Having had such an amazing a full on day at Phi Phi Island yesterday, we were all in need of a rest day. Our idea of rest day is totally different to that of Marty's who cant seem to relax by a pool and watch the day go by. So to keep him happy, we convinced the girls that it would be fun and that we would be getting a tuk tuk there, which seemed to excite them. It didn't last long, as soon as the tuk tuk ride was over they were whining they were hot and bored. We had only just headed in to the Jungsalon shopping mall, yes that's right, where we were a few days ago when our 'kids club' disaster happened. Some reason Marty wanted to return, and it totally unimpressed me the same as it did two days prior. I totally wanted lunch and had heard such fabulous reviews about the No.6 Restaurant so we tried to find it. We hit the streets and after walking up and down in the area where it was supposed to be l was hot, sweaty and totally over it. So l asked anyone l could for directions, eventually coming across it and realising that we had passed it several times within the last half hour, whoops. The line was long and the place was full, so it seemed there would be a bit of a wait. Worse still, they only serve Thai food and l am the minority being the only one eating it at this stage, so it was decided that we would go somewhere else. So gutted, why come to a foreign country if your not going to try their cuisine??? Oh well, cant change a leopards spots hey! So we found a pub type place which was open and cooled with fans, ordered some fried chips and slushies seeing everyone was past hunger and was just hot and thirsty.
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| Tuk Tuk selfie... |
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| Safety first hey, open air travelling! |
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| Our tuk tuk |
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| Junsalong mall..... |
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| Want a crab Boo??? |
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| Number 6 restaurant....sadly didn't eat here! |
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Phoning home are you Meg? Funny, she didn't
know what it was to start with!!! |
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| Random Thai woman posing for a pic with the girls! |
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| See the telephone lines above, the scooters and the mobile store vendor! |
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| So funny how they hot their tuk tuks up! |
Feeling refreshed with some more energy, we strolled up the crowded market lined streets to make our way to the famous OTOP markets, the largest markets in Patong. Marty was the only one who was near excited, with the girls and l just following to keep the peace and hopefully keep him happy. We kept the girls happy for a short time as the markets were shaded in part, which kept them a little cooler and also by picking up a few cheap dresses for them. By 4:30pm, the girls and l were totally over it and really, after a while, all the markets look the same, selling the same shit with having to haggle over everything anyway. I think that's why Marty likes the markets so much, not so much to shop but to try and haggle a good price, even though we get ripped off anyway and they make a mockery of the Western tourists anyway without us realising. I was starting to feel a bit quezy, which had been in the background for part of the day, but thought l was just a little dehydrated. But by the arvo, l was feeling like l needed to attend a toilet very quickly, which made me conclude that the red curry l had had the night before was probably the culprit of my abdo cramps and nausea!!!
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| That's as close as we got to going in before 'the scam' began! |
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| Girls happy to be on their way home! |
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| Cooling off! |
Thankfully Marty could see l wasn't feeling too well, so took the tuk tuk back to the resort for a little rest in the bed and a nice cool shower. After an hour l was feeling slightly better so we headed out just around the corner from the resort to the 2 Chefs restaurant for dinner. Even though l was still feeling a little under the weather, the food that was being delivered to the customers looked awesome, so l put the unwell feeling to the back of my mind and we enjoyed half price burgers. It cost us $35 AUS for dinner but it was totally worth it, the meals were plentiful and delicious and the band they had was really good. Looked slightly weird that they were Thai people, who if you weren't looking at them, you would swear they were an Aussie pub band. Really impressed and loved the music, girls had a ball, Marty didn't have a too bad of time either!
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| Our welcoming free starter which was so delicious! |
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| Half eaten burger, forgot to take pic at the start...again delicious! |
Today the weather is looking a tad miserable, overcast and drizzling rain, so we mad a plan that the morning would be just us girls whilst Marty amused himself. It was time for us girls to get some pampering with Boo and Meg wanting their hair braided and l was in need of a foot massage! We made our way just down the street from the resort to Mango Massage for the girls to have a half head of beads, while l got a leg and foot massage while l waited. I had to haggle a little as they tried to offer a steep price, eventually getting them down to $1000 Baht for the lot which equates to $35 AUS. I headed up to the stairs to the massage area, feeling a little anxious about leaving the girls with the Thai women downstairs to get their hair done. After a few moments l relaxed as my amazing massage got underway, plus l could always hear the girls chatting so l knew they were still in the shop....The Thai ladies were so nice and seeing the girls were blue eyed with blonde hair, they wanted photos with them. Always amazes me that they are so poor but everyone has an iPhone!!!
