Phuket

Wednesday last week endet with a trip to Semanggi to meet up with Tanja, Citra, Tiara and Mariza to watch "New Moon". Such a great movie! And great company! And Tanja showed me some of the good shops in Semanggi! ;)

Thursday was spent at the embassy and afterwards waiting at Starbucks for Maj-Britt, Johanna and Tanja after which we went to Trattoria to have Italian food. Delicious!




Friday was the day for going to Phuket - Oeystein, Irma, Johan, Andreas and me!

At the airport Andreas and I were interviewed by some young students - the typical thing that happens when bule's go to places where Indonesians expect bule's to go - botanical gardens, the airport, Monas...

And there is a lot of choice in the questions: "Do you love Indonesia?"... They have not really learned how to let people have more than two possibilities of choice. But on the other hand they understand a "yes" and a "no", and they would probably not understand any variations from that.




Arrived on Phuket we took a taxi from the airport and to Oeystein and Irma's hotel in Patong Beach.
From here Johan, Andreas and I checked out the neighbouring hotels and found a room with three beds for 1000 Baht a night. Super cheap!

My bed in Patong Beach

After finding the hotel we went to the beach, where we later met with Irma and Oeystein.

We were swimming and having Singha and cocktails and relaxing.

We went back to the hotel, got dressed and got ready and went out to have nice thai seafood before going to Bangla Road to party all night long.

Bangla Road was amazing! There were so many Scandinavian and northern European tourists: Swedish, Norwegian, German and Danish. Especially Swedish. But our neighbours at the hotel were three Danish guys our age.

But on the other hand the sex tourism was disgusting. The were prostitutes, ladyboys and old white men everywhere - both fun to look at - hilarious and on the other hand sad.

We had som buckets - Red Bull and Coca Cola. Nam nam! And hitting you hard!

Andreas with an old man and a young thai teenage girl behind him...


I thought that I should be good at this with all the practice through me whole life. But I sucked! Instead Oeystein was quite a hero...

Having a Singha after running out of a bar that showed to be a brothel...

We met two Danish "ladies"... Drinking, dancing, getting flowers and teddybears from some Arabian guys - we were bringing it on! And we met "Princess Mary's cousin" - or at least she said that she was Princess Mary's cousin.

Andreas, magician Elvis and Johan. Magician Elvis kept our table entertained!

Me with one of the many funny hats we bought that evening!

Saturday we went to the beach again when we got up - which was not very early after Friday night. And first we got a huge English breakfast to get rid of the hangover.

We were only Johan, Andreas and me, since Oeystein had gotten up very early to take Irma to the airport for her trip back to Jakarta.

Where the beach had been quiet and relatively calm Friday late afternoon it was now packed with people and chairs! And there were sellers everywhere.

Andreas and I got a great foot massage for an hour!

At late lunch we met Oeystein at his hotel and I had a wonderful green curry.

We walked around Patong after lunch and went shopping and bargaining. Great fun! I was really up for buying thai silk.

And then we went to the beach again to relax a bit, then home to change and for the boys part to have a nap, while I went to the hairdresser to have a hair mask.

Oeystein had remembered this place where it was possible to get a real good steak. He had seen it while we walk through Patong earlier Saturday. But we never found it again. Instead we went to a place with a huge buffet - seafood, pork, beef, salads - everything.

Afterwards we went back to Bangla Road. But almost everything was closed, since it was the kings birthday.

We bought some more hats and had fun with those, but then the boys went down to the beach and I went home to sleep.

Sunday morning the boys and I went to the airport at 6.00 am. They already had to leave for Jakarta that day, while I still had another day in Thailand.

I met a German woman living in Thailand outside the airport and she told me to take a bus from there into Phuket Town.

Phuket Town was not that amazing. Mostly everything was still closed because of the kings birthday on Saturday.

And every motorbike driver or taxi driver was trying to take you somewhere - especially to shops, since they would get money from them for bringing tourists.

I walked through most of the old town, had lunch at a German restaurant, visited an internet cafe, visited a few shops and tried to find some exiting things. But there was mostly nothing. Therefore in the end I said yes when a taxi driver offered to take me outside the city to a mountain from where I could look down on the city, to a giant Buddha and to Phuket Butterfly Garden (http://www.phuketbutterfly.com/home.htm).

The mountain was nice and Phuket Town was nice from up there. There were also some monkeys. But my guide was very protective, since apparently they were aggressive and had already bit a lot of people

The Buddha was big - but not that amazing again.

The Butterfly Garden was disapppointing. It was nice, but nothing you couldn't have seen at another place.

And afterwards it started. First my driver took me to the worlds biggest jewelry store which was not big at all, then another shop and then another shop - before he finally took me to the weekend market a bit outside Phuket Town, where again there were a lot of tourists, nice shopping and great food warungs.

I think he had a bad conscience for taking me around to all the shops, cause in the end he had bought me a bottle of water.

I walked back into the city after the market. It was quite far and I was still carying all my luggage. So I made a stop at another internet cafe on the way. It was also the only place to make a stop.

I found the same street where the driver been standing earlier. And at exactly the same spot I found another driver who was willing to take me to the airport.

Arrived at the airport I still had twelve hours to do pretty much nothing...

I wrote some cards, had dinner, looked around and tried to sleep. When I woke up after more or less only half an hour, there was no one left at the airport. I was totally on my own - scary. So I walked around and I found another tourist. He was trying to get a flight back to Australia because of an emergency in his family, so we talked for the rest of the night, until people finally started to return and life came back to the airport.

The flight back to Jakarta went fast, since I was sleeping through the whole time.

I was back at Casaluna around 12.00 and had time to unpack my stuff, look at the present I had gotten by post from Henrik - a Kinder Überraschung Christmas calendar and Danish candy :) and have a short nap before I went to Ambassador Mall and afterwards to the embassy.

At 16.30 I had to be at the Swedish embassy, where we had another rehearsal for our Lucia performance. This time with gloegg, apple pie and other Swedish Christmas specialties.

Afterwards trying on my dress and the tailor again, buying some pearls and then home to relax and sleep.

Today I have been at the embassy, had lunch with Oeystein, Johan and Andreas, seen the Norwegian embassy, have done some practical things for sick Heidi at ITC, and I'm now at Heidi's room watching television with her and eating banana cake and chips and dried fruit.

I have also found the most amazing stone-jewelry-designer-shop at ITC! I have to be careful about that one - it could eat up all the money for travelling! I loved it! I'm still smiling big!

Soon I'll be going back to Casaluna and having a nice night of sleep!