mom and dad come to asia: part 2

the flight to phuket was easy peasy. i’d set up to have pick up from the airport, so when we walked out we saw a sign beckoning for “Mr. THE ARNOLDS.” we hopped in the car and took the long drive down to kata beach. i always forget how big phuket is. calling it an island is really deceiving.
anyway, we walk into the reception area of the cottage part of our phuket lodging. they tell us to sit down, hand us some tang in wine glasses, and we check in. after i paid and we got our keys and everything, there was this awkward air, so we asked if we could go to our room yet.

“umm...after you finish your drink.” lol. so we finished our drinks (mom took a long time) and headed down to our room. the place was actual made up of half cottages, up on the hill, and half bungalows, down the hill and across the street. they had a complimentary driver to take you between the two halves, so we loaded in his car and went down to our bungalow. the driver was the nicest italian guy. actually, we were pretty sure that the whole establishment was run just by him and this other italian guy. the website was in both english and italian, which was bizarre. it’s the little italy of phuket.

after we dropped our stuff off, we still wanted to go in the ocean like we’d planned to do for sunset, so we put on our suits and walked down. actually, in retrospect, i’m pretty sure we all did this cuz we thought someone else really wanted to, because later we talked about how weird it was to go in the ocean at night. but it was warm and the night was clear, so it’s better than a stick in the eye.

we walked down the beach and onto the street in search of a place for drinks. we saw a place called natalie’s, so of course we went. and oooooo that was a good choice. it was just one of those crowded places for tourists, but we ordered some fun, islandy drinks (out of a pineapple and a coconut, no less!) and had a good time people watching and chatting.

we were hungry after our couple drinks, and i’d spotted a few thai pancake/roti places around, so of course we hit one of those up. dad ate his so fast mom and i didn’t even get a bite. but mai pen rai, cuz we all each totally got our own. we still stopped at a noodle farther down to get some real sustenance, then made our way to the bungalow.

actually, i’m making that sound easier than it was. so the front of the bungalow faced a street that was parallel to the beach, but you could go through the back and cut out at least 20 minutes of walking time. except to go through the back, you had to walk down this alleyway with pretty much no restaurants/hostels/indication of any kind that tourists should be walking down it, open a gate, lock said gate, and THEN you were in the bungalow area. funky little place, that phuket hotel. hmm...hotel is the wrong word. sort of a hostel, but like an upgrade hostel. we slept on hard twin-sized beds (mom and dad’s “queen-sized” bed was just two twins pushed together) and the bathroom was a shoilet, but the reception and cleaning was just like a hotel. random.

mom and i decided it’d be neat to ride elephants, so we’d arranged for some elephant rides for the next morning. at 8:30 am, a guy from koh chang (ha, like the island but not) elephant safari came to pick us up, and by 9 am (ish), we were atop some big ol’ elephants, trekking to the top of a hill for some phuket views. i was a little worried this would be cheesy, but it turned out to be nothing but awesome. we were the only people there, so it was just the three of us, our two elephants (mom+dad on one, me on the other), and our crazy thai guides who spoke pretty much no english hiking through a jungle/forest in phuket. mom’s got some really good pictures of this. you should friend her on fbook and look at’em.

we spent the rest of the day on the beach, relaxing, enjoying the sand and the warm water, drinking a couple beers, reading books, and napping. not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

we finally caught the sunset over karon beach that night, paired with some tall singhas. night two was a repeat of night one, which was awesome. i sort of wanted to stay in phuket another day cuz i felt like we’d gotten into a pretty good routine. also, we were all really happy being there and i was worried about the next destination—koh yao—which was supposed to be MUCH less touristy, to the point where it’d be hard to find anyone who speaks much english on the island and you’d have to cover up to respect the muslim populations.