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Today at 8:00 am, we arrived in Phuket, Thailand. Phuket (pronounced “poo-ket”) is an island that is composed of villages/town areas on the southern-most peninsula of Thailand. It is known for being a lush area with very nice beaches and I saw some on our way into the port.
Today is one of the nicest so far with blue skies and white clouds here and there. And, believe it or not, the lush islands were actually green for once! We had breakfast in the room as we prepared for our Phuket Highlights and Cultural Show bus tour that was departing at 8:45 am. It is going to be hot today with a heat index of 102.
After picking up our tickets in the theater Margaret decided to pass on the tour so I took off down the gang plank by myself with my D700 and S95. The buses were two stories tall and pink! They had decent seats, good air conditioning and best of all…two entrances.
Click here for the detailed Phuket Photo Gallery.
Our first stop was at Promthep Cape which is a lookout point on a hill from which we could get a good view of the beautiful white sand crescent-shaped beaches. It was turning into a beautiful blue sky day. There was also a lighthouse/temple building as well as some shopping at a store and a bazaar on the street.
As we drove through several towns I noticed that this area of Thailand is fairly well developed economically. It is much more modern than Semerang with less visible poverty. Some of the shops are tin roof setups but I’d say 70% of the businesses are in properly constructed buildings and many have interesting architectural elements, especially the upper floor windows and arches.
There were plenty of street vendors selling Thai food (I wanted to try it but didn’t get an opportunity) and the typical fruit and vegetable stores and, of course, lots of motor scooter stores and repair shops.
The next stop was the Wat Chalong area and the largest and most strikingly ornamented of Phuket’s 29 Buddhist monasteries. It is famous for it’s legendary monk that had formidable healing powers and is a magnet for Thai people from throughout the country. It was beautiful and very HOT! After taking off our shoes we were allowed to tour the two-story structure with hundreds of Buddhas and beautiful alfresco paintings. The sun was blazing at this point and it was a lot of work to cover all of the separate buildings in the 30 minutes we were allocated.
I did my best before hurrying back (Buddhist style of course) to the bus. But, not before seeing a monk on a park bench who invited me to sit with him (“I’m sorry, got to get back on the bus, maybe next time!”) and hearing a pack of firecrackers going off in a tall brick structure about 30 feet from one of the temples. I found out that if you come to the temple and pray and the pray comes true, you are supposed to return to the temple and shoot off firecrackers in this oven-like structure. It happens all the time and is pretty loud and disturbing. But, it’s part of the Buddhist deal. Interesting stuff.
We were then on to shopping at the Wat Chalong department store owned by the Thai princess, the daughter of the king. It was very high end with a large floor of high-end jewelry with hundreds of glass cases, lots of nicely dressed and good looking sales people and other floors with escalators which were more typical department store-ish. Some nice Thai items at decent prices. Since Margaret wasn’t with me I didn’t do any jewelry shopping but I believe it was very high quality merchandise at decent prices given the exchange rate which was about 30 to 1. I bought a nice rosewood chop stick set for $23, some Thailand magnets (cheap) and a jade fish so I’d have something to show for my trip to Margaret.
We waited in the 1st floor coffee shop where were served free drinks until everyone gathered and walked half a block to the bus in about 105 degree temperatures (they told us today was relatively “cool” based on Phuket standards!). We had already lost one person in our group to heat-related problems and she had been returned to the ship. I was shocked that we didn’t lose more.
Off to the Phuket Orchid Garden and Thai Village where we were greeted by fancily dressed girls and guys (who, it turned out were really transgenders…they looked sort of like Michael Jackson). They posed for pictures and we were then escorted into an indoor theater that was cooled only by oscillating fans. It was very hot but bearable since we were already sweating.
The stage show was narrated by recorded voices that told the history of the four regions of Thailand while the dancers and musicians did appropriate dances for each of the stories. It was good, very colorful and just long enough. Very well done. Since it was dark and I was sitting well up in the stands I’ll have to see how the pictures and videos came out.
After having to wait about 10 minutes in the loaded buses for one of our group to go to the toilet we took a circuitous route back so we could see more of the Chinatown architecture. One of the unfortunately things about Phuket is that they have power lines/poles on both sides of the streets. There seemed to be 50 or more wires draped between poles. This made it almost impossible to get clean pictures of the buildings.
Our tour guide was somewhat hard to understand but was she funny and lively. She was also irreverent talking about everything from not wanting her two sons to become transgenders to being afraid of her husband taking on a mistress. Nothing was off-limits with her but I enjoyed it. There are many transgender guys in Thailand for some reason and the Thai Village even has a nightly cabaret show that is put on by them. You can see why it happens when you realize that they are instructed on Thai dancing from a young age. It is very smooth and rhythmic but also very feminine. We were instructed on the bus on how to do it but I’m afraid it’s not for me.
We got back to the bus about 2:00 pm and Margaret and I had lunch at La Veranda, I went for a swim and read my book at the pool for a half hour and we spent the rest of the day in the room with me quite productively on picture processing for the blog.
Photography Comments:
Since I wrote this post I accidentally included some of my photography comments inline so I’ll just add a couple things here. In the Thai show it was pretty dark and I was sitting well up in the stands I’ll have to see how the pictures and videos came out. At least you’ll get the general idea if nothing else. I tried both using ISO 1600 and 3200 on the D700 as well as using ISO 800 with the flash. The video (when it’s available) was shot on the S95.
One of the unfortunately things about Phuket is on both sides of the streets there are power lines/phone lines that are should absolutely be one of the wonders of the modern world. Bodobudur has nothing on them! There seemed to be 50 or more wires draped between poles and then a massive amount of wire bundled up on most poles. This made it worse than impossible to get a clean picture of the buildings, especially when you are shooting from a double decker bus and sitting at mid-wire height. It isdefinitely just part of the architecture at this point. I didn’t get a good explanation of why there are so many wires but I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. I just hope they manufacture the wire in Thailand. I think if I was to return to Thailand for taking pictures I’d go to the northern territories rather than this beach oriented region. My son got some incredible pictures on his trip there a couple years back…but then, he was walking around barefoot and backpacking for weeks…putting himself out there to capture those incredible sights and setup the pictures.
Trip Summary » Travel with Dale & Margaret - […] Phuket, Thailand […]