Phuket and panic about credit cards
We are over Phuket already, we only got here on Monday but we have already booked a flight out, there is no culture here, its just another city with too many tourists (although admittedly there probably arent as many as there were 12 months ago). Its a nice enough place but three days is enough time to see it.
We fly out tomorrow afternoon. We considered taking the cheap option and taking the bus (there is no train to Phuket) but it was a 12 hour trip so instead, after some budget agonising, we decided to fly out. It is only $50 each which isn't too bad at all. We will get into Bangkok about 3pm tomorrow arvo and then we get straight onto a train to Ayuthaya.
Our bus ride to Phuket from Khao Sok was relatively relaxing (compared to the bus trip TO Khao Sok that is) but it was still pretty nasty, it was a very windy road coming down a mountain and we were going pretty fast, it wasn't scary as much as it was nauseating! We stopped at a little town on the way (we figure it was the bus drivers lunch break or something). The bus we caught was a local bus so we were the only foreigners and the town must not have been a tourist spot because there wasnt a whitey in sight. We got off the bus (once we realised it was staying for a while) to have a cigarette and were surrounded by locals all smiling at us. One guy who spoke english came up to us and asked us all the usual questions (where are you from? where are you going? where have you been? how long will you be in Thailand?) and then he showed us his 'Thailand Cigarettes' which was a pouch of tobacco (well more like a ziplock coin bag than a pouch) with 'papers' made out of some kind of dried out leaf and cut into rectangles, another man joined the conversation and we asked him to roll us one. We put out our Marlboro Cigarettes and he passed us a thai cigarette for us to share. All the locals thought this was pretty amusing and they all watched us closely - I think they were expecting us to cough or throw it away or something. I tasted the cigarette first and it was actually really tasty, the leaf made all the difference, it was kind of sweet and smelt really nice as well, I turned to the guy who had rolled it for us and told him in thai that it was very delicious (ALLOY MUK MUK!!!) he was delighted and the man who had originally come and spoken to us was pretty happy himself! He was a motorbike taxi driver and he had just found a fare but before he left he pushed his packet of tobacco (papers and all) into our hands and then rode off shouting after us to enjoy our holiday. We tried to give him some money for it before he drove away but he just smiled at us and shook his head. We sat there and finished the thai cigarette and played peek a boo with a shy little thai girl who was hiding behind a tuk tuk and then we climbed back on the bus for the rest of our trip.
Yesterday we did a little sightseeing tour of Phuket town in a Tuk Tuk. The driver had approached us and offered to drive us around for the afternoon for 100Baht (around $3.30) and since we didnt have any plans we agreed. He took us to the Phuket Cobra show where we watched some idiot man kiss cobras and stir up other snakes (pythons, mangrove snakes, king cobras) until they tried to bite him, and we had our photo taken holding the big python.. such tourists! At one point the man came over to let us touch one of the snakes, he was holding its head with one hand and its body with the other hand and when Luke reached out to touch it the man (intentionally) let go of the body of the snake and dropped it on lukes legs, he jumped about six foot in the air and I thought he was going to have a heart attack! It actually wasn't very funny at all and it freaked me out as well but luckily Luke was SO scared that noone could tell that I was!
