Taking the Tuk Tuk Express - A Four Part Mini-Series (Part 4 of 4)

Last we left off our hero was flying in his private jet to Phuket, the most popular part of Thailand for tourists to visit. It was also the most devastative part of the country. As we all know last December 26th, disaster struck this once renowned hot spot. A disaster by the name of "Tsunami".

We landed at around 9:30 am and took the first taxi to our hotel which we had already reserved the previous night. The taxi ride was actually a van packed with people. We actually met a couple from Calgary ... go figure. Now, here's a little chuckle of a story. It's normal for the taxi's to take slight detours to a travel agent (I'm telling ya if I was to start a business in Thailand it would be a travel agency). We were greeted by this very attractive travel agent, all dressed up professionally, long dark hair, great body ... the type of person we men would go ga ga over ... that is until this person opened HIS mouth. The manliest voice I have ever heard. Well, maybe not the manliest, but definitely quite alarming after seeing what HE looked like. Every guy in the van (including myself) kind of jumped back after hearing this unexpected sound. I had a little bit of a chuckle after that. Anyway, after spending a few minutes waiting for these people getting hackled, we headed to our hotel. Our hotel was another top notch one, not near the beach this time, but it was in a pretty nice location. The room was huge and in immaculate condition. We got settled in, then decided to walk towards the beach which was probably a 15 minute walk. As we were coming closer to the beach, I couldn't help but get a very eerie feeling. Although, a lot of this city has already been rebuilt, there were still lots of destroyed areas which have yet to be touched. One of the places that kind of brought sadness was a McDonald's of all places. This wasn't because I was craving a Big Mac and Fries, it was because I was thinking how old the employees were and how many them were killed. I know back home the average age is 14 or 15 years old, about the same age as my niece. That's only one example, there were lots of other places ... very sad. We walked along the beach (which still had a lot of debris) and since it was a nice day decided to hang out and go for a swim. I was sitting on the beach, people watching (of course). There was a young European couple with their 1 year old daughter to my right and to the left was a group of young locals playing soccer. The little girl was playing in the water, splashing away and loving it. It was nice seeing this sight because as I mentioned this was once one of the most tourist hot spots before the tsunami and now 4 months later it's starting to pick up again. It's because of us tourists that's helping this place get back on their feet again.

Now as I was sitting, I couldn't help but notice this young woman, who you could tell was most likely homeless and it might be because of the tsunami. Her clothes were raggety, old, and dirty. She was carrying a small shopping bag maybe with a few other clothes and some momentos. I was watching her as she was walking to the water, washing herself down, obviously didn't care she was in her clothes, then came back and sat on the beach stairing out into the horizon. I couldn't help but notice the sadness in her eyes. She sat there stairing for what seemed like hours, didn't move. I can only imagine what she was thinking about. She then got up, walked along the beach and we never saw her again.

After that feeling of morbidness, we decided to check out more of the city. This city is very touristy as I mentioned. There are tonnes of night clubs. Some are small little places that are along a strip and each strip has certain themes to them. There's one called the Tiger Discotheque which has the look of a jungle scene. We decided before I leave, we're definitely going to check out the night life here.

The next day we decided to take a day tour to "James Bond Island". It's called that because it's where they filmed the famous Bond movie "The Man With the Golden Gun". The first part of the tour was a bus ride to the caves where buddhists use as a temple to worship and pray. The caves were very cool, kind of like a scene from Indiana Jones. There were also lots of Buddha statues including a smaller version of the resting Buddha which I originally saw in Bangkok. Outside the caves were monkey's galore. We were able to purchase bananas or nuts to feed them. I was so choked ... I had a bag of nuts I was going to feed to them, but had trouble opening the bag. I knew I was in trouble when that sucker slipped right out of my hand. I don't even think it even touched the ground, because before I knew it this monkey snatched the entire bag and ran away ... doh! We then took a bus ride to Phang Nga Bay where we were going to take a boat ride. The bus ride was about 45 minutes long, so to pass time they put in none other than "The Man With the Golden Gun" for us to watch. Nice! The boat ride was great, all along the Bay were the spectacular limstone cliffs, caves with stalactites which made the caves look like they were dripping some kind of oozing pus ... k, I could've thought of a better visual, but I'm envisioning the sickened looks on your faces (ha ha). So, as I mentioned, one of the most famous limestone cliffs is James Island. It was neat to see especially after seeing the movie. The place was very touristy of course and lots of locals selling everything.

