Thailand: Phuket
This is the second recap of my southeast Asia backpacking trip (#JLAsia2018) with my friend, Julianna.
Our second stop was Phuket, Thailand’s southern province known for beaches and the ever popular tourist island, Phi Phi. We stayed 3 full days in Phuket, specifically in the Patong beach area.
Arrival
Transportation: Flight
We flew from Bangkok to Phuket with VietJet Air. The flight took 2.5 hours and costed $37.20 CAD per person.
Transportation: Minibus
To get from Phuket International Airport to your hotel, a popular method is to take the minibus shuttle. Once you arrive at the airport, there will be minibus booths selling tickets. They cost 180 baht ($7 CAD) and will take you directly to your hotel.
Our minibus took us almost 2 hours to drive from the airport to Patong – a time price we had to pay because we weren’t willing to fork 800 baht for a taxi ride that would take 45 minutes. It was a comfortable ride with AC and plush seats.
Accommodations
The Marina Phuket Hotel
After staying at a hostel in Bangkok, we wanted to treat ourselves to a nice hotel in Phuket. Since hotels are cheap in Thailand, we chose our hotel based on proximity to Patong Beach and our second most important criteria: which hotel had the best rooftop pool?
After some research, we chose the Marina Phuket Hotel, a 4-star hotel that is a 10-15 minute walk to Patong Beach. Our deluxe double room for three nights costed us $240 CAD in total, which converts to $80 CAD per night.
We arrived at the hotel at night, sweaty and tired from traveling all day. We immediately felt too dirty for this hotel the minute we stepped inside as it looked quite grand with high ceilings and polished floors. We were welcomed at the lobby with wet towels to wipe our sweat and a welcome drink comprised of different teas and mineral water.
A bellboy took our backpacks and showed us to our room, which looked exactly like this:
We took it easy on our first night – a quick shower and then we headed out to find food. We stopped at a local restaurant and ordered a pineapple fried rice, spicy papaya salad and a pad thai. Note – the papaya salad was hella spicy. I thought they’d give us the “tourist spicy” but I feel like they gave us the real deal.
Things to do
Patong Beach
Our hotel offered free towels for beach use so we grabbed two towels early in the morning and headed off to get breakfast. We looked up popular breakfast joints in Patong and found iBreeq coffee – a cute little cafe run by Muslim Thai people.
After our breakfast, we walked to Patong Beach. Even though it was only 10 am, it was hot. We enjoyed jumping into the ocean to escape the heat and the beach itself was beautiful.
We camped in an area where parasailing groups take off and land. This area was a little more empty than the other parts of the beach. It was funny to watch tourists para sail because it was so different from when I did it in Santorini.
In Patong, if you pay to go parasailing, a bunch of guys (they are workers) will try to help get you in the air. I guess it wasn’t that windy because they struggled and kept yelling at each other. The sail kept getting tangled with each attempt. Once the tourist is successfully in the air, there is a guy who actually sticks his feet through the gear and rides with you (LOL). He is literally standing on the bar/equipment that is holding you which is crazy because he’s not strapped into anything. When it’s time for the tourist to land, they all scream at each other again, trying to get the tourist down safely and smoothly.
While relaxing on the beach, often times there were people walking around trying to sell you something. Whether that’s a parasailing activity or a lady carrying 47 pairs of sunglasses on her body.
The sunglasses I brought to this trip actually broke while I was at the beach so I did end up purchasing some from a random lady. Her starting price was 600 baht but I had seen sunglasses selling at stalls already for 200 baht so I was able to be firm and haggle it down to 200 ($8 CAD) baht. Don’t ever be afraid to haggle!
King Kong Seafood
We decided to continue living our “luxury” part of Thailand with a seafood feast at King Kong Seafood. We walked past it a few times on the way to Patong Beach and the restaurant looked like a lot of fun with an outdoor setting, fake grass, live music and fresh seafood you can choose from the tanks directly.
The owner of this restaurant and all of the staff are super friendly – perhaps even a bit too friendly at times. As we were ordering, we realized we didn’t bring enough cash so I told Julianna I would walk back to our hotel and get more money. The owner and the servers insisted that we stay and that they would give us discounts or let us pay tomorrow (?). They added lots of free drinks as a service and joked with all the tables in the restaurant. At one point, Julianna spilled some water and 3 servers rushed to clean it up for us.
The live music was nice and it was somebody’s birthday too so it was fun to celebrate it in the restaurant. We ordered 5 dishes and the total came to approximately $1,500 baht ($65 CAD). It was exactly the amount we had so we didn’t have to walk back to the hotel to get more money. A part of me thinks they probably oversold us on the price of seafood, which is why they are able to give us discount after discount, but because we had such a wonderful and fun experience, we didn’t care too much about it. $65 CAD for that amount of fresh seafood is a great deal.
Bangla Road + Illuzion
After our dinner and drinks, Julianna and I walked down Bangla Road. Bangla Road is a nightlife street that is closed off for vehicles. The strip is filled with bars and clubs. There will be many promoters standing on the street with signs, encouraging you to go into a club or a bar for different shows – sex shows, pong shows, etc.
