Day 238, Patong Beach, Phuket Island, Thailand
Happy Birthday Mia!
We’ve been in the city of Patong for ten days, this is our last. There are so many random things at play when choosing a city and a place to stay. After a couple of weeks in Bangkok we liked Thailand so much we wanted to extend our stay, but in a new place. Phuket Island is always talked about a great deal online and therefore transportation options are plentiful. In countries where we speak none of the language, for basic survival reasons it’s important to live in a place where there is a bit of a tourist influx of people, or it’s difficult to communicate. On Phuket Island we decided to stay
away from the main city, and decided to try a smaller city on the other side of the island, Patong. Turns out we love this place. The girls describe it as the better Thai version of Panajachel, the town we lived in Guatemala. Our apartment overlooked the city which is nestled between the mountains and the ocean. The ocean is a two minute walk from the front door. The location is central to absolutely everything, from beach, restaurants, pamper places, mall, grocery store, inexpensive laundry pick-up and delivery. We wish it weren’t on the opposite side of the world from our ongoing life, but I think we’ll be back nonetheless.
This condo has been great. Every place has its quirks, as does this one, I won’t bore you. But it’s spacious.
The girls have had their own rooms with balconies, a bit of a luxury on this trip so far. Funny thing is, same as any house we’ve ever lived in, the girls use their bedrooms as a storage for their stuff. They either hang out in the living room or on our bed. No matter how much space we have, we end up in a little girl pod–it’s just their natural state of existence. They’re showing funny SNL clips, comments, necklaces on Etsy, puppy videos (my favorites), weird stuff, camps they want to go to, their must see movie lists, on and on. It’s rather sweet, gotta savor those fleeting pod moments.
That’s my foot which Cali said is very wrinkly on the bottom. I told her that’s her foot in 37 years.
This is a unique place. I’m always amazed by the mix of people who visit Thailand. There are many Europeans, people from Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, India, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand. There is more diversity in one block than I’ve seen anywhere in the world. The cogs of cross-communication seems to run well enough with everyone knowing a few important critical words in English. Thailand is a popular magnet for tourists in part because the
people here are very gracious and patient with visitors. You can always tell the places where, for a myriad of reasons, tourists aren’t really wanted or are treated with an undercurrent of loathing. You don’t feel that here. You don’t feel simply tolerated, you actually feel welcomed. It’s significantly different feel for this traveler.
The diversity of visitors shows on the restaurant menus. There is usually a Thai food section, seafood, often a Chinese section, a Norwegian or Swedish section, an American hamburger choices, Italian column, then maybe a Mexican or Indian section for variety. If you want good wine, you mani end up crying into your second choice beer.
This is what bottles of water look like, in real glass bottles.
Ice cream is an event, and one we all enjoy! Madi got a Nutella crepe here, said it was even better than the ones in Paris.
People are also drawn here because travel money just goes further. The beaches are amazing, food is excellent, then there’s the pampering. You can get massages, foot scrubs, mani, pedi, a huge range of options for a few bucks. I think this is a major draw. Many of us don’t spend money on these things at home, but here they are so affordable most visitors treat themselves daily to some type of pampering.
Here she is fanning my toes.
I do enjoy the unexpected convos with the girls here and there. They have no one else to talk to (yay, me)! So over my Swedish meatballs breakfast Cali and I were watching cnn coverage of the Iowa Caucus. She is curious about everything and asks tough questions I can’t always answer. Pretty awesome. We spent one day shopping with the girls. Here when you enter a store, even mid to large size clothing stores, a salesperson follows you around in close proximity. I’m not sure if it’s more product retention or service. They were always pleasant, but when you’re not used to it, it feels a little crowded in your personal space bubble until you buy something or leave. Sometimes they would tag team and switch off if we were taking a long time. We got more used to our store babysitters as the day went on. It’s always a tricky thing to shop with the girls in these countries. There are different styles that may kinda work here, but back in Miami they don’t quite work as well. Read between the lines here. So we buy a few things that may only be used on the trip, which pleases not just the girls, but also our store babysitters. Double the happy.
Paul rented a scooter for the week. He is always happiest if he has two wheels, either a bike or moto. It was good he had his own entertainment since I came down with a cold on Tuesday. This is odd since even when my entire family is sick, I rarely join them. This was it was the other way around, so the whole family thought it odd. That gave Paul lots of time to explore a lot of the island. He came across these famous Buddhas in his travels that I never got to see.
The view from the Buddha.
The Thai culture is a gracious, respectful one. The little bow with prayer hands happens when you greet people, buy something, when you leave. It such a gracious gesture and just makes you feel good every time someone does it to you and you to them. A small sign of respect and kindness. I wish we had something like that in our culture. A handshake just isn’t the same.
I also like how people leave their shoes at the door before coming in, and how this happens at small businesses. At the place where I got my hair done and Cali got a little mani, you leave your shoes off before you come in. The women are all in their bare feet. I had a long conversation with the woman who did my hair. Our children was our connecting point, and she had plenty of English. My oldest kid and her youngest are both 22 years old. I told her I have three girls and she said I could still try for a boy. Never works to say I’m happy with all girls, they just don’t believe you. I told her I’m
too old to have any more and she said firmly, no, I am not. I then went with I’m too tired to have any more and she laughed and agreed that was a good reason. They are always curious to find out what kind of Asian I am, but only ask, “Where do you come from?” If I say Canada or the United States I can see I’m not satisfying their curiosity. Then when I say I’m half Japanese, they are very happy to finally get the information they were looking for. “Yes, I knew you were Asian-something!!” That’s me, a whole lot of Asian-something.
A day or two before we became homeless, we figured out where we are going next. I think we have another week or two of plane tickets and places to lay our heads. Today we fly to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. We passed on super cheap plane tickets, opting for more expensive ones that we hope will increase our odds of our plane not getting lost. We’ll see if that investment works. We are staying in Kuala Lampur for four nights, five days. From there we can’t find any airlines that Paul feels comfortable with, so we are staying land bound. We’ll take either a bus or train to Singapore. There are many options for both. We always have to factor in when Madi’s due dates are for her classes.
Our last evening we ate at our Norwegian restaurant, Harry’s. They make a steak Paul says he could eat every day for the rest of his life. I feel the same way about their Swedish meatballs. In the middle of our meal it started to rain, and we were sitting outside. I grabbed my plate and headed for cover so fast I startled the rest of the family. What can I say, I have quick reflexes when it comes to food preservation, and I really like those meatballs. They cranked out the awning, and it was only a quick tropical spritz. The meatballs were safe.
We then did one last tour around the crazier streets of Patong. Then Paul and I went out on the scooter to a really amazing restaurant that hangs out over the water. Then we went up the mountain to see the city and ocean from that view. It was a beautiful night. There were some fireworks over the city, and thus concludes our days in Patong, one of my new favorite places in the world. We’ll be back.
