1961 Magazine Fall 2016

HISTORY & TRAVEL
Never having been to Thailand, I really didn’t know
what to expect. On the plane trip over from my Dubai
based office, I recalled story after story of crazy parties
and sexual debauchery from dodgy massage parlors,
night clubs, weekends of regrets caused by women who
turned out to be men and the like. I honestly didn’t
know what to expect, however, the one thing that I
did know is I wanted to feel the culture of Thailand
and see what was there outside of its well-known
party scene. I had set my sites on Phuket and not
mainland Thailand. Despite Phuket being known for
Bangla Street (which isn’t even in Phuket City proper)
and offers club after club after club with a few dodgy
massage parlors in between) it is also known for being
more slowly paced than Bangkok on the mainland. So
off I went (Yes I took my wife and my two year old
daughter to be on the safe side-and yes gentlemen
you may laugh at me it’s ok) on a working holiday with
the family to discover what Thailand’s Phuket had to
offer. Upon landing I immediately encountered some
trouble when we walked up to immigration as a family
– no no…..don’t do that FYI!! It was a bit confusing
(coupled with some shouting) but immigration wants
you one at a time and definitely stand behind the red
line while you wait and approach one at a time when
invited). The whole experience sort of put a bad taste
in my mouth if you will, but I wasn’t going to let it
cloud my mind from figuring out what this island had
to offer. Having traveled to a good few countries, I
know to keep your wits about you and mainly just do
what the people want you to do, after all their job is
to protect the security of their country. That’s not a
small responsibility and I absolutely respect people
who take their profession seriously.
After a few apologies and thank you(s) we were in.
Now, I have to say the way the trip came together I
really didn’t have time to prepare myself like I usually
do. Specifically, I hadn’t found the time to look up the
exchange rate – always a mistake. Nor had I booked
transportation from the airport to the hotel. So as we
walked out of the airport we needed a taxi to our hotel.
There were signs everywhere (in English) reading hotel
transfer 200THB (Thailand Baht). Brilliant! I hadn’t a
clue what a Baht was worth but 200 of them to get us
to our hotel seemed fair enough. Wouldn’t you know
it, the first taxi stand we came to wanted 2,000THB to
take us to the hotel. Not knowing the exchange rate or
how Phuket’s taxi system works and having just walked
off a six hour flight I really didn’t have the energy to
tackle the issue as to why it wasn’t 200THB like the
50 signs all around read. Especially since you pay the
taxi fare at a stand and not the driver directly, I felt
a little confident that the young lady at the counter
knew what she was talking about. It turned out to be
$52.00US for the taxi – not too bad considering they
drove us so far.
The first few things I noticed walking out of the airport
in (in actual sequence):
1. The heat
2. The humidity
3. The traffic
Let’s put it this way: I walked out of the airport and
immediately there was a road we had to cross. The
road had two lanes. I was cool and dry leaving the
airport and by the time I reached the car park on the
other side of the road I was hot and soaked. Not to
mention that the traffic was relentless as you tried to
navigate your way across. Crossing the roads seemed
very dangerous and this impression stayed with me
my entire journey in Phuket. I’ll elaborate more on this
later. Eventually we made it across and climbed into a
van with loads of seats, lights and more gauges than
the 777 that flew us there. Don’t know what they were
for but I had to laugh. However the main thing was the
AC and it wasn’t on. The van was hot and took some
time to cool. This, of course, only served to worsen
my soaking clothes situation. Thankfully after about
ten minutes the van did cool.
Traveling from the airport to our hotel took an hour and
fifteen minutes. Traffic was very heavy and we were
staying outside of Phuket City on the west coast of the
island in Karon. Driving through village after village,
my first impression was very much like I imagined it
would be. Shop after shop in dirty, crowded villages
offering everything you could possibly imagine but
probably didn’t need really. Amazingly, I felt a strange
desire to walk through these streets and explore shops
one by one.
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1961 Magazine Fall 2016