I arrived in Phuket in a delirium after somewhere around 30 hours in airplanes and airports. Even though I had slept pretty well on my flights, the 11-hour time difference ensured that I had no clue what day, month, season, year, or planet I was in. I’m not sure I realized I was in Thailand until at least 3 days later.
Sand
Phuket is hosting a quarantine scheme right now for fully-vaccinated international tourists where instead of having to stare at the wall of a locked hotel room for 2 weeks (as you would in Bangkok), you can roam about the island as much as you wish. It’s called the Phuket Sandbox.
What a lovely name — just come on down and play in the sandbox for a while. Count me in!
Of course, I arrived here at the end of September, which is on the tail end of the rainy season. I was expecting rain everyday — not exactly beach weather — and the torrential downpour of the first few days did not disappoint.
Let me be clear that I love rain, and I find it deeply relaxing to sit inside or in a covered area and watch the sky cry its heart out. I was delighted. I was also expecting to balance my time with some days for sightseeing and some days for working, so I figured on rainy days, I could always just sit inside and do my thing on my laptop.
Still, the weather began to clear up around the fourth day that I was here. Amazingly, the sun was out pretty much all day everyday for the following three days.
My first taste of the good weather came when I took a boat cruise to some of the islands south of Phuket — specifically, to Racha Island and Coral Island. Even with the Sandbox quarantine scheme, this area is starving for tourists and the business they bring, and on Racha Island, there was a deal to scuba dive for less than $50, which is extremely cheap. I’ve never dived before, nor am I certified. I have no idea if it was “legal,” strictly speaking, but next thing I knew, I was on my first dive.
Needless to say, it was fantastic. While for the first ten-or-so minutes I was trying to figure out how this whole regulator apparatus thing would work when I was 30 feet below the surface, I got used to it quickly enough. As it turns out, scuba diving is not very hard — I’d recommend giving it a try sometime if it interests you. Once I felt comfortable with the gear and everything, I could turn my attention to the submerged world around me as I swam around the beautiful reefs, seeing all sorts of incredible oceanic wildlife.
I’ve snorkeled, which is pretty cool, but this was a side of nature I’d never seen before. To actually be down there and within arm’s reach of all the coral and fishes and such, for more than just a few seconds at a time (a la free-diving), was remarkable. I’m very interested in doing it again — perhaps one day I’ll get certified.
Anyway, after our dive, the weather just kept getting better and better. Our excursion made its way over to a small and quiet beach that was one of the most beautiful ones I’ve ever seen.
You may or may not know this about me, but I don’t watch much TV. If I do want to stare at a screen for a while, what I do instead is I’ll pull up some gorgeous, ultra high definition nature videos on Youtube and throw on some music, sit back, and relax. I particularly love watching beaches.
Now here I was, sitting on this beyond-belief beautiful beach, literally in the videos I love watching. It was a dream come true, and it’s even better in real life.
Our cruise continued and stopped over at another gorgeous beach on Coral Island, where I did some snorkeling and more relaxing, staring at the waves as they rolled in, one after another, and letting my mind settle and rest deeply into the present moment. I began to believe and understand that I had finally arrived in Thailand, and I had one of the best days of my entire life.
On some of the other beautiful days, I enjoyed the sun and walked around the beach in Patong, where I was staying. While I love the rain, something about Phuket just makes intuitive sense when it’s so sunny and hot — it just feels right. It’s not just the beaches and the colors, but the towns and the people shine a little brighter too.
It’s good to be here.
Sweat
I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’m pretty sweaty in general — I always seem to sweat a lot more than the average guy, whatever the weather is — and the 80 degrees Fahrenheit plus 80% humidity weather would consistently soak my shirts in less than ten minutes of leisurely walking through town. I have no problem with wearing face-coverings, in fact I fully support them and I love being in a country where if the government says “wear a mask,” literally everyone does; but of course, wearing a mask only made it hotter and wetter.
