Did someone say travel diary? : Week One in Thailand

*dusts away cobwebs from thatdaniigirl.blogspot.co.uk*

Now there’s a URL I haven’t typed in an awfully long time…! A few weeks ago I was helpfully (embarrassingly) reminded by my friend Lucy that I hadn’t in fact put up a blog post since…December…eek! So yes, let’s brush your awareness of my awful consistency with blogging under the carpet and get on with it! 

After nearly four months of apparently feeling no need to share my life with the Internet, I now have something interesting to share! Well, I hope it’s interesting! As I type I’m on a flight back to the UK from Thailand after the most amazing holiday with my parents, so I thought I’d go back to basics and do what I did whilst I was travelling last summer and give you all a little day by day run down of what we got up to. Sound good? No? Tough luck, it’s happening (please read on *insert puppy dog eyes here*)!

Here goes nothing…I’ll put in lots of pictures to break my jibber-jabber into manageable (bearable) chunks!

Day 1 – Wednesday 1^st April 2015

After being rudely awaken by my alarm clock at 6am (who knew there was more than one 6 o’clock in the day?!), I chucked the last of my stuff into my seriously over-packed  (no surprise there) suitcase and donned my sunhat hat, thereby marking myself as a stereotypical British tourist...

Much to my delight, we arrived at Heathrow with plenty of time for breakfast and shopping. We hit Leon first for some breakfast muffins and coffee (highly recommend this place, its great!) before taking to the shops as I was after a new pair of sunglasses and I’m not exactly renowned for being a quick decision maker…

After trying on a few pairs of sunglasses (Mum will tell you there were hundreds…I’m sure that’s not quite true…) and getting stuck between two pairs, I finally settled on a Gucci pair.

After purchasing them and a few cosmetic bits and bobs from the duty free (it would be rude not to right?!), we were ready to board the flight to Bangkok for our first visit to Thailand. I was so excited despite the prospect of sitting on a plane for nearly 12 hours…

I managed to occupy myself quite nicely actually…I had good intentions to get lots of uni reading done but the onboard entertainment may have proved to be a slight distraction in the form of four movies: Paddington, Before I Go To Sleep, The Best of Me and Gone Girl…they were all great, no regrets!

Day 2 – Thursday 2^nd April 2015

We arrived in Bangkok and I was persuaded to leave my little cinema in the sky to catch the connecting flight to Phuket.

We finally arrived at Phuket International Airport at around 10am Thai time after leaving the UK at 12pm the previous day…time zones mess with my head!! We then got picked up by a lovely driver who took us to the amazing villa we would be staying in for the next two weeks (check out The Villas, Nai Harn here). 

My room!

We got settled in to the villa, unpacked our bags and then Heike (from www.SouthEastAsiaDreams.com) came over to help us plan some awesome trips so we could make the most of our time in Phuket! We spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool and I also managed to fit in a little resistance training session before we got ready to go out for dinner (yes, I’ve become one of “those” people that takes their workout gear on holiday…yikes!).  

We scoured the information booklet in the villa in search of some ideas about local restaurants and we were in luck, there’s loads of great places to eat in Nai Harn! We decided that we would walk towards the beachfront to have dinner and found a nice little restaurant called Mamma’s Seafood. It was lit up with cute little lanterns and our first taste of authentic Thai food definitely lived up to expectations!

Day 3 – Friday 3^rd April 2015

After catching up on some much-needed sleep, we were ready to see what the local area had to offer. We are very lucky to have a lovely friend, Tracey, that has lived in Nai Harn for many years and knows the area like the back of her hand and she kindly offered to drive us around to help us get our bearings. We saw Nai Harn beach, Alsane Beach, Phromthep Cape, Rawai and stopped for lunch on Friendship Beach. 

