Travel Tuesday: That time I rode an elephant

Last year we went to Phuket, Thailand for a two week vacation. It was an utterly amazing time, an experience I would never forget and something I want to do all over again. 

Even though the climate was stuffy, as a result of the humidity, not to mention the scorching heat, I loved every moment of it. I loved walking around in between the stalls of cheap clothing, I loved smelling the local cuisine, I loved playing with the local stray dogs, swimming in the clear, calm blue sea, going to all the different islands surrounding Phuket for cheaper than a new pair of shoes. The islands were spectacular. Breathtaking!

I wish I could go back there. And maybe this time I will go when Phuket is not having it's rainy season. I did not mention the amount of rain we had. But we still went out, in the rain. Drove our scooters around town, walked between stalls, went for a swim in the sea, went for a swim in the hotel pool. The rain couldn't stop us from exploring this amazing, unknown world.

Something we did not anticipate on doing, but ended up doing it for the experience, was an elephant ride. Gentle Giants. It was sad however to see that these elephants were scared of their trainers, and that they would make crying sounds if it looked like their trainers were about to hit them. In retrospect, I am very sad that I partook in this, as I only realised later, past the excitement of riding an elephant, that these poor beautiful creatures were being mistreated. They had food, yes. They had shelter, yes. But they didn't have proper shelter and they were not treated with respect, as they should have been.

To me it was an honour to walk with these tender beasts. They really are something precious. I just wish people would treat these animals better. I am a bit sad that I indulged in this silly tourist attraction, just for the sake of saying I rode an elephant. But it's something I can tick of my bucket list.

Phuket two

This is some of my experiences I chronicled while in Phuket. A trip down memory lane. I wrote several notes of this wonderful time. You can check out the first post here

Sick! On my second day in Phuket I woke up with a cold! And before anyone thinks it's because of my entire lack of immune system, I have to explain that an ice cold air conditioned hotel room is not best friends with the humidity on the outside.   

With a thick head and enough snot to fill a small Indian elephant, we set off to our closest pharmacy. But this unfortunately only opened at nine o'clock. And the beau is still half asleep! 

I could have filled this with mucus

Rain! Just as we started to drive, on our mopeds, through the streets of Karon! One thing about the rain, besides it being a blessing, it does not stop anyone! Every one is still walking around, swimming, riding on their mopeds. We went during the rainy season, also known as monsoon. And driving this fast in pouring rain hurts, like little knives piercing your skin. 

Finally we arrived at the pharmacy, but bright as I can be, I stop in the entrance of a foreign exchange bank. It had a small entrance, and it was still closed, so I did not know that this was actually a shop until the beau and the shop owner informed me.

To make matters worse, I parked the scooter between two steel barriers on either side of the entrance. As I tried to maneuver my way between the barriers, I got off the scooter, still running, I opened up the throttle. 

Scooters can move quite fast if your not on it, and it can fall over just as fast! OUCH! Being stupid has it price, as the scooter's hot exhaust pipe fell right on my leg.  Lesson learned, if you're on a scooter, the brake and the horn is your best friend!

IF you're sensitive, I suggest you look away for this pic.

Look at my funny plaster tan!

On our way back to the hotel, I realised one thing about Phuket, every street has at least five pharmacies, two optometrists, loads of bars, a tailor which promises to suit you up in a "Hollywood Armani" and blind scooter and car drivers.

Meanwhile, in the evening, as I sat typing my note for my friends and my parents, two Afrikaans guys walk past me and spoke quite loudly. "Isn't this the same girl that sat here at the computer last night?" I nearly replied with a yes in Afrikaans. Think twice before you speak Afrikaans in Phuket guy. This is just a warmer, more humid South Africa with a lot of Thai people in it. 

Websites, friends, people you don’t know and their cats were telling my beau and I about the absolute gorgeousness of this little bellybutton fluff sticking out of Thailand's navel and that we should make sure that we hydrate a lot, as it might be a bit warm. Granted. But no one told us that it would be so ungodly, yawning crows and vulture circling hot!