To be honest, I didn’t do much research about Phuket before arriving, and if I went back and did this trip again, I probably would stay in either Phuket Town, Chalong, or Rawai rather than Patong, which is the ultra-touristy part of the island. My hotel was quietly located just north of town, about a forty-minute walk to Jungceylon Mall and Bangla Road, which are central.
Going into town for the first time on a Saturday morning at 8 am (I had been up since 2 am thanks to my jetlag), I figured everything was closed because of the lazy hour. As the day wore on, though, something began to feel increasingly wrong, like when you feel a little off and you know that you’re going to get sick in the next few days, but you don’t know what it is yet.
I later learned that around 80% of businesses are closed in Patong right now. Yes, you read that right — four out of five of everything is closed. Bangla Road, which has a reputation as one of the liveliest, biggest party streets in the entire world, was a ghost town during the day and filled with aggressively soliciting prostitutes at night (no thanks, please let go of me), without any of its giant bars open. And Jungceylon, a huge mall that easily rivals those commercial megaplexes in Texas, isn’t just closed — it’s fenced off. It feels like it’s still March 2020 here.
As it turns out, Phuket is a bigger island than I thought, and you can’t just walk everywhere. Go figure. I wanted to rent one of Southeast Asia’s finest mopeds to get around. I was about to hop on one, but there was one problem — I didn’t know how to turn it on. The guy who was renting it to me inquired a bit more, and when he realized I had no clue what I was doing, he politely apologized and said that he couldn’t let me take it. Darn.
There’s also an app called Grab, which a few years ago partnered with Uber. They have ridesharing, but for some reason, I haven’t been able to get it to work.
Defeated, I asked the hotel to help me get a taxi to the next town over, where I wanted to explore. Instead, they hooked me up with a guy who would drive me around all day, wherever I wanted to go. It cost ten times as much as a bike rental (around $50 instead of $5), but hey, it still worked out great and I got to see a lot.
My driver was a cheerful man named Mr. Jade who spoke perfect English, and he took me into Old Town Phuket. Upon arriving, I started walking around, exploring and getting my bearings, taking note of where all the coffeeshops, restaurants, and streetfood stalls were while feeling out the vibe.
Phuket Town is known for its long strip of colorful, European-looking buildings where historically, something-something about insert-European-colonialism-fact-here. Basically, this part of town is pretty, vibrant, (relatively) quiet, and nice to walk around. It kind of looks like some of the streets you’d expect to find in southern Spain or Portugal, except all the writing is in Thai, it’s a little dirtier, and the electrical wires overhead look like they’re in need of a master untangler. I say that a little tongue-in-cheek, but honestly, it’s quite charming, and I love the chaos.
After moseying around Phuket Town for a while and grabbing a delicious Thai iced coffee — strong coffee with cardamom, star anise, condensed milk, and a lot of sugar — Mr. Jade took me to Chalong, a large residential town in southern Phuket. It’s home to the magnificent Wat Chalong (Chalong Temple), a home to many aspiring Buddhas and a popular tourist destination. I bought some pants to put on over my shorts, just for this.
Strolling around Wat Chalong exposed me to a different side of Buddhism than I’ve seen before. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily better or worse than the bare-bones mystic practice that I ascribe to (i.e. meditation and meditation alone, with Buddha as guide and inspiration), it’s just very different. The Thai version is much more ornate, symbolic, and celebratory. I can’t claim to understand what it’s all about though, at least not yet; perhaps in time I will.
Entering the pagoda, I walked among dozens of Buddha statues, where one Buddha statue at the front taught and prayed to all of his Buddha student statues that filled the room. I really like this symbol because it reminds me that student, teacher, and master are all one, and the transformation between them goes beyond time. In other words, you’re already enlightened, you just don’t know it yet. (I mean that in the least arrogant way possible.)
The temple grounds were beautiful and serene. On this particular day, I didn’t see any monks wandering around, but from what I’ve heard, they’re usually here and you can chat with them. It was quiet instead, with many Thai people praying, bowing, and even crying in front of some of the statues.