View from Phromthep Cape

Mum, Tracey and I

View from Phromthep Cape

Friendship Beach

I had an amazing salad with broccoli, mango, red onion, peppers, sesame seeds and chicken...not what I expected to be eating in Thailand! The restaurant owner also had an adorable little Pomeranian, good food, sunshine and cute dogs, what more could I want?!

Mum, Damon and Tracey

After lunch, Tracey dropped us off at Nai Harn beach where we spent the afternoon, getting a good start on our tans!  

Nai Harn Beach

We left the beach as the sun started to set, the light reflecting off the lake looked really pretty! Mum and I decided it was time for us to try our first Thai massage and so when we were walking back to the villa we stopped off at a massage parlour. It was 300 Baht (roughly £6) for a one-hour Thai massage, you wouldn’t think you could go wrong really would you? Oh but you can…! I didn’t realise that a Thai massage is basically code for an unbelievably strong little woman bending your body into positions you didn’t know it could even be forced into and letting her walk along your back and knead your muscles with her knees and elbows…it was certainly an experience! Whilst wanting to launch myself off the massage bed and run for the hills whilst it was going on, I felt absolutely great the next day…try it…I dare you!

Thankfully we had asked the lovely maid at our villa to prepare us a meal that night, so we didn’t have to walk anywhere for dinner with our aching, post-massage muscles. She made us an amazing array of food: chicken satay with peanut sauce, stir-fried vegetables, Thai red curry with chicken and some pad thai with prawns. It was all delicious although it probably could’ve fed the five thousand….  

Day 4 – Saturday 4^th April 2015

Saturday was set-aside for the first of our exciting excursions we’d booked with Heike on the first day: a day on-board the June Bahtra around Phang Nga Bay. We got picked up from the villa in the morning and driven to the place where the boat was docked. It was a beautiful old junk boat with plenty of deck space for sunbathing. The boat sailed all around Phang Nga Bay so we could get a look at all of the amazing rock formations, caves and island. 

Phang Nga Bay

Damon and I

The June Bahtra!

The crew threw some leftovers from the meal that they were preparing us for lunch into the air to entice some sea eagles – amazing birds! 

The sea eagles having some lunch...

We then transferred to a long tail boat to get us to James Bond Island (the famous setting for parts of the film “Man With The Golden Gun”) and then to a Muslim village built entirely on stilts in the ocean.

Iconic setting of Man With The Golden Gun

Long tail boats

Muslim island built on stilts

After a long day spent on the boat sunbathing and sightseeing, we got back to the villa and freshened up before heading out to Los Amigos, a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. Mexican food in Thailand…not an obvious choice but the food was great! I had chicken quesadillas and a (few) frozen piña coladas, which were awesome!

Day 5 – Sunday 5^th April 2015

Worn out from our day at sea the previous day, we decided to chill by the pool during the day on Sunday. I went for a run around the lake and did some uni reading, Mum got some of her book read, Damon busied himself with his puzzle book and I started to change colour from nearly albino to slightly pink. Fear not, we weren’t completely boring that day! 

On Sunday evening we met up with Tracey and a few of her other friends from the UK (that were also visiting her in Thailand) and headed to the weekend night market! It went on forever, there were rows upon rows of shop stalls and that was before you even got to the amazing street food! I bought a lovely little dress, a silver elephant bangle (I’ve been searching for one like it for years so I’m a little bit in love with it!) and some vests with the Thai beer brand logos on…I seem to have a bit of a collection to add to after my travels around Indonesia last year! FYI, I’ve decided I prefer Chang to Singha…but Bintang will always have a special place in my heart.

Mum and I

Caught taking pictures of the food!

My new bangle with the pattern of my new dress in the background!

Now for the food! Tracey had mentioned that the market we were visiting was one of the best places to go for authentic, cheap, Thai street food. So naturally, we went along with empty stomachs! There was so much to choose from but we settled on a selection of sushi, a plate of pad thai each and a sweet roti for dessert, which was so so good! I’m going to attempt to re-create them at home…but maybe mini ones seeing as I don’t currently possess a hot plate…! A great night all in all! 

