Phuket, Thailand - November 2007
To begin, I have to be fair and admit my commentary here is a little bit after the fact. Unlike what I hope I will be able to do on future trips which is to report a bit more in the moment. But with that said, Thailand was just a destination too fabulous to leave out of the content here…
One thing I am absolutely sure of is that I need to revisit Thailand again in the future. There is just too much to see and assimilate in a single trip, and the people are so wonderfully friendly. I truely love the "wai" custom, it is so graceful, so civilized! How anyone could not simply love the place I cannot imagine.
According to my local guide in Phuket, elephants are considered lucky in Thailand. So Kinnaree Elephant Trekking was probably an auspicious place to start my visit to the island of Phuket.
Yet looking back on it now, I have to say that riding on one of those benches atop an elephant is definitely one of those things that is harder than it looks from a distance. The elephant handler makes it all look so effortless sitting there on the front of the elephant fabricating origami animals out the plantation leaves through out the ride (He presented me with a bird and a grasshopper that dangled from long stems).
Or maybe it is just sitting on the bench thats harder, but when the trails go downhill you do have to put a bit of effort into maintaining your balance lest you slip forward off of the bench, as well as the elephant, and onto the muddy path below which would doubtless not be a pleasant experience. However, I made it through the hour ride with my dignity intact not having fallen off, with the feeling of having just completed an incredible abdominal workout afterwards, and the scenery from the viewpoint that the hour ride goes to is worth the trip.
With the longer full or half day tour packages they also included rubber tree tapping and thai cooking demonstrations, as well as trained monkey and cobra shows (I heard some crazy guy kisses a king cobra). But monkeys and snakes are not really my thing, so I took a pass on that this trip. Maybe next time.
In addition to enjoying the beaches, general sightseeing, living on thai food, and shopping all the malls, markets, and tourist stands I could find (shopping, shopping, and more shopping), I took in a couple of shows while I was in Phuket. The first was the "World Famous" Simon Cabaret. I suppose I might be a bit out of touch, but I didn't realize until afterwards when I was talking to someone about it that this was actually a "drag show". So I guess I can say that I did get to see the infamous ladyboys of Thailand and they were good enough to fool me! But it was a very entertaining show even if I didn't understand while I was there.
The other show I went to was as much a small thai cultural theme park as it was a show, Phuket Fanta-Sea. It is a several acre carnival with enough neon outside to rival an average Las Vegas casino with a theatrical production show to match. The package included a grand-buffet dinner in this huge restaurant in addition to the clever show which included just about everything imaginable from magic to arial acrobatics over the audience (quite an extravaganza).
Before the show I even got to have my picture taken with a baby tiger as a souvenir!
But the little tiger wasn't the only kitty I got to pose with in Thailand, I think my favorite picture from the whole trip is the one below which was taken on my last day there not long before heading to the airport and starting the long trip home?