That evening we got dressed up, with the girls wanting to relax in bed and watch a movie. Instead, we had a fantastic night planned out to visit the ionic tourist must do when in Thailand, Fantasea, which has been running for many years with success.
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| Watching a movie while waiting to go out for the night! |
When we boarded the bus that picked us up at the resort foyer, we found the family we had been bumping into around the resort, who were lovely and on holidays from Sydney. The girls were ecstatic to see Sienna was going to be on the bus ride! On our trip we continued to see Thailand's safe way of travelling by truck and ute's with cramming everyone in the back, unharnessed!
When we arrived at Fantasea, it looked totally spectacular and that was just the ticketing entrance. The ceiling's were filled with articulate artwork that showcased mystical themes, so colourful! The actual show wasn't due to start for a few hours which left time to explore this ultimate cultural theme park (well that's how they advertised it)!!! The girls were full of excitement and wonder as we got our tickets and made our way thru the park. It was alive with color, music and entertainers that interacted with everyone. We stopped of at the pond that was filled with hundreds of huge orange fish and scenes of wonder surrounding it.
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| Love getting dressed up! |
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| How many more can fit in? |
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| We've arrived!!! |
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| This freaked Meg out a bit! |
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| Ceiling artwork amazing! |
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Wow!
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| Family pic of course! |
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| Poser! |
We strolled thru the Carnival Village which was lit up with fluoro lights and huge fun statues. As we entered what seemed to be an enchanted theme part, the girls eyes lit up with wonder as we walked thru what seemed to be a princesses castle!
The path eventually led to the Tiger Jungle Adventure which was just a fancy way of saying a white tiger locked up behind a small enclosure. Although we love Tigers, we were taken a bit back when we watched the tiger continuously pace a path. Very saddening really.
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| Magical wonder! |
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| Tiger Kingdom entrance... |
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| The pacing tiger :( |
When we made our way back outdoors, we came across the stage area where the girls watched traditional Thai dance and story telling. Love that the girls get this exposure to different worlds, it doesn't seem to phase them that its not in English as they can tell the story by the actions and dance! The costumes were amazing, so colorful and elegant!
After the stage show we came across the Similan Entertainment Center, which was full of huge props mounted from the ceiling and was full of side shows that wanted to sell rides and toys. We quickly made our way thru this part as we didn't want the girls to get stuck here, we did have a schedule to keep as dinner was shortly.
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| WOW! |
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| Teddy bear cuddles always great! |
Thankfully seeing we avoided the side shows, we were back outside and in the area circling the Palace of the Elephants. Won't surprise you the we were quickly surrounded by elephants being led around for rides. It was absolutely amazing and spectacular. Everything was on such a big scale, and l couldn't wait for the show if this was the warm up. The palace had lights positioned so well to give the theatrical scene, the sculptures fantastic. It was a little overwhelming that you couldn't take it all in as it was so crowded and alight. We headed over to where we were invited to get our photo's taken with some elephants, the Thai guys taking our family pics, and it was surprisingly all free!!!
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| Out front of the Elephants Palace... |
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| So glamorous! |
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| Elephant rides anyone??? |
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| Elephant family pic time! |
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| Gold everywhere as we get closer to the Golden Kinnaree restaurant! |
Inside the Palace of the Elephants is where we lined up to get our Fantasea elephant photo, which did cost money, and was pretty reasonable really, so we did it. The room was decorated in all things elephants with tusks hanging from the ceiling, hopefully they were fake!
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| Hopefully fake tusks?? |
After our pics we headed over to the Golden Kinnaree buffet restuarant which was packed and seemed to go on forever, bloody huge!! It was well set out and to our surprise we got seated and fed pretty quickly. I was still a tad quezy from that red chicken curry so just filled up on drinks and sweets, which were heavenly by the way! The room was decorated with so much gold and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and huge art work everywhere. Absolutely stunning!