On our flight to Phuket, our fellow passenger recommended the night club, Illuzion. We walked up fancy lit up staircases and there seemed to be no entrance fee for females to enter so we just waltzed right in.
The inside was just like any other night club in Vancouver. It definitely wasn’t anything out of Vegas but it was quite large with 2 floors and very cheap drinks. They had gogo dancers and a DJ on stage playing EDM spanish pop. The crowd were almost all tourists – lots of Russian girls.
We made two new Malaysian friends from Illuzion and had lunch together the next day at a Restaurant called No. 6. It is rated highly on Tripadvisor and there was a line-up to get seated.
Pong show
Skip this section if you giggle at the word “vagina”.
So I learned about the existence of pong shows from some friends who recently went to Thailand a month before me. They told me about pong shows – women put ping pong balls in their vaginas and shoot them into a bowl of water on stage. They also do a bunch of other crazy things that include razors, darts and sparklers (??!?!?) with their vagina.
This was crazy stuff but I told myself I had to go see one because I will never ever ever go again. This is a one time deal.
We left Illuzion at 4 am (lol) and we actually struggled to find a bar that still had pong shows on their schedule. We were brought into a bar that promised us a pong show but gave us a sex show instead.
The inside was downstairs and the setting looked like a strip club, with booths surrounding a stage that had poles. There were individual seats right up to the stage and males were encouraged to sit in those chairs. Before the show starts, the female performers would sit on their laps and talk to them, hoping for extra tips which they often did receive.
Filming was strictly prohibited. I’m not sure if it was illegal but if they saw you take your phone out you would be yelled at by a bouncer and kicked out.
Our show featured lots of different acts – from a girl eating wax naked to some sexy dancing with poles. The finale was the sex show where a masked woman and man actually had sex on stage in different positions to a very fast beat.
The show was at least an hour long and costed us 250 baht ($10 CAD) and it came with a free beer.
After the show, I wasn’t sure what I watched or if I enjoyed it or not. I was probably more so intrigued that such a thing existed. I mean my vagina can only do like one thing and here these women are shooting ping pong balls and eating wax.
Shopping
We did a lot of walking in Patong because Julianna wanted to buy 6 pairs of Thai pants and if you were hoping to buy some as well, please don’t buy it in Patong. Patong is a very touristy destination and so the prices in the markets and at the mall are not going to be a good deal anywhere. Trust me because I went to like three different malls.
Jungceylon Shopping Center
This is Patong’s “upscale” mall. It’s nothing compared to the malls in Bangkok but you will find some nicer department stores and salons inside. Their restaurants in the food bazaar area looked very nice and not too fancy but we had already opted to eat at another restaurant that had a grocery market underneath (you buy your groceries and seafood and they cook it upstairs in the food court for you).
Banana Walk shopping mall
I’m not sure why this even showed up on the recommended list of shopping malls because this mall literally had like 3 stores that were open. It looked like they were still renovating the spaces and retailers haven’t moved in yet. The walk to Banana walk shopping mall was quite long from our hotel but along the way there were lots of street shopping options.
Thai massage
After all the walking, we decided to go into a random massage parlour. There are so many massage shops along the streets of Patong and if you look closely you will see two different types.
The first type are the stores that have younger workers in prettyier dresses and a full face of make up on. They are often times on their phone or just sitting around the front of the store until a man walks past. This is when they engage in conversation and persuade them to come for a massage.
The second type are the stores that have a variety of workers – young and old, male and female (but still mostly female). They wear a breezy set of shirt and pants and their store window says “NO SEX”.
So we opted for a legitimate massage shop and paid 200 baht ($8 CAD) for a 1-hour foot massage. We take off our shoes at the front and get seated in a row of large chairs. My masseuse really gets in there and after 1 hour my feet felt amazing. It felt like I hadn’t walked all day at all!
We actually returned to the same massage shop the next day for a full body Thai massage, also 1 hour for 200 baht. This time they take you into a curtained part of the room where you are asked to change into the same breezy outfits the workers are wearing.
After that they basically step on you and throw you around. Make sure you didn’t just eat because you could probably throw up when they stretch your back. But again, I loved the Thai massage because they really do get in there. It’s not like western spas where they give you a robe and you lie down and they put some hot rocks on you and just press on you a little. These Thai massages give you pain in the best way and my whole body felt relaxed after.
Rooftop pool
So our hotel had a great rooftop pool and we got to enjoy some great day and night time views. They also had a pool party one of the days we were there. At night they light up the pool into different colours.
Final thoughts
Patong was one of my favourite parts of my southeast Asia trip. It was a great mix of beach and parties. I’m sure choosing a nicer accommodation also helped us enjoy our stay more.
If you like the beach and partying, definitely hit up Patong in Phuket. There are so many things to do in terms of food and entertainment. If you’re looking for a more cultural experience, you may consider Phuket Town instead of Patong.
I’m not certain if I would enjoy Patong as much if I returned for a second time. Patong is a very touristy beach but they treat you like kings and queens. The locals and workers are very friendly to tourists as they are more familiar with them and you get a little taste of Thai hospitality.
Julianna and I really enjoyed Patong and it was very different from metro Bangkok. We also got around 2 shades darker after 3 days here.
Stay tuned for my next recap on Chiang Mai!
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