After the cobra show our tuk tuk man took us to an atv driving place but it was too expensive so we decided to give that one a miss. Our driver also wanted to take us to some temples but we asked him (almost pleadingly) not to, there are so many of them and you can only see so many before they all kinda look the same, so next we went to the butterfly house and intectarium which was pretty good, there was a lot of insects (dead ones - with pins in them like voodoo dolls) on display and lots of information about them then outside there was a garden with beautiful flowers and butterflies and a little stream with a waterfall and the biggest golden carp I have ever seen in my life. In the corner of the garden was a little enclosure that had two little otters in it. They were SO cute! There was a little rectangular hole in their enclosure and they would come up to it and poke their heads out and when we held our hands up to the hole they would stretch out their little arms and grab hold of our fingers. Their hands were incredibly soft - for some reason I thought they would have claws.. I have no idea why, but they dont, their hands kind of feel like jelly. We spent ages wandering around the little garden and then we got back into the tuk tuk and asked the driver to take us back to our room. He said that there was a jewellery place near our room and that for every tourist he took there he got a stamp on a card and when he had 15 stamps he would get 3 litres of fuel for his tuk tuk for free. From our tuk tuk experience in Bangkok we know that when the owners of these shops see you arent going to buy anything they become kind of rude so instead of doing that we agreed to pay the driver 50Baht extra than agreed at the start of the ride (which would buy him 2 Litres of fuel) I think he felt bad about it but in the end he agreed and we went home instead of to the jewellery store.
After our sightseeing day we were a little short on cash so we went to an atm to get some cash out and (gasp) it didnt work!!! A message flashed up on the screen saying UNAUTHORISED ACCESS. CARD HAS BEEN SUSPENDED! eek eek eek (that was us not the screen)... we were quietly worried about this - but not too stressed because we have travellers cheques stashed for moments such as this. We got online and went to the website to find the number to call the bank from overseas and took a photo of it with our camera (because we didnt have a pen or paper) then we found a shop that sold us a phone card and we found a public phone and called the bank. The girl I spoke with (after being on hold for less than a minute) was lovely - I love the St George Bank! First she asked us if we had tried it more than once, (we hadnt we were worried that the machine would eat our card and then we would be stranded in Thailand cardless) She explained that the transaction hadn't appeared at her end which meant that it would be a problem with the VISA network and not with the card, she assured me there was no suspension on the card and said that sometimes you get that message in Australia as well when the network isn't working she said to try again in ten minutes and it would work. and it did! such a relief!
So that was our exciting afternoon..
And tonight is our last night in Phuket so we are going to go hunting for a restaurant for dinner and then we might go to Swensens icecream for dessert (we have been there everyday since we got here - its so damn good!)
Northern Thailand here we come!
Nikki and Luke
We fly out tomorrow afternoon. We considered taking the cheap option and taking the bus (there is no train to Phuket) but it was a 12 hour trip so instead, after some budget agonising, we decided to fly out. It is only $50 each which isn't too bad at all. We will get into Bangkok about 3pm tomorrow arvo and then we get straight onto a train to Ayuthaya.
Our bus ride to Phuket from Khao Sok was relatively relaxing (compared to the bus trip TO Khao Sok that is) but it was still pretty nasty, it was a very windy road coming down a mountain and we were going pretty fast, it wasn't scary as much as it was nauseating! We stopped at a little town on the way (we figure it was the bus drivers lunch break or something). The bus we caught was a local bus so we were the only foreigners and the town must not have been a tourist spot because there wasnt a whitey in sight. We got off the bus (once we realised it was staying for a while) to have a cigarette and were surrounded by locals all smiling at us. One guy who spoke english came up to us and asked us all the usual questions (where are you from? where are you going? where have you been? how long will you be in Thailand?) and then he showed us his 'Thailand Cigarettes' which was a pouch of tobacco (well more like a ziplock coin bag than a pouch) with 'papers' made out of some kind of dried out leaf and cut into rectangles, another man joined the conversation and we asked him to roll us one. We put out our Marlboro Cigarettes and he passed us a thai cigarette for us to share. All the locals thought this was pretty amusing and they all watched us closely - I think they were expecting us to cough or throw it away or something. I tasted the cigarette first and it was actually really tasty, the leaf made all the difference, it was kind of sweet and smelt really nice as well, I turned to the guy who had rolled it for us and told him in thai that it was very delicious (ALLOY MUK MUK!!!) he was delighted and the man who had originally come and spoken to us was pretty happy himself! He was a motorbike taxi driver and he had just found a fare but before he left he pushed his packet of tobacco (papers and all) into our hands and then rode off shouting after us to enjoy our holiday. We tried to give him some money for it before he drove away but he just smiled at us and shook his head. We sat there and finished the thai cigarette and played peek a boo with a shy little thai girl who was hiding behind a tuk tuk and then we climbed back on the bus for the rest of our trip.