Day 6 – Monday 6^th April 2015

Day 6 of our holiday meant that it was time for excursion number 2! We had signed ourselves up for a historic walking and food tour of Phuket Town with a really informative local lady called Chiya! The tour started rather unusually…in a Muslim restaurant with curry for breakfast! Mother was confused to say the least but Damon and I fully embraced it and dug in – it was actually really tasty and I got a little closer to understanding why Thai people don’t really differentiate between breakfast, lunch and dinner foods. We had a yellow chicken curry with freshly cooked roti and also a chicken mahtaba, which was basically a roti stuffed with the curry. Mum and I also tried cha-chuk – an iced Indian tea with condensed milk, made by tossing the liquid between two jugs, it was fab! 

Mum's smiling confusion about the breakfast on offer...

Freshly made rotis

Cha-Chuk

Fuelled up for the day, Chiya walked us along Thalong Road, the first road in Phuket Town. The buildings are very old and to this day there are still some of the original pharmacies, fabric shops, hardware shops and religious buildings. In Thailand, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians live alongside one another without any issues and this is evident – there are businesses and religious buildings owned by people of different religions right next door to one another and some of the shop signs are written in three languages.

Thalong Road

The restuarant we ate breakfast at

We stopped in various shops for Chiya to give us more information and then we headed down Soi Romanee. Years ago, there were not enough women in Phuket Town for the amount of military men there. This meant that they often were “driven to distraction” because they could not “fulfil their needs” (Chiya’s words, not mine!!). Therefore, the rulers of Thailand bought in lots of women from other Asian countries and allowed prostitution to happen in the flats above the opium dens on the street. Apparently the road is still sometimes called Pleasure Road or Happy Road…although I was assured there are no more opium shops and brothels there anymore!

Chiya - our tour guide

Chiya also pointed out that you can recognise a lot of symbolism in the architecture of the buildings in Phuket Town. For example, the windows on the front of the pink building in the far left of the picture (directly above) are in the shape of four bats. In Thailand, bats symbolise good fortune. These details are very subtle and Chiya’s own Grandpa apparently said that you have to look hard for the bats: like fortune, its not just going to land in your lap! 

Iced tea and mango smoothie at I 46 Old Town

Interesting art installation in a gallery on Thalang Road

Aforementioned "hipster cafe"

 

After our walk down Soi Romanee, we popped into a few cafes, the first one being a really quirky little coffee house filled with unique books, old typewriters and sewing machines – the kind of place hipsters would flock to in the UK I feel…! The second was called I 46 Old Town – the café is actually in a family’s house! They are one of the oldest families in Phuket Town and you can look at pictures of the many generations of their family whilst enjoying a lovely mango smoothie! We also popped into an art gallery where I spotted this awesome handprint piece (above)!

The fresh market

Flowers on the pond inside the Phuket Town family mansion we looked around

Bird cage decorations hung in the trees outside the mansion

Re-hydrated, we headed for a wander around the fresh market and then took a tour around the one of the oldest mansions in Phuket Town, where each new generation of the same family have continued to live for many years. Chiya told us lots about the Thai tradition of arranged marriage that used to be commonplace for many years, but I’ll let you look that up for yourselves if you’re interested (I can’t do all the work for you now can I?!). Walking tour done with, it was time for lunch! We headed to a sort of indoor street food market and Chiya bought us lots of things to try: stir-fried noodles with chicken, chicken satay with peanut sauce, mango and dragon fruit smoothies and also the most amazing (yet mouth-burningly spicy!) fresh spring rolls I’ve ever had, served with a kind of plum sauce! We could even see the guy making the fresh rice paper for them!

Making fresh rice paper for the spring rolls

One pineapple shake, one dragon fruit shake

Stir-fried noodles with chicken

Chicken satay with peanut sauce

Fresh spring rolls - yum!

