our driver was tailgating like a madman. We made it safely but were disappointed to learn that our room didn’t have shampoo or a working A/C. I went to the front desk to ask for shampoo but the receptionist just laughed. I guess we were on our own for this one, though someone did eventually fix our A/C.

After putting our stuff down we headed to the beach, a mere 15min walk away. This walk was our first real taste of Phuket and I couldn’t believe how many Russian tourists I saw. It was as if we had landed in Russia – every single group we passed looked Russian and spoke Russian. Many of the businesses had signs in both English and Russian (and Thai), and some of the restaurants even had signs in Russian only! I made a mental note to myself to check them out once Alec was gone.

The beach was annoyingly crowded but the amazing scenery made up for it. We went for a quick swim and loved the warm water; it wasn’t as warm as Bali but the Bali beach had more trash.

Afterwards we headed to a restaurant Alec found on TripAdvisor. The reviews said it was hard to locate and indeed we spent a good 20 mins looking for it. We finally went into a resort near the supposed location but the receptionist told us the restaurant was closed 😦 Unrelated, but their tip jar was filled with Russian Rubles.

Unfortunately the search for another place was time consuming; many highly rated places had reviews saying things like “the food was great but got food poisoning.” We searched the reviews to make sure none contained “food poisoning,” and finally found the perfect restaurant.

It also turned out to have fantastic food. We ordered 4 entrees and before we started eating, the owner (a super friendly American guy), with admiration in his voice told us that we ordered a lot of food. The boys were hungry!

Island Boat Tour

The next day was Alec’s last day here so we had to make it count. We signed up for a boat tour of the nearby islands.

In the bus ride to the pier we met a really nice young married couple from Colorado; we talked about their Thailand vacation and about Artificial Intelligence. The couple said their next stop was Ko Lanta, an island that was supposed to be much more relaxed than Phuket, with way less tourists. I was traveling without a set itinerary so this inspired me to go there next.

The tour itself was amazing. The boat ride was bumpy, in a good way – fun and not overly intense. The first stop was an island with trees and supposedly monkeys, although today they (the monkeys) were nowhere to be found.

Next, we stopped at an island with some super cool ancient art.

After that it was time for the main event: James Bond Island.

Khao Ta Poo (James Bond Island) is an island that looks pretty standard as far as Thaislands go, but with one big exception – it’s a movie star! In 1974 Khao Ta Poo was featured in the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun.

Originally part of the main island where we landed, James Bond Island was scoured out by the tide over time to reveal a tall, V-shaped rock. Today, the Phuket tourism industry takes full advantage of Khao Ta Poo’s Hollywood fame to advertise this island to Western tourists.

And boy does it do a good job. According to online reviews this place gets packed. We lucked out – today the crowd wasn’t bad at all. As we stood in line to take photos, an older Russian guy in front of us impressively talked with his cigarette still in his mouth. We later learned that smoking was not allowed 😂  No surprises there.

After a nice Bonding experience we headed to lunch at Ko Paniy, a floating fishing village. The village is only accessible by boat and the houses are all on stilts.

The village has a population of ~1700, all descendants from 2 Muslim Malay fishing families.

In the 1990s the village had a tough time sustaining itself solely on the fishing industry, so their postman suggested inviting tourists to help boost the economy. Today, Ko Paniy is a popular stop on most Phuket boat tours.

After a tasty seafood lunch and a tour of the cool village we headed to the active portion of our boat adventure: canoeing at Hong Island!

Every group had a local guide who skillfully navigated through the grottos.

Our guide was awesome and even jumped onto some rocks to get photos of us.

After an adventurous canoe ride we headed to Ko Yao Yai for some snorkeling. The beach was small and crowded; it was my first time ever snorkeling but sadly not much to write home about. When we first got in we saw 3 cool-looking fish but nothing after that – too many people in the water stirring things up (mostly the sand).

After “snorkeling” it was time to head back to our hotel.

Alec’s Departure

At this point Alec had to leave: he had booked a hotel near the airport since his flight was early the next morning. He was heading to Japan where it was actual winter – a drastic change from this tropical paradise.

After almost 2 weeks it was time to say goodbye 😦

Russian Food

Devastated after Alec’s departure I consoled myself the only way I knew how: by eating Russian food.

I went to Kolobok, a place that I passed by on our first night here (one with a sign in only Russian, of course). It had great reviews which didn’t lie: the borscht was as good as I could’ve had in Russia. When I ordered two entrees the waiter said “are you sure because our potions are huge” and I told him not to worry since I eat a lot. Spoiler alert: I finished it all.

I was alone (and sad without Alec) so the waiter asked if I was OK to share a table. He sat me next to a super friendly young couple from Ukraine. The guy was a software engineer and his wife did business analytics. They were fascinated with my story and had a lot of questions about life in the Bay Area. We had a lovely meal!

When I was paying the waiter wouldn’t take a tip and said “just come back and that will be our tip.” The service was superb so I insisted on tipping, but planned to come back nonetheless.

Big Buddha

The next day was my first day alone and it felt strange. I was missing Alec and at first didn’t really know what to do. This was the first time in 2 weeks that I felt like I was truly in a foreign place.

Feeling lonely and a bit down, I FaceTimed my family, which made me feel better.

After a $3 Family Mart breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and pastries I took a Grab to the Phuket Big Buddha, which had stunning views.

At the top (inside the Buddha statue) was a nice shrine.

After a nice time admiring the statues and views I got a taxi to head to my next stop. Before giving me a ride me the driver peed in a bush behind the car.

Kata Beach Viewpoint

After relieving himself the driver took me to Kata Beach Viewpoint which, unsurprisingly, had a nice view of Kata beach, one of Phuket’s most popular beaches. There were a few other tourists at the viewpoint, some of them Russians of course. One Russian couple, when taking a photo, rather than saying ‘cheese’ exclaimed: “Putin is a cutie!”

Promthep Cape

After some nice views I wanted to see more nice views and catch the sunset; Promthep Cape came up as the best spot. I arrived early and had 2 hours to kill so I walked around and found a nice trail to the tip of the cape.

After a short hike and some excellent scenery I came back up, sweating like crazy. There was still a bunch of time until sunset so I sat down and caught my breath for 40 mins.

After a rest I walked around to scope out a good sunset spot. By this point there was a crazy amount of tourists; I saw a constant stream of what seemed to be Chinese tour buses drop off tons of passengers. Everyone was lining up along the wall to claim a good spot.

The ocean views were amazing and I felt like I was back in California.

Afterwards I Grabbed back and walked to dinner at Kolobok, yesterday’s Russian place. The waiter remembered me and shook my hand. Again I was seated at a table with a couple, but this couple wasn’t as friendly as yesterday’s and we didn’t talk.

Bangla Road

This was my last night in Phuket so after dinner I walked to the main nightlife area / red light district, Bangla Road, just to see what it was all about.

The place was crazy – tourists everywhere, with countless ushers trying to get people to go into the surrounding bars and clubs. Reminded me of Cabo or Bourbon Street in New Orleans, though here the vibe was much more sleazy.

I walked to the end of the road and back, which was enough, and then went home. What a crazy place.

The next day I headed to my next adventure: Ko Lanta! Let’s hope the nice couple from Colorado gave a good recommendation.