After Wat Chalong, we headed up a small mountain to the Big Buddha, which is the highest point on Phuket. On a clear day like this one, the view was spectacular, and you could see almost any point on the entire island. The giant Buddha statue looked down on it all, preserving the peace and protecting it from forces beyond our cognition; at least, that’s how I imagined and projected it.
Before I arrived here, a friend of mine in Colorado had told me about one of her friends who lived in Thailand, and we had connected over social media. She’s a music teacher down here and really loves Muay Thai, the famous Thai boxing martial art — in other words, she’s a badass. She has a busy schedule, but I was able to visit her gym in Chalong to meet her and watch her train for a while.
It was heartwarming to see the camaraderie and playfulness at the gym between the Thai instructors and their many international students. A jab here, a poke there — it was fighting, yes, but it was all in good fun, and everyone seemed to be having a great time. A sign in the back read “Welcome to Rattachai Muay Thai Gym. Here Your Family.” I kept rereading it and trying to decide if they meant to say You’re.
I’ve never practiced Muay Thai, and I wasn’t wearing remotely athletic clothes (nor am I remotely athletic), so I passed this time around. Still, I might try it at some point — it looks incredibly fun. It also was nice to have some community and conversation with Americans, as I hadn’t been getting very much social interaction up until that point. Not surprisingly, those of us who end up in Thailand have a lot of shared beliefs and values, so we naturally hit it off quite well.
The gym was going out to dinner after training, but I had been keeping Mr. Jade busy all day and I didn’t want to make him wait several more hours. I was also a bit socially overwhelmed — in just two hours of speaking English, it felt like I had exhausted every single thought and perception I’ve ever had in my entire life. Everything is amplified when you travel, especially when you travel solo. I politely declined and made my way back to the hotel.
Streetfood
I’m a Buddhist, yeah, dig that — but I think streetfood is my new religion.
Staying just north of Patong was a blessing in disguise. Instead of being in the most touristy part of town, I was around many locals in an area called Kalim Beach. In town, some other travelers told me they hadn’t found much streetfood, and what they did find had been overpriced and underspiced. At Kalim Beach, on the other hand, it was abundant, cheap, and flavorful.
Each night, right outside the door of my hotel, dozens of vendors would line up their motorbike-powered stalls, serving all varieties of noodles, soups, curries, smoothies, coffee, roti, satay, and more. I don’t think I ate at a restaurant a single time; instead, I just walked out my door and tried whatever looked best.
I was a vegetarian for the past two years until I left the U.S. I had decided before coming here that I would eat meat while in Thailand, so that I could fully experience the cuisine and culture. Meat production is more ethical outside the U.S. too, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole. The point is, I want to try as much as I can. I never had the same thing twice, and everything I ate was delicious. I have no clue what most of the things I had were, but I’ll try to describe some of them.
The first night I had some sort of fried egg and rice dish. It might have been a “Thai omelette,” I’m not sure. It was very salty, very spicy, and deliciously savory.
On another night, I tried some noodle soup with beef; also quite spicy, also quite delicious. It seemed like a Thai version of pho; or maybe it was just pho.
I kept walking by this intriguing stall where they had these little fires in pots with covered pots on top of them. A sign read “Clay Pot Soup.” It was always very busy. I walked over and asked for one soup, please. They told me to come back in thirty minutes, so I got some yellow noodles with chicken (called “Hokkien noodles”), and munched it on the beach. Unbelievably good.
Just after I started my noodles, about twenty minutes after they told me, a young man came and fetched me to come eat some clay pot soup. I asked if he could wait ten minutes so I could eat my noodles, but he couldn’t tell what I was saying. Eventually I just packed them up and put them in a bag (street food is almost always served to-go here anyways), and went along.
