Our flight from Bangkok to Phuket was on Bangkok Airlines, Asia’s Boutique Airline, as they so frequently reminded us on the marketing and over the loudspeaker. One of the nice things about these Thai flights is the use of these special lounges the airline provides prior to your flight. You get to sit in there reading papers, checking the internet and eating little breakfast treats. Some of our flights, like this one, didn’t rely on gates to get you on the plane, but instead you ride on a bus to the plane on the tarmac.
It’s an hour or so flight to Phuket. When you get out of the airport you get harangued for cab rides. 600 bahts to the pier. (about $20.) We worked our way through that crowd to the “official” taxi stand, where people seemed more laid back. They charged us 450 bahts. The ride to the pier takes about an hour.
At the pier, we get settled in the office of the resort with cold drinks and cold towels. Bethie loved the cold towels, often asking for them at odd times, like in the middle of dinner or at places where they probably don’t even have any cold towels. Bethie also loves the little complimentary sandwiches they have laid out. Bethie also loves it when Thai folks respond to her requests in the affirmative “Yes can!”
I go to the 7/11 across the street and get some beers for the boat ride, but we don’t wind up drinking them until later. There were two important types of beers in Thailand. Chang and Singha. Singha seemed to be the slightly fancier, slightly less popular kind. I really gravitated towards the Chang beers. Bethie would ask for Chang Lights but not a lot of places had those.
We ride on a speed boat to the island. This takes about 45 minutes. By the time we got the The Racha, it was raining. This was disappointing. I was only a tiny bit worried. We wandered around waiting for our room to be ready. We had a lunch. We met with some other tourists and talked about the weather.
Our room was beautiful and they sprung for the flower petals on the bed in the shape of a heart seeing as how it was our honeymoon. We had the lowest grade room, but all the rooms were villas, so they were big and nice and private. This place was so incredibly nice. I think we could have spent the whole honeymoon there and been content.
That night, Bethie started getting cranky again because she was up past her 6PM bedtime. I was dragging too, but I wanted us to go to the big Thailand barbeque party! But it wasn’t that fun because, what with the rain, they had to do it inside. It was also very confusing how you were supposed to order. You pointed at a bunch of meats and seafoods on a platter and then they would grill your order. Then they bring it to you with some sauces. (Actually, I guess that doesn’t sound that confusing, but it was at the time.)
The next morning we woke up early to do an exploratory island walk. We walked through jungles. It was already hot. Past the resort are a couple more small rustic resorts and restaurants. On the other side of the island are a couple of other bays that were better for snorkeling.
We had breakfast. The breakfast here was also incredibly good. Except the sausages were just miniature hot dogs. We went to the beach for a while and then got massages. Thai massages are really the way to go. Completely modest, and a little bit violent. Followed with lunch. I stuck with the Thai food, persistently asking for it spicy, but it rarely was. I know supposedly they don’t like to make the food spicy for foreigners, but what if it’s just not that spicy to begin with? Bethie was loving the pad thai. She got that almost everywhere. It’s the perfect exotic pale and salty food for her.
After lunch we would eat gelatos and go back by the pool. Then early dinner and bed or just early bed.
On Monday we repeated our routine with the addition of me getting a pedicure. It was ok, but I probably won’t do that again. I think she cut them too short and she used some sort of buffing chemical on there to make them shine. After that, we borrowed some bikes from the equipment stand and went across the island for snorkeling. The first bay had lots of tiny little jellyfish in it that creeped us out. Bethie complained that they stinged her. I mostly just didn’t like looking at them.
The next bay was better. It was home to a different resort called Ban Raya that we thought looked fun. The bay was full of all sorts of creatures and we snorkeled for a real long time. It gets a little intimidating with all the dive boats cruising around, but I’ve got a feeling they’re pretty good about looking out for people in the water.
Bethie was impressed with how I turned my towel into a backpack for the bike rides.
We made our way back to the resort and had usual lunch then visited the other pool by our villa. This pool had some more features and Bethie and I spent time rolling down the infinity pool walls. I also did a beach attack on her by throwing a volleyball labeled “beach attack” into the water right by her chair.
We did pretty much all the same stuff the next day. I did a solo ascent of the tsunami evacuation route. I played with a different volleyball labeled “soft touch.” I drank some Changs and contemplated their labels. We saw a lizard run into the pool. The bartender said it was ok and that he was just taking a shower. We had a room service dinner that night and packed our bags.
The next day we did our breakfast and sat by the pool. We grabbed our bags and left The Racha at noon. Little did we know our trip was about to take a turn for the worse. Actually, I kind of knew it. This next place was cheaper than The Racha, and I had no doubt that Bethie would notice. But that will be a story for another day…