Our next destination was visiting a muslim village which are built on stilts. This was very cool to see. The entrance was of course full of markets and we were being bombarded by locals, including kids. But it was amazing to see how everything was built. All on wooden stilts (some concrete depending how righ they were) including the school. Now the school was quite amusing. Very small and maybe had only 3 class rooms in total as well as a small basketball court. I took a picture of one of the rooms, particularly the chalk board. Why the chalk board you ask? Well, it showed what was left of the last english lesson. Phrases like "Can you lower the price?" "Can you give me a discount?" "Yes, I can" "No, I can't". Ah, they're learning so young. Their parents would be so proud. We ate lunch at one of the restaurants near the entrance which I have to admit wasn't the greatest food, but at that point I was starving. The tour ended with another boat ride back to the bus and then back to our hotel. We finished watching the movie of course while heading back. All in all we had a great day.

After coming back to the hotel, we decided we were going to go out and enjoy the Phuket nightlife, since this was going to be my last night in Thailand. We went down to the main area where all the clubs were and decided to check out a couple of them. The first was more of dance club which to be honest really wasn't my scene especially in Thailand where you know that most of the women are there to make money off a foreign guy and the foreign guys were there to find one of these women. The bar was neat to see ... kind of reminded me of a combination of Tantra and Cowboys (if you live in Calgary you would know). We stayed there for about an hour. Just enough time to have our free drink ... well, not really free. We had to pay a cover charge getting into the bar but it included a free voucher. We then moved to another location. Actually, outside this club was an outdoor bar where there was a Thai Elvis impersonator. We stayed and watched him for a while. He was actually pretty good. Although it wasn't the same hearing Viva Ras Vegas! Unfortunately, we saw only the tail end of the show, so didn't stay very long. Next stop, the main strip where all the theme clubs were. Now, these were actually more discotheques that ... well consists of all kinds of ... "people". You have a mixture of women and men dressed like women and you can't tell which is which. Anyway, I wasn't planning on going into one of them until Leanne gave me the old "I Triple Dog Dare You" ... of course I said OK, for 1 drink. Just so I can say I experienced it. We chose the "Tiger" theme, sat down at one of the bars and ordered a drink. Now, I'm looking around watching everyone. The guys there were just enthralled with all these "women" dancing on the bars showing themselves off. I was just wondering if they realized that the one's who were really showing themselves off (in other words lifting their shirts bareing their fake breasts, dancing around) weren't actually women. There was one dancer we were watching who was really difficult to tell if she was a he or not ... Leanne and I looked at each other giving the "Maybe", "I don't know", "You think?" looks. From one angle this person looked like a woman, but then because of the caked on make-up we were thinking, nah it has to be a man. But, all I can say is this person spent a lot of money on plastic surgery. We moved on to a more quieter, normal looking bar which I might add was difficult to find. But, we found one where we sat and watched all the people walking by. Of course the foreigners and Thai women couples.

The next day, our hero's last day in this beautiful country, we decided to go on another snorkelling, boat tour. The entire day was mostly touring around on the boat. We spent some time snorkelling which actually had to be cut short because the weather was getting rough and it was difficult swimming around. I have to admit it wasn't as good as the one in Koh Tao. Although, the highlight of the tour, but yet the most disheartening part of the trip was sailing to the Phe Phe Islands. Disheartening because this was the island that experienced most of the devistation from the tsunami. Highlight because I was glad to see so many volunteers from all over the world volunteering their time cleaning up. We arrived there and I got such a hurt feeling in my heart. This again, was once the biggest tourist attractions with tonnes of luxury resorts, but most of it was washed away. To be honest, had I known we were able to volunteer, I would've taken a day and volunteered my time. But, instead I did the next best thing which was be a tourist. Sounds like a cop out, but as I mentioned we are their source of income. There was lots that needed to be done and of course lots that was already done thanks to these groups. We stayed on the island for a few hours and then headed back. As we were leaving, there was a group of volunteers who came with us. Apparently they stayed on this island for a month volunteering, cleaning up. It turns out they were a group from Canada, most of them from Manitoba. I actually ended up bumping into them later that evening. We all took the same flight back to Bangkok together. I talked to one of the members about their experience and he said although it was a lot of hard work, he felt good about doing it.

We came back to the hotel at around 7 that night. I still had a a few hours before I had to head to the airport. My flight wasn't leaving until 11 pm. So, we went along the beach again and grabbed some dinner. I wanted pizza because I was craving it and the pizza in Japan isn't the greatest. So, we found a pizza place where of course we could sit on the patio and watch people.

9 o'clock came around and our hero said his good byes to his friend (well, not really because he knew she was coming to visit Japan). He hopped on his private jet heading back to Bangkok at around 11 pm and arrived at 12:30 am. He had about 6 hours to wait for his flight back to Japan. So, he decided to find a first class style bed (floor) to rest until it was time to leave this country, end his adventure and head back to his next adventure.

This trip will of course, be our heros most memorable one!!

THE END