Phuket - Arrival

[Friday Sept 14th]
Seven of us (isn't there always a fellowship of 7?) went on a trip to Phuket, Thailand. It was myself, Bruce and his Girlfriend Angela, Jeff and his wife Marcie (sp), Steve, and Chris. 5 of us from Plexus, all from the States. We had an evening flight out of Penang after work on Friday. We had a few hold ups getting out of the office and when we finally did it was pouring out (a common theme to the weekend). Always a great start to a vacation ;) Jeff was driving the 5 of us from Plexus to meet the others at the airport. Traffic was backed quite a long ways along the road to the airport. At that rate we were never going to make our flight! What a bummer! As we approached the jam, I was in the backseat. Jeff casually asked what he should do and I jokingly said, "You're going to want to get in the right lane and start passing". Now its only a two lane road so getting in the right lane is the on-coming traffic's lane... In puring rain. So, he did it! We cruising quite a ways, passing all the people properly waiting in the queue. When an oncoming car came we dodged out of the way to our right and 'parked' along the road. Crazy times! Our little side jaunt saved us at least 20 minutes, allowing us to make our flight. Whew!
Our flight there was uneventful, our landing was in the rain but pristine, could hardly tell we touched down. Turns out though, in bad weather, the pilots should land the craft hard so a gust of wind doesn't crash the plane... That way it 'sticks'.
I didn't know ahead of time where on the island we were staying, or really what we were planning on doing. Adventure 'eh? Just fly to another country and see what there is to find ;) It turns out we were staying along 'Patong Beach'. Its touted as the best beach and resorts in Phuket. Ironically though, it was also a beach that was hit very hard by the 2004 Tsunami. Now the Wednesday before we left for Phuket (i.e 2 days earlier) there were 2x large earthquakes just off the coast of Indonesia, just like the ones that caused the 2004 Tsunami... So when I found that we were staying 'in the line of fire', man, that was a little uncomfortable. I didn't want to tell everyone that I was in a Tsunami warning area. This beach was one of the famed beaches that we all saw video of when the tsunami hit and heard stories of the water going out to sea and people walking out onto the newly receded shore never to be heard from again.
First thing first, we need some local cash. The conversion rate is crazy. I handed over most all the Malaysian Ringgit I had, they gave me 4500 Thai Baht! For US to Bhat is over 30x exchange. So with my thousands of Baht, I was ready ;) I must say, the text on the money was confusing. If you look at the 1000 Baht bill, it clearly has what looks like '9000' on it. Quite strange!
To get from the Airport to our hotel, it was slated as a 1 hour drive. We hired a van to take us there. It cost 1500 Baht (Crazy large price tag right?) Surreal to pay 1500 anything on a whim like that ;) So our trip was exciting. First we hit the road for a while, not to much excitement, dark out by that time of night. The place didn't look out of the ordinary for SE Asia. Eventually the driver pulled into a place and we stopped. He said he needed to talk with his boss. What a scam, it was the van's operators office. They sent out some sales people to get use to commit to paying for a ride back. After quite a long time we got them to leave us alone. They were nice and cordial, just persistent. We eventually got back on our way. It started to absolutely pour. One of our windshield wipers broke, thankfully it was the left one. That way the driver could still see, whew.
We went up and down some seriously step road ways, winding up then back down. Similar to some we've been on in New Zealand. The trouble he was with all the rain coming down in droves, the roads turned into rivers flowing down the hills/mtns. It got hairy there a few times as having 6 inches + of water raging down the road, criss-crossing it as the road did its loop-backs to go up and down was, erm, exciting... ;)
We didn't know it at the time but we stopped just shy of the enterance to our hotel. There was what looked like an impromptu lake in front of us. The water was up and over all the sidewalks and heading into the nearby shops. It had to be all of a foot or more deep. Cars were driving though with water above the bottom of their doors, people riding scooters (in torrential rain mind you) rode through the deep murky water, the water sizzling and steaming as their exhausts became submerged. Our driver went for it and we charged though, no issues. It was like crossing the River Anduin back in NZ. Just as we got out of the water, we turned into our hotel. Whoa, we're here! So up, up, up we went. Steep hill and our hotel is resting snuggly up the hill in the trees.
Ah, tonight's adventure doesn't stop here. We had 2 rooms booked for the 7 of us. They were going to have 2x double beds in each room. They refused to let us sleep 4 to a room though, even though there was clearly plenty of room. So after much debate we agreed to an additional room.
We got settled in a little bit and headed to the Hotel's restaurant. We had a very nice Thai dinner. We ate it family style where everyone ordered a dish and we passed and shared so we could try everything. They had a powerful red curry, a fantastic Pad Thai, some sweet n' sour chicken. Mmm, Thai food... Who would have thought, I got to have Thai food in Thailand! How kewl is that?
After dinner it had stopped raining. Some of us decided to walk down the hill to check out the beach. Nothing to see at first, but we soon discovered a very rocky 'beach'. It was very pretty and scenic but it was no where to go swimming. The water churned, and the waves crashed and sprayed against the rocks. I could of sat there for a while just taking in the setting.
The guys decided we'd walk into town and see if we could find a place to relax. Not far down the road came the real beach. It was very nice and long. The large waves were crashing and rolling. A constant and soothing ebb and flow was rumbling on the shore.
We stumbled upon a place called 'Rock City'. Quite an interesting place. Here we are, midnight in Thailand, going into this Bar that has a Metallica Tribute band playing. Just seemed out of place. The lead singer, a German in a Ski Hat, yelling, 'Make some F&(*ng Noise!' We hung out there taking in the ambiance. There were 'nurses' bringing around needle-less syringes as shots, and a shot lady fully equipped with some holsters full of booze and ammo straps of shot glasses... No one tried any of it. As we gazed around the crowd, we started to realize that the majority of what we had originally thought were females, weren't. Apparently its quite common here.
Anyway, after the band was done ~2:30 am we went back to the Hotel, climbed back up the hill and went back to our rooms. The two couples had one room, Chris had another, and Steve and I had another. Ours being much further up the hill overlooking the roofs of the other's.
Quite an adventure for just arriving. More stories to come ;)

-Terry