Activity Summary
Thursday 22nd September - Day 21
Flight from Chiang Mai to Phuket
Walk round the old town
Local night market
Friday 23rd September - Day 22
Stroll around Patong
Extend VISAs
Local night market
Summary
We didn’t expect to be overly enamoured with Phuket and Patong, especially coming from Chiang Mai and Pai which were great. We were very happy we stayed in Phuket Town which had a good vibe and was an easy place to get around with plenty places to chill in.
Patong is somewhere we would absolutely not enjoy and our visit for the VISA was enough for us.
Had we stayed in a much nicer hostel/hotel I imagine we would come away with much better (or more neutral) memories of Phuket.
Accommodation
Montree Hostel - 2 nights - 296THB/n/p
Bloody terrible. No locks on the rooms which was fine apparently because no-one was staying on our floor and there was CCTV. The room including the bed was apparently made entirely of chip board which made it pretty uncomfortable for Luke to get up to the top bunk.
Luke was hating on the place continually.
Additionally, Nicola got trapped in the room on the last night as the lock broke so had to break the door down by lifting off the locking latch. Impressively doing this at 4am by herself and not really waking Luke up. Would be a horrific fire hazard if we weren’t already in an incredibly combustible tomb.
Nicola then came round to Luke’s views.
Travel
TO
Chiang Mai Hostel -> Grab taxi -> Chiang Mai Airport -> Phuket Airport -> Minivan to Phuket Town
Diary
Our day from Chiang Mai to Phuket was expected to largely be a travel day given we chose to fly. This was quite a bit more expensive than sleeper trains but we had been doing pretty well with our budget (the current Tory government could learn a lot from Luke - what the hell are they thinking?!) so the c.£70 ticket each was absorbed pretty easily despite being nearly 2 days of our costs.
The flight from Chiang Mai was incredibly easy. Quick Grab taxi to the airport from the hostel and check in was simple enough (although we arrived earlier than the 2 hour maximum required so had to wait a bit. There was a MCDs outside the security so killed a few hours there as once through security there is nothing but seats so if early it is best to wait outside (unlike in international airports). The flight was pretty uneventful (about 2 hours) bar Luke having a free row to himself and not telling Nicola who was sat next to a rando.
Once in Phuket airport it was absolute chaos. There are many many people shouting at you to get taxi’s / minibuses to either Patong or Phuket Town (we were staying in town), an attribute that immediately turns our British sensibilities against these people. Sadly we had no choice but to choose a desk which then meant we started being treated like cattle. We were scrambled immediately into a minivan that appeared 2 seconds away from departing and there appeared only enough seats for 1 of us before Luke had to force one of the Thai passengers next to the driver to move up. Luke continually asked for reassurances of where the fudge we were actually going, of which some other tourists confirmed they were aiming for the same direction so about 20% reassured at this point. After travelling for 15 minutes in the right direction the driver makes a random pull into a travel agent which required all of us out of the van to share our hostel / hotel details. Now definitely reassured we were going to make it, the hope was that we were not going to Patong beach (seedy party place) first. Fortunately for us, after just under an hour of driving we were the first dropped off.
Our hostel was absolutely terrible. We had stayed in very cheap places and had been perfectly adequate whereas this one was a mess. There were no locks on the rooms which was fine apparently because noone was staying on our floor and there was CCTV. The room including the bunk bed was apparently made entirely of chip board which made it pretty uncomfortable for Luke to get up to the top bunk. This in mind, we made the executive decision to spend as little time here as possible.
The reason we chose to stay in Phuket Town is because it was a much quainter place than we had heard about Patong beach, which is synonymous with go-go bars, ping pong shows and aggressive lady-boys wanting you to go to the bars and get plastered. This really wasn’t what we were after so settled on the old town which has old Portuguese architectural influences and was a nice place to walk around. It has plenty of coffee shops, bars and restaurants which we made use of throughout the day and evening as we walked around. Luke was overly excited with a giant Guan Yu “statue” that reminded him of his many childhood hours playing dynasty warriors with Akhil. Nicola, once again, did not understand.
We settled on a slightly more touristy night market for food followed with a drink at a bar before calling it a night.
Our plan for our full day in Phuket was to head over to the Patong beach area and see where the day took us, whether that was stay till late in the evening and understand what gives the place its rep or sack it and leave.
Fortunately there was an incredibly cheap (40THB) local bus that goes from the old town to Patong which takes about 30 minutes. Annoyingly these buses, as useful as they are, are steeped in mystery. Nicola managed to find the location from extensive google research to give a rough idea of how, where and when these buses take off and then the all important last part of “ask the locals”. Once there this proved to be very easy.
Once in Patong the first thing we desperately needed to do was extend our VISAs which lapsed after 30 days. Given we hadn’t robustly planned anything for Thailand on our trip we had no idea how long we would need, which turns out is more than 30 days. 1,900 THB each, a passport photo, photocopy of passport and Thailand passport stamp page and the immigration office completed form is all that’s required and a few hours later we were all approved. In that time we settled on bikini shopping for Nicola and some half assed board shorts shopping for Luke who is wanting them for surfing later down the line. Nicola was successful whereas Luke was left to play in the child area of the department store and build what he could out of Lego. Luke would argue he is the real winner here.
As we were done with all the indoor activity the heavens opened up which meant any hope of doing outdoor things ended. We evaded the worst in a coffee shop, balked at the prices of food in Patong and then ran away to get cheaper munch elsewhere. Luke’s ‘no peanut’ google translate sign on his phone has worked very well but does get met with some confusion sometimes and this time the waiter decided to run off with his pretty new iPhone to show people. Luke, slightly concerned about them having his new and important toy (can take the boy out of London but can’t take the London out the boy) followed before finally they understood.
With the weather still drizzly and grey we walked along the main strip of bars, which looked dire, and then along the beach which was as you’d expect in fairly miserable weather.
At this point there was no way we were going to stay late and the fact a Grab taxi would cost 500THB back to the old town tried to get the mystery bus back. We settled on a bar opposite the road from where the bus was supposed to start up but after 20 minutes of watching we got nervous and asked the bar staff. They were in disagreement as to whether it stopped at 3 or 4pm, it now being 3.50pm. So we settled up and sat outside the bus stop praying for this to arrive which surprisingly it did. Now we hailed it down and jumped on with no problems and picked up a Danish traveller doing the same thing a little bit down the road. The driver goes about 10 minutes up the road and then subsequently tells us the last bus was at 3pm. Thinking we are a little bit fudged, he then starts throwing around in broken English something about 300THB. Luke understood this to be he’d take us for this much money back to the town then again hoped we’d get to where we needed to. Fortunately we did, on the cheap still but it took an age because of traffic and at times there was genuine concern about his directions.
Our evening consisted of the same food from the night market and little else before packing and leaving the shit-hole hostel.
The night sleep is never expected to get a mention but the last night was pretty terrible for Nicola (Luke, despite being an incredibly light sleeper, was a log). The room door could lock from the inside, although no key existed for us for the outside lock oddly. Over the few days this was getting visibly stiffer and this came to breaking point at about 4am when Nicola couldn’t get out to pee. 15 minutes of her trying with all her force to open the latch ended up snapping something in the lock so it was permanently locked. Fortunately for us, and Nicola’s bladder, the room was poorly made and she managed to lift the sliding door off the locked latch. At this point Luke woke up, gave a wave and fell straight back asleep. Nicola understandably was not very happy and stressed because of andrealin and that anyone could just waltz into our room and couldn't get back to sleep. On top of this, a few hours earlier, the hostel owners clearly got battered and returned back blaring music and shouting down the corridor which was greatly unappreciated.
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