We had the driver for the day so we decided to make the most of it and crammed visits to the Big Buddha and Wat Chalong in on Monday too! Our next stop was Wat Chalong, a beautiful Buddhist temple in the Chalong area of Phuket. The buildings are stunning and it was really interesting to see some of the Buddhist worship practices in action. I saw people putting actual gold leaf on statues as they prayed and people also laying flowers and incense at the feet of the Buddha statues. People had also tied messages and ribbons into the tree, which looked really pretty!

Messages tied to ribbon in the trees outside the temple

One of the beautiful temples at Wat Chalong

When we had finished wandering around the temples, our driver took us up the hills to visit the Big Buddha. On the way up we encountered an elephant trekking centre and couldn’t resist going to feed the baby elephant and have a few pictures taken with it. I really wish the poor thing wasn’t chained up though – makes me appreciate the amazing experience I had with elephants in Bali last year!

 

Finished fussing over the little elephant, we got back in the car and went up to the Big Buddha. It really is enormous, around 45 metres high if I remember rightly! There are some amazing views from the top and the statue also functions as a place of worship for many Buddhist monks. We were lucky enough to see a chanting service of some kind taking place too, which was really interesting! I only wish I understood what they were saying! I fell in love with the little message bells hung all around the base of the Buddha and bought one (the money goes towards finishing the tiling and stairs of the temple inside the statue) and wrote my name and the date on it, but I couldn’t bear to leave it behind so it’s packed in my suitcase and I’m gonna find a special place for it at home (oops!). 

On our way down from the statue, we were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to be blessed by a monk! We each knelt before the monk whilst he chanted, tied a bracelet (which we leave on until it falls off) around our wrists (left wrist for a woman, right wrist for a man) and then used a bunch of sticks dipped in holy water to tap both the bracelet and our heads. It sounds like a cliché but I feel blessed to have had that experience and it will supposedly bring good fortune, health and happiness – I’m feeling good so far!!

We managed to do a lot in one day that day so when we arrived back at the villa we just relaxed for a bit before heading for dinner at Shakers, a local restaurant run by a Belgian guy. I decided that I didn’t want to get fed up of the Thai food I love so much, so naturally I broke it up by having a pizza that night…as you do!

Day 7 – Tuesday 7^th April 2015

Tuesday was a much-needed chill day! I got my resistance training and my run done early in the morning before having a coffee and a lovely brunch of yogurt and fresh fruit on the balcony. I’m so gonna miss having pineapple, coconut, mango, passion fruit and watermelon every day when I get back home, it just tastes so much better in Thailand and its fresh and cheap!! 

Then I actually used my sunbathing time productively: I set to doing more reading in preparation for the ghastly essays I have to write over the next few weeks before getting ready for a sunset dinner at Baan Chom View restaurant. The restaurant has a lovely view over Kata Noi beach and the sea. We ordered a range of dishes from the Thai section of the menu (Prawn Cakes to start followed by: Chicken with Cashews, Sweet and Sour Prawns, Prawn Pad Thai and Roasted Duck in Yellow Curry) and again, were not disappointed. Thai food is just so great although its probably a good thing I don’t get the chance to eat it that often in the UK…helloooo food baby!! 

Love the pineapple print on this dress!

After dinner, the restaurant called us a Tuk Tuk and we headed back down to Nai Harn for a few drinks before turning in for the night – it was certainly a memorable journey as I’m fairly sure each of us nearly fell out of the back at some point!!

Prawn Cakes

The feast!

Our first Tuk Tuk experience...

Day 8 – Wednesday 8^th April 2015

On Wednesday it was time for the trip Damon had most been looking forward to  - Tiger Kingdom. Now I was a little sceptical about this trip and wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to go. As a huge animal lover, I find it hard to see animals in captivity. I’d heard some horrible things about the tigers at these places being drugged so they are docile and won’t attack members of the public trying to capture that perfect selfie. However, after being told by a neighbour that it was an unmissable experience and reassured by the notice on the leaflet for Tiger Kingdom stating that the animals are not drugged (surely they wouldn’t be able to lie about that?), just hand-reared so they are used to humans. They apparently are only so placid because as a species, they sleep a lot anyway…I decided to go along.