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| Boo loving the Thai pose! |
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| Meg loving the chips! |
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| ..and dessert! |
Unfortunately that is where the photos end as we had to give up all cameras and filming devices when we entered the theatre. There was no mistaking as this was a well streamed event as we were given a colored number ticket to collect after the show to get our things back. There was even security patting people down and checking bags further in case anyone thought of taking in phones, camera's or anything that could be used for recording. We were seated in a pretty good area, close enough but far enough away to get the full view of the stage without jarring our necks. The girls were so excited, the anticipation of the show starting was killing them. The Fantasy of a Kingdom show started and the theatre quietened so quickly. The show went for a little under an hour and was so brilliant. A story of a boy who rides on his elephant spreading joy to his people in the village. When the sun sets the wonder of the night lingers and a land experience's myth, mystery and magic all intertwining. The stage was filled with acrobatics, pyrotechnics, stunts and over 30 elephants, plus traditional Thai performers showcasing their culture of dance, song, animals, food and joy! Totally mesmerising!! The only thing negative we would have to say is that it didn't go long enough, thought the build up to the night, the show would have gone for at least an hour and a half, not 50 mins! Anyway, following the show we had a cruisy exit, although a little wait to collect our belongings, and we were on the bus back to the resort.
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| Last pics of the night before entering the show! |
The week of overseas full on holidays was starting to catch up on us. I was feeling very tired from the late night and very ordinary indeed with headaches and more stomach cramps. Maybe the big buffet last night had something to do with it, damn this Thai food. Never got 'Bali belly' but have definitely experienced 'Thai tummy'!!! We spent yet another morning by the pool then following it up by having lunch but l stuck to water.
We caught a tuk tuk yet again to Patong as Marty wanted to go to the OTOP markets again. Girls and l unimpressed, but l suppose its his holiday too. We bartered a guy down to 300 baht for the trip, which we thought was a win. When we arrived and just got out of the tuk tuk we were approached by two guys, one being English and another a Thai bloke. They gave us a scratchy and wouldn't you know it, we won!!! We scratched three stars which meant we could claim a prize and all we had to do was go with them in a taxi to Patong Bay Resort. So off we went, all getting in this taxi with the buff Englishman, very eager to collect our prize. When we arrived at the resort we were handed over to this guy called Tag. He took us thru the resort and explained that before we could collect our prize we had to sit thru a talk about a vacation club. Marty and l thought, while we're here we may as well, we got refreshments and were able to cool off, the girls liked being in the air conditioned room sipping on a can of lemonade. So we sat, and after 2.5 hours of Tag (an Indian guy) and his boss, a fat old 'East Enders' Englishman trying sell us a share of their vacation club we were over it. Everytime we asked the price within that 2.5 hours they would scoot around the answer, to the point where we were about to get up and leave, then they told us the figure was $18,000 AUS!!! Marty and l nearly fell over. We stated a very clear no, but they wouldn't let up, so we just got a bit more assertive and got up and left, collecting our prize of a hat (which had the vacation club advertised) and our ticket to claim our free holiday which was on a dodgy internet site. What a waste of a day, but rather let it upset us we took some positives out of it. For one, we were well hydrated from our free refreshments, cooled off from the air conditioning and we learnt many things about Phuket and its people. For one, at the markets, when the stall holders offer you their price, immediately make a counter offer of 30% below their offer. Also when you have purchased your 'bargains', take not of the color of the bag they give you with your goods as this tells other stall holders how easy you are to haggle with. For example, black bags means your good at bartering, colored bags is they made some money off you and white bags equates to us tourists being 'suckers' and a push over!!! With our positive spin on our wasted arvo, we also kicked ourselves at how stupid we were. What were we thinking when we got into a taxi with a stranger with our two young girls. We are so lucky we weren't kidnapped or anything. Marty and l definitely learnt a lot that day and it shook us up a bit to open our eyes and remember that we were in a poverty stricken country with our two young girls.
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| Had to laugh! |
Back at Centura Resort we freshened up and headed out for a quick dinner, Marty's choice, at Mario's. You guessed it, a pizza restaurant. To Marty's surprise he was unimpressed with the pizza, who would have thought that in Thailand they wouldn't know how to make proper pizza!!! Lol... I think they got a little confused with his order, seeing he ordered an Aussie pizza, you know the one with egg on it, they just looked at our table strange when they brought it over! As we were having our distasteful pizza, we thought we were seeing things when a baby elephant walked past. We all blinked and leaped up from our tables to go out to the street. A Thai man was leading this baby elephant thru the streets, getting tips along the way of course. Only in Thailand hey! After that we passed on the rest of our meal and headed back to the room for some shut eye, hoping my quizzy belly will be better by tomorrow as we were off to James Bond Island!!!!
Bell Xxx
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