That said, I was sitting there, quarter to nine in the evening, in the quiet of Phuket. In the background the wind was playing with some bamboo charms, someone was grinding and sawing to finish their shop, and a few crackers had illuminated the night.

I was sitting outside on a veranda, with only my skin and my shoes, determined that I was the first person on earth who set a record for the least-sleep-while-traveling-back-in-time-too, ever!

We left our South Africa at seven the previous morning, and I had not closed my eyes for 36 hours straight. Well, still sitting in front of the computer, I came to the conclusion that my body and brain were to tired to sleep. Or perhaps it was because of the impenetrable slut named heat!

On our way to our hotel, it seemed that the bigbird just made a twelve-hour detour to KwaZulu-Natal. Banana trees, shrubbery, and hellfire’s oven left open. Following a daunting trip in a (Thank God!) air-conned taxi, through some areas that makes Soweto look like a five star resort, we had arrived at our hotel. Pleasantly surprised by the serenity and the beauty of the area it was hulled in, but dog tired just the same, we had to wait another hour before we could be booked in, because, you see, we were too early. That heat!

At last, we were booked in and the beau and I tried to close our eyes, which only lasted half an hour. (I set the alarm for two hours, but my biological clock was effed). So I got up and painted the town red. (Partly because I was so red from heatstroke!)

Our hotel!

“Durban with a roof” says the beau. Dare to enter the market and every human calls you to buy something from them, even though you have just bought exactly the same thing from his neighbour. Fifty stalls, ‘n pair of Fillafong slops, one chocolate Cornetto smeared Megan (that’s me), two straw hats and two pairs of Raybans later, the beau and I realised that Phuket isn’t entirely walkable, even though it looked the size of a dime on the map.

Challenge accepted! Soon we were on our way to Phatong beach on mopeds. Never in my life have I seen such a whoresnest of electrical cables AND Phuket’s traffic – utterly motherless! (Which is actually my sort of heaven. There is nothing I enjoy more than the rush of traffic and having the odd brawl with a taxi.) However, this was an entirely different scene. 

Whoresnest of cables

There was not one working traffic light and four million scooters were traveling in the direction that Sa Wat Dee Ka was sending them (latter means Hello! in Thai, but that’s almost all you hear). Then you had the thirty three thousand red tuk-tuk’s to pardon. Their owners would shout the price of the taxi and that we should take a ride with them, while on our scooters! Well, add a broken speedometer, and a fretful beau and you have one interesting ride.

On our way back to the hotel, I came across a roadblock and was pulled over because I am clearly a tourist. The pigs asked me for my license, which I left at the hotel for safety reasons. But a little white lie can’t hurt.

“It’s in my boyfriend’s backpack. I don’t have any pockets.” (Which I really did not have, being half naked in a sheer blue dress and a bikini). Meanwhile, I lost the beau in this can of worms called traffic and I hoped that he was still behind me. Which he was. With a fine of 300 baht, I was arrested while the beau drove off to withdraw money. But I won’t stop here. In Afrikaans I told him to pretend that the license was in his backpack all the time. He then had to pretend that when coming back from withdrawing money that it was in his wallet, he did just not realise it. The pigs weren't very easily convinced. But then! Puppy eyes, it works!

The pigs

Later we had dinner, mine being a seafood pizza, and I would have loved to have an old SA favourite to wash it down.

“Wot is zavna dwy?”

Beautiful Thailand

Quiet strike

Owing to the rain, there has been absolutely no interesting events in my life, apart from me being sick on Sunday morning at 3:00 am and sitting in front of the telly, watching absurd shows and crying as I felt sorry for myself. We had a corporate braai on Saturday, for the beau's work, but it wasn't anything I ate or drank that made me sick. Oh, and there was this cute almost two-year-old who wanted me to pick her up and when I tried to put her down, she would start hollering like a cat in heat. It didn't bother me though, I think I am a bit broody at the moment, and if I were married and not six years shy of my goal age to become a mother, I would certainly have a baby now. They are just soooo freakin cute. We had one in the office this morning too, I nearly died, so pretty!

Well, to sidetrack my thoughts from my maternal instinct and premature motherhood, I will tell you about last year September, when the beau and I went to Phuket for a little breakaway.