Asia: Phuket & flights

I´m so close to home already: I´m sitting at the London Heathrow Airport lounge waiting for my flight to Helsinki. And I though I might just as well continue writing about Asia travelling… I´m close to falling asleep so don´t expect any proper English, though.

Friday 4.1.

I took the train and taxi to the airport to fly to Phuket. My flight was delayed by 2 hours so I just sat there writing this blog. I had upgraded myself to business class when booking the flights before, thinking that I´d have to carry all of my luggage with me. (The restriction in economy class for NokAir is 15kg. I ended up leaving my big suitcase to the hostel in Bangkok, though.) However, there was no business class in that particular plane so I promised refund, which I collected at the Phuket Airport. It was sweet getting 1700THB extra money :)

I took the airport bus to Patong Beach, which is the biggest and most touristic beach in Phuket. My hostel was located right in the middle of all the restaurants, shops and night clubs and only a 5min walk away from the beach. It was also right next to this big and posh shopping mall. The man at the hostel was nice and spoke good English. By that time I was starving, so I went to have dinner at the first place I saw. I had my first meal of many of delicious Thai food :P It´s one of my favourite types of Asian food because it´s simple and not everything is cooked in plenty of fat like Chinese food.

Then I spent the rest of the day just walking up and down the main shopping street, which is full of little stores and stalls selling everything from fake stuff to food. I ended up buying a beach towel, sun screen, a face Dolge & Gobbana wallet, and also sticky rice with mango for dessert. There were tons of Finns there! I could hear people speaking Finnish all around me, and it was easy to point out the Finns without hearing them speak, too, just by their general appearance and way of dressing and acting. I also quickly checked out the huge shopping mall, and they had this water & light show outside of it. After buying a box of cereal and little tarts of soy milk to take to the hostel for breakfast I went to sleep.

Show outside the mall

Saturday 5.1.

I woke up already at 8am, excited to spend the day at the beach. After breakfast I walked down the main street, that was quiet that early, and to the beach. Patong Beach is very long and full of beach chairs, by a street with several restaurants and shops. Despite of it being too touristic for me I enjoyed just laying in the sun and dipping into the water every now and then. I hired my own beach chair for the whole day for just 100THB, and ended up sitting next to this middle-aged Norwegian couple who I chatted with. There were lots of local people walking around and selling stuff to tourists: clothes, sunglasses, fresh fruit (which was great; I could get readily chopped pineapple for 35THB!), and you could get even massages and nail treatments right by the beach. For lunch I had Thai Pod salad, which was good but a bit too spicy.

Reconstruction after the tsunami

Patong Beach

I left the beach at 4pm when it got kinda cloudy, and after showering at the hostel I started to look for a dinner place. I had planned to walk around and read the menus of several places, but it started to rain so I just ran to the nearest place and had fried noodles with pork. Then I went to the big shopping mall, where they had many international brands and sales. Afraid that I wouldn´t be able to fit any more stuff to my suitcase I didn´t buy anything, though. Sis had told me to eat ice cream at Swanssons, so I went there and picked a thing called Chocolate Millionaire. It was 4 different kinds of ice cream (all chocolate flavours) with truffles, chocolate sauce etc… Yummy :P I also went to quickly use the internet at an internet café, and since it had stopped raining walked to the beach, which looked different when it was dark and empty. It was a warm summer night and I spent some time just enjoying the view of seeing all the light up the hills surrounding the beach. I went back to my hostel to sleep fairly early. Patong Beach is a huge partying place with heaps of clubs open till early morning and selling cheap cocktails, but since I was alone I didn´t feel like going to any of them.

Party people at Patong Beach

Sunday 6.1.

I had quite a rough night. I was supposed to be in a dorm with 2 other people, but instead I had my own room that was separated from another one by a wall that was open close to the roof. (So I could hear all the noise, see their lights and feel the air conditioning.) The guys living there came back from partying at 5am and started to listen to music and talk loudly, and turned on the air con so I was close to freezing. I managed to sleep till 9am, though.