Yesterday we did a little sightseeing tour of Phuket town in a Tuk Tuk. The driver had approached us and offered to drive us around for the afternoon for 100Baht (around $3.30) and since we didnt have any plans we agreed. He took us to the Phuket Cobra show where we watched some idiot man kiss cobras and stir up other snakes (pythons, mangrove snakes, king cobras) until they tried to bite him, and we had our photo taken holding the big python.. such tourists! At one point the man came over to let us touch one of the snakes, he was holding its head with one hand and its body with the other hand and when Luke reached out to touch it the man (intentionally) let go of the body of the snake and dropped it on lukes legs, he jumped about six foot in the air and I thought he was going to have a heart attack! It actually wasn't very funny at all and it freaked me out as well but luckily Luke was SO scared that noone could tell that I was!
After the cobra show our tuk tuk man took us to an atv driving place but it was too expensive so we decided to give that one a miss. Our driver also wanted to take us to some temples but we asked him (almost pleadingly) not to, there are so many of them and you can only see so many before they all kinda look the same, so next we went to the butterfly house and intectarium which was pretty good, there was a lot of insects (dead ones - with pins in them like voodoo dolls) on display and lots of information about them then outside there was a garden with beautiful flowers and butterflies and a little stream with a waterfall and the biggest golden carp I have ever seen in my life. In the corner of the garden was a little enclosure that had two little otters in it. They were SO cute! There was a little rectangular hole in their enclosure and they would come up to it and poke their heads out and when we held our hands up to the hole they would stretch out their little arms and grab hold of our fingers. Their hands were incredibly soft - for some reason I thought they would have claws.. I have no idea why, but they dont, their hands kind of feel like jelly. We spent ages wandering around the little garden and then we got back into the tuk tuk and asked the driver to take us back to our room. He said that there was a jewellery place near our room and that for every tourist he took there he got a stamp on a card and when he had 15 stamps he would get 3 litres of fuel for his tuk tuk for free. From our tuk tuk experience in Bangkok we know that when the owners of these shops see you arent going to buy anything they become kind of rude so instead of doing that we agreed to pay the driver 50Baht extra than agreed at the start of the ride (which would buy him 2 Litres of fuel) I think he felt bad about it but in the end he agreed and we went home instead of to the jewellery store.
After our sightseeing day we were a little short on cash so we went to an atm to get some cash out and (gasp) it didnt work!!! A message flashed up on the screen saying UNAUTHORISED ACCESS. CARD HAS BEEN SUSPENDED! eek eek eek (that was us not the screen)... we were quietly worried about this - but not too stressed because we have travellers cheques stashed for moments such as this. We got online and went to the website to find the number to call the bank from overseas and took a photo of it with our camera (because we didnt have a pen or paper) then we found a shop that sold us a phone card and we found a public phone and called the bank. The girl I spoke with (after being on hold for less than a minute) was lovely - I love the St George Bank! First she asked us if we had tried it more than once, (we hadnt we were worried that the machine would eat our card and then we would be stranded in Thailand cardless) She explained that the transaction hadn't appeared at her end which meant that it would be a problem with the VISA network and not with the card, she assured me there was no suspension on the card and said that sometimes you get that message in Australia as well when the network isn't working she said to try again in ten minutes and it would work. and it did! such a relief!
So that was our exciting afternoon..
And tonight is our last night in Phuket so we are going to go hunting for a restaurant for dinner and then we might go to Swensens icecream for dessert (we have been there everyday since we got here - its so damn good!)
Northern Thailand here we come!
Nikki and Luke