Backwards Blog #1: Phuket, Thailand 2009

Our first big adventure took us to Phuket (pronounced pooh-ket), Thailand. The kids and I had been here all of two weeks when the travel bug hit. Anyone who suffers from an addiction to travel like we do understands the travel bug. It starts with a general malaise then wanderlust settles in. The wanderlust gives way to a near frantic need to settle on a destination. Once you've decided on a destination it's all downhill from there. You spend hours on the internet researching plane tickets, places to stay, things to do, things to eat, etc. etc. In the delirium you lose track of the value of money and refuse to look at your bank account. Bills pile up and relationships suffer. Resistance is futile. You will NOT find relief until your feet land on unfamiliar soil.

So anyway, the bug hits and it hits hard. I quickly settled on Phuket as it was cheap and easy to get to, had great beaches, and was relatively safe for foreigners. Tiger Airways was having one of their famous fare sales and I was able to get three round-trip tickets for next to nothing. I turned to travelocity.com and picked out a bed and breakfast that was close to the beach, got great reviews, and was cheap. Looking back I should have realized that $22 a night was too cheap even by Thai standards but at the time of booking I was so desperate to go I wasn't thinking clearly. I scheduled a few activities and figured we would spend the rest of our time in paradise at the beach.

The day we were scheduled to leave I was perusing a travel forum and read about a scam where some taxi drivers in Phuket were accused of driving to remote locations and refusing to take their foreign passengers to their actual destinations unless they paid more money. I didn't really think too much about it and we headed to the airport for our very late night flight. We got to Phuket in the middle of the night and made our way to the taxi service recommended by other travelers. The taxi operator quoted a reasonable price and we took off. After about 25 minutes the taxi pulls off the main road onto a dirt road with sugar cane growing on both sides. There were no signs, no lights, no pavement, no building, no other cars. I ask the driver where we're going and don't get a response. My mind flashes back to the thread about the scam and I feel a tightness in my throat and notice that my palms are sweating. We're getting further and further from the main road. I ask where we are going for the second time and, again, get no response. I look down at my two sleeping kids and reach for my cell phone. I'm about to start dialing when I see "No service. Emergency calls only" on my screen. Words go thru my mind that are unfit to print.

Now, normally, I'm the kind of person that will GIVE you anything but will fight to the death before I'll let you TAKE it. But in Thailand, in the middle of the night with two sleeping kids I very quickly decided that if the driver wanted more money I would gladly give it over. If he wanted my watch he could have that too. Or my shoes, or my passport, or whatever. In fact, I was totally willing to get out of the taxi with nothing but my kids and start walking. The driver could have had any material possession I had in that taxi with my blessing. I feel my fight or flight reflex taking over right about the time I see bright lights. Out of nowhere, there is a gas station in the middle of a sugar cane field. The driver gets out, fills up, gets back in, and takes us the rest of the way to Karon which is one of the main beach areas of Phuket.

Oh thank goodness. The rest of our trip was a dream. The food was good, the beaches were amazing and we met throngs of lovely people. We did the John Grey Hongs by Starlight adventure, took in a professional muay tai fight, played miniature golf at a place with a erupting volcano, and spent hours on the beach. BGC (baby girl castello) met a friend who lives in Scotland that she skypes with to this day. The only thing I would have changed about the trip was where we stayed. When I booked a bed and breakfast I had a picture in my mind that was not what I found in Phuket. We were on the third floor of a glorified hostel that was undergoing serious renovations. Our bathroom was similar to many in asia in that the shower was not enclosed so if one person took a shower the entire bathroom was wet. The street our b&b was on was crazy at night which made it tough to get any sleep. Each of the nightstands housed boxes of condoms which my kids quickly found making it necessary for our first purchase in Thailand to be unused sheets and pillows for the bed. The Australian owner of the b&b was onsite daily and I just didn't have the heart to tell them I had changed my mind and would be going elsewhere. I have since gotten over this and would not hesitate to make a change in a similar situatio today. So we stayed busy all day and slept on our clean sheets at night and chalked it up to part of the adventure.

Phuket delivered everything that had been promised and then some. We've been back many, many times and have always had a blast. We do, however, stay in much nicer places.