I headed straight to the beach. It wasn´t the perfect beach weather since it was half cloudy, but it was hot enough to lay there and relax reading a magazine. I sat next to 3 school teachers from Sydney and chatted a bit with them. I spent all day just enjoying the warmth, and went to have some steamed rice and veggies for lunch. They do offer some water sports there, as well: waterskiing, jet skiing and parasuit flying (or what ever it´s called when you´re wearing a parasuit and they drag you behind a boat). I decided not to spend my money on those activities, though. People also go snorkelling in Phuket, but since I had snorkelled quite a bit at Great Barrier Reef I skipped those trips, too.

I was at the beach till 5pm, and headed to the main street for dinner and shopping again. When I was looking for some tops I asked this lady for prices, but when I decided not to buy them she got angry with me and started yelling at me. That´s what I find a bit annoying about shopping at markets: you can´t even walk past a stall without people trying to sell you things, and when you just look around they start following you around and bugging you about buying everything.

After discovering how cheap it really is in Thailand (1euro = 48THB, 1AUD = 29THB) I withdrew 3000THB more and went to the big mall for facial treatment. It lasted for over an hour and they did all kinds of things; deep cleansing, pimple & blackhead removal, masks etc… They removed my tan, though :( I should´ve thought removing the outer skin layers also removes your tan, but I didn´t until I ended up with a pale, but silky and smooth feeling face. So now I´m going home with a tan body and pale face :/

Monday 7.1.

Because later airport shuttles were booked out I had to leave to the airport already at 9am and wait there for 4 hours. I spent the time writing this blog and had a sandwich for lunch. This plane had a first class, where I was seated for some reason. I had gotten refund also for my return flight, but I didn´t complain getting a bigger seat, newspapers and a small snack. Even though the flight lasted only for an hour and half I spent almost the whole day getting to the airport, waiting, flying and getting out of the airport. (To be honest, even though I´m generally a big fan of airports and flying I´ve been doing it so much lately I´m getting kinda tired of it. Not the actual flying part, but having to be there so early and waiting around, and especially delays.) Anyways, back in Bangkok I first went to Smile Tailors to pick up my suit. I tried it on and it does look really nice :) Then I went to this nearby place for a manicure and pedicure. I saw people getting relaxing looking foot massages, and since it was so cheap (250THB) I decided to get one, too. So I spent over 2 hours at the place getting all the different treatments, and really enjoyed myself! Before going to the hostel to pack my stuff I had steamed rice and chicken for dinner.

NokAir plane

Tuesday 8.1.

I had planned to take the bus to the airport, but as I stepped out of the hostel door with all my luggage and just thought about dragging it to the bus stop, I decided to hop into a taxi instead. It was convenient and quick and I arrived at the airport fairly early. I got through check-in with 24kgs even though China Airlines restricts it to 20kgs, so I was feeling very happy :) I had some Thai baths left, and there was tons of shopping at the airport! I spent all the time wandering around this make-up & perfume store trying to figure out what to spend my money on. I ended up buying a mascara and an eye shadow. The flight was the best I´ve been on so far! The facilities were spacious and modern, food was good (for aeroplane food) and they had a wide selection of movies and TV programs. I started watching The Game Plan but unfortunately hadn´t enough time to finish it before arriving in Hong Kong.

I took the airport bus to Kowloon, where my hostel was located. Kowloon is one of the main shopping and dining areas in Hong Kong, and the hostel was located right in the middle of it. You gotta take an elevator up to the 15th floor to get there, though, that takes some time. The Mansion Building ground floor is full of Indian food places, little electronics stores and Indian people. Even though I was supposed to get my own room, I ended up sharing a double room with Laura from England. The Chinese people running the hostel were nice but very unorganized and the reception was closed when ever I needed to go there before noon. Since it was already 8pm when I had checked in to my room (see, I spent another day just flying) I just went downstairs to get a naan bread and a banana for dinner.

(And now I´m deadly tired :/ My flight doesn´t leave until in 2 hours. I think I´m gonna turn off the computer for a while and walk around the shopping area. Not that I´ve got any pounds to buy anything but they might have free sampling lol. My head hurts. All I want is to go home already.)