Phuket by Car (part two)

The car Paul hired for the weekend was larger than the previous one, a four door black Honda Brio Amaze (a make I’ve never heard of before) but as long as there is effective air conditioning I’m not too bothered about the size or the make.  At Boat Lagoon, another large marina/resort on the coast road, Paul went off to enquire about their services and products while I browsed in the Waitrose-like supermarket which, although very expensive, stocked the first veggie products I’ve seen since leaving the UK. It’s not that I’ve particularly missed convenience products because I’ve been making and creating my own dishes, but sometimes when time is short it’s handy to have things like sausages and burgers to fall back on.

We noticed that there was a lot more traffic on the roads but the fact that it was Saturday shouldn’t have made any difference because there is no concept of a weekend here.  Saturday is either a full or half day of the working week, and that goes for the school week too.  Sunday is a day off for businesses but not for religious reasons, and shops operate the same opening hours as weekdays on Sundays.  The next port of call was The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project in the district of Thalang.  I’d discovered this when researching places to visit on the internet. I already knew about The Soi Dog Foundation but this was an added bonus because although Phuket advertises other attractions where you can see animals, many of them are to be avoided. This includes Crocodile Farms, The Dolphin Show, Elephant Treks and Camps and Tiger Kingdom.  Anyway, this place is an ethical and worthy attraction and I was looking forward to seeing it. On the way in I spotted a group of elephants with the equipment on their backs that provide rides for tourists.  When we reached the end of the narrow track that would lead us on to the project, there was a man directing traffic. I wasn’t expecting him to ask us for money because it’s supposed to be free but he kept repeating the Waterfall attraction next to the gibbon project. Telling him that we only wanted to see the gibbons made no difference so it was easier to just part with the fee of 200 baht (about £4) each.

We were greeted by a young teenage volunteer when we reached the entrance and she asked if we would like to know more about the organisation. She gave us the backstories of the gibbons that were unable to be released back into the wild, as well as a history of the breed indigenous to Thailand (the white-handed gibbon).  The stories were heartbreaking, and I was surprised to learn that the conditions some of them suffered from as a result of their trauma were ones I thought were only attributable to humans: bipolar disorder, self-harming, anger issues (one gibbon had developed a hatred towards all humans -unsurprisingly). This lovely girl, who had only been there two weeks, was passionate about the gibbons and the work that is going on to help them and we had quite a chat. I was particularly fascinated to learn about one gibbon who, after repeated attempts to release him, had made his way back to the project by following humans until it was concluded he was happier in his cage (he went on to father some babies and is now a grandfather who spends his days happily swinging on his swing). Paul asked her about the elephants we’d seen at the entrance and she told us it upset her to see them every time she arrived for work. I couldn’t help wishing I’d known about this sort of charity work when I was a teenager, I would have loved it.  We stood and watched the antics of the few gibbons who will spend the rest of their lives at the centre and read the boards telling more of their stories.

Since we’d paid for the privilege, we went on to look at the Bang Pae Waterfall which is the biggest one in Phuket. It was well worth the fee actually. The weather was perfect for a woodland walk and it wasn’t crowded.  Groups of people were bathing fully-clothed in the running water and Paul went over to check the temperature by putting his foot in. This delighted one group of girls who shrieked with laughter and urged him to go right in. We climbed on up the path to see the waterfall and it was so nice to note that there wasn’t a bit of litter anywhere on the path. At the top there was a group of boys having great fun jumping from quite a height into the pool below.  It looked dangerous and in Britain there would no doubt have been numerous signs forbidding it but these lads were having a wonderful time and I envied them their courage.

Patong was next on the itinerary. This place has a reputation for being hedonistic, with a raucous nightlife and I was curious to see the place.  It was obvious we were approaching a major tourist destination the nearer we got to the town.  It became more and more built up, lots of hotels and resorts appeared on the roadside, along with billboards advertising bars, eateries and nightclubs.  We parked in the mall we’d visited earlier in the week and headed out in the twilight to have a look around.  The first street we started to walk down was very lively and had lots of bars. I was ready for a glass of wine by then, or a beer and I couldn’t understand why Paul was ignoring my hints to visit one of the bars on the street.  We were stopped by lots of people urging us to take a flyer for ‘ping pong events’ and I knew what these were. I  had also gathered that the area was popular for specific kinds of entertainment but I honestly hadn’t twigged that to enter one of the bars in Bangla Road would probably have meant dealing with a lot of female attention: they would automatically assume we wanted ‘entertainment’ by the mere fact we’d gone inside. I had innocently thought we could sit and have a drink and watch the street antics until Paul explained we were just walking the length of the street to have a look. It was like running a gauntlet – men and women(?) were grabbing us constantly to foist the ping pong flyers on us or beckoning us to buy cheap beer in the pubs, and at one point our way was blocked by a whole line of colourfully-dressed, merry guys keen for us to have a great night! The street is what it is, and it’s no place for the easily shocked or offended. I was quite fascinated by it all.

After a glass of wine or two and a lovely meal ( I enjoyed my first taste of Pad Thai), we had a walk along the shore of Patong Beach itself. The whole area was becoming more crowded and lively as it got later – the nightlife really takes off after 10, but as Paul said in his best Alan Bennett voice ‘this is all very well, Doris but we need to get on and buy some bread and Marmite’.  This we did, before driving back to the boat :).

Unsurprisingly we were up fairly late on Sunday, and didn’t begin our second day out in the car until noon.  The plan was to visit a market in Phuket Town, and when we got there we simply parked the car in an empty space we found on the side of the road. It felt strange to do this after being so used to all the rules and regulations and limits associated with parking in Britain.  None of that here, you just park where you can and pay nothing (mainly).  We meandered round the streets for a while admiring the colonial architecture until we found the location for the market. It was empty apart from a couple of stalls that were being set up for when it began at 4pm.  We were two hours early.  Luckily the street itself provided enough entertainment with its art&craft/souvenir/gift shops, and we found an arty cafe called Bookhemian to have a coffee and read for a while.  A high point for me was coming across a large second-hand bookshop in a nearby street. Along with several other things, books are expensive here, so to find a shop selling them for as little as £2 was great, so Paul left me to indulge myself for an hour while he went to check the car was ok.

I had been after a book set in Thailand and the shop had a shelf full of them. I chose one about an American housewife’s account of her experiences living here in the 1960s.

By the time we returned to the market it was up and running. It turned out to consist mostly of stalls selling upmarket street food and a few more selling handcrafted gifts. It reminded me of the city Christmas markets but with the focus on Thai food.  We had a tasty coconut pancake each as we walked up and down the stalls.  Again, it looked like it would probably get lively and busier as it got darker but we wanted to journey on to check out Sarasin Bridge, so made a mental note to return and do some Christmas shopping there before we return home.

By the time we got to Sarasin Bridge, the bridge that links Phuket with mainland Thailand, it was dark and we’d missed the sunset that is supposed to be great to watch from the bridge’s viewing platform.  We walked up to it anyway since we were there; it was quite creepy and deserted in the dark, but the view was good.  My last two photos reflect the highlight of my weekend and there is a link to click on if anyone wants to know more about the gibbons and the fantastic work of The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project.

Gibbon Rehabilitation Project link here