He sat me down on one of many little mats behind the stall next to the beach, where I took off my shoes. They brought over the bowl of soup with the fire pot underneath, and this kind young man, who didn’t seem to speak any English, started breaking up green onions and lettuce and putting it all in the pot for me. Eventually he pointed at the noodles and told me to put them in, and then to wait for a few minutes. I was about to start eating when a woman at the stall next to me shouted “Wait, it’s not ready yet!” She came over and cooked the noodles for me, and we made conversation for a while.
As it turns out, this phenomenon of clay pot soup (also called hot pot, but different than Chinese and other countries’ hot pots) is a very social thing in Thailand — it was kind of weird to do it alone, but hey, nobody expects foreigners to get it anyway. You go out with your friends, cook your soup together, and hang out. I made chit chat with the lady helping me and some of the girls on the mat next to mine, although they didn’t speak much English either. There were a lot of laughs, there was a lot of delicious soup, and I was very content. Next time, I’ll bring some friends.
Anyway, more food. As a little add-on to many of my meals, I’d get a few of those little satay meat skewers. Tenderly grilled and lightly seasoned, they always hit the spot, whether it was chicken, fish, squid, or “I’m pretty sure this is from an animal.”
For dessert and breakfast a few times, I treated myself to banana and nutella roti, which are fried pancakes — delicious. I also had my fair share of fruit smoothies, energizing and rich every time, and one night, I got a tasty bun with some sort of green goo on it. It was yummy. I think the goo was trying to be apple-flavored, but I’m not sure; if it was, it was only 70% of the way there, and 30% some other flavor. When I asked the guy, he just said [it’s] “sweet.” Even that is more than I needed to know — I’m here to try everything.
(UPDATE: I’m pretty sure, almost positive, that the green goo was pandan, a popular sweet plant over here.)
Right: satay chicken skewer
Drink: mystery fruit juice
You may know that Thailand is a very inexpensive country for us foreigners. It’s part of the reason I came here, to work very little and still make good money. My beautiful hotel room cost around $20 per night, and none of the above-mentioned food cost more than $2 (with the exception of the hot pot, which serves somewhere around 4 people and cost around $6). A satay skewer, coffee, or dessert pancake costs around 50 cents, a bowl of noodles or a smoothie around $1.25. Only the most elaborate dishes cost up to around $2.50; at least, for streetfood — restaurants tend to be more expensive.
The language barrier can be tough here, especially because the Thai alphabet looks like a bunch of squiggly lines and I have no idea how to pronounce any of them, so both written and spoken words make no sense to me. Still, I want to pick up as much Thai as I can, and I occasionally ask “what’s this called in Thai?” when someone serves me. Even when they understand the question and are able to tell me what it’s called — which is about half the time — I seem to forget the answer another half the time. Progress has been slow, but I’m doing my best. The locals are very pleased whenever I ask.
My week first week in Thailand, spent in Phuket, was lovely. I slowly overcame my jetlag, managed to do both a lot of work and a lot of sightseeing, and I enjoyed diving headfirst into this new place. As bizarre and chaotic as it can be here, everyone is always cheerful, smiling, and happy to help you. I love being in a place where you greet people by bowing; it just feels right to do that.
As part of the Sandbox quarantine, you can spend one week in Phuket and then a second week in another area, which you can pick from a few choices. Yesterday, I flew to Koh Samui, another popular paradise island. Some very fun and very exciting things have already happened here, but I’m going to wait a week to write about them and keep this post just about Phuket. You’ll have to look forward to it!
Wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a fantastic, relaxing, and exciting week, and that you get to do some fun exploring.
With peace & love,
Andrew
P.S. This site is still in its infancy, but you can get notified of future posts by joining my email list, which you should have received a pop-up about sometime while reading this article. If you declined the pop-up, there should be a form at the very bottom of any page on the site, including this one, to subscribe. Feel free to say hi via the Contact page too, or leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts, musings, and questions — I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for coming along on the adventure!
I am SO excited you decided to blog about your adventures! I can do some mental escapism watching you live life to the fullest and get to see the world from your camera and thoughts. Really digging it. Keep having the best time and soak it up for yourself and for all of us who can’t travel at the moment <3