 

We arrived at Tiger Kingdom and decided we would like to experience both the small tigers and the largest tigers, so we paid up and waited our turn. We went in with the small tigers first, they were all roughly a year old. We followed their trainer into the enclosure and slowly sat beside them…they were very much aware that we were there and I was extremely wary…but they are beautiful creatures and it was surreal to be so close to them and I felt like the tigers respected the keepers. We also got to see some tiny cubs on our way to the largest tiger enclosure and they were seriously cute and playful!

One of the smallest cubs at Tiger Kingdom

Then it was our turn with the big cats…I was quite terrified every time they turned to move towards me but thankfully there were no casualties, just a series of growls from a tigress that was particularly pissed off that her afternoon nap in the sun was being interrupted (sorry!!). I couldn’t believe how big some of them were…really beautiful though!

All in all, it was an amazing experience but I wish the tigers had more space to roam when the park is closed – take note Tiger Kingdom. After our visit to Tiger Kingdom, we returned to the villa and chilled by the pool before Maya served us up a lovely pad thai for dinner – that woman is an excellent cook and I really quite fancied bringing her home with us…

After dinner we got ready for our night out in Patong – there was a big group of us going so it was set to be an awesome evening! First up we headed to Simon Cabaret – an all singing, all dancing show put on by an entirely male cast…I was convinced some of them were women but apparently not…those guys have better figures than I do…! It was actually a really good show; my favourite part was when they performed “He had it coming” from Chicago but changed the characters to Disney villains like Ursula and Cruella De Ville! Oh, and when Damon had his picture taken with two of the cast members at the end!!

After Simon Cabaret, we headed further into Patong to the bars and clubs on Bangla Walking Street. The first bar we went to gave us loads of games to play so we all got involved with Jenga, connect four and hammering nails into a stone table with the narrow, angled side of the hammer (it’s difficult, trust me!). We made friends with the bar ladies too and did some flaming B-52 shots!

The hammer and nail game

B-52 Flaming Shot

Next up was the ice bar – we were severely underdressed for the occasion so they gave us some furry coats to go in there with whilst we enjoyed our drinks…not sure how well we pulled off the thick coat, bare legs and sandals look though!! The temperature difference between the ice bar and the street even made Mum’s glasses steam up!

 

When we left the Ice Bar they gave us some free tequila shots…which was quite lucky because we were gonna need some alcohol to deal with the experience that followed…a visit to Susie Wong’s. It’s a club with pole dancers and stuff but this is no ordinary exotic dancing…the staff give you rubber tubing that you’re supposed to whack the girls on the bum with. It makes a horrific noise but apparently doesn’t hurt…I’ll leave them to that I think!! It’s something that has to be seen to be believed and as we were being shown the delights and extremes of the Thailand nightlife, it was an obvious place to visit…naturally?!

We all had a brilliant night despite seeing things that I’m not even sure I can repeat on the internet for fear of young eyes…but yeah, think I’ll stick to my night’s out in Soda in Cardiff and leave the rubber tubing to Patong in future…! On the way back to the mini bus back to Nai Harn, we came across a guy making fresh pancakes on the side of the road – obviously we had to get one! That’s my kind of post-night out food, you can stick your cheesy chips!! I had one with nutella and banana and it was great! 

 

Anyway, that’s probably quite enough reading and picture viewing for you all to be getting along with for now! I had intended on just writing one blog post for this holiday but yet again, my inability to write concisely has shown itself! I hope you enjoyed my compulsive waffling and that it maybe made you chuckle a few times! Check back soon to find out what we got up two during the second half of our holiday in Thailand!

Thanks for reading!

xoxox