An Old Hag's Tale: Phuket -- After Thoughts

I'm back from my holiday. Well, all I can say is, people have overstated about the beauty of Phuket. Too commercialized, too expensive, and I had been to better beaches. Those tuk-tuk drivers are notorious when it comes to giving you their rates -- 300 baht for just a ten-minute ride in Patong! And that is the most expensive rate. For the same distance, the cheapest is 200 baht, for 6 people. So you can see from here, they treat everybody like "carrot heads", happy happy 200 baht, not happy 300 baht. And don't tell me about haggling skills, the 300 baht driver just wouldn't budge.

And shopping wise? The vendors are worst than the tuk-tuk drivers. 1200 baht (about 52SGD) for some fake Bilabong bikini! I just turned away immediately, I don't even bother to haggle. The next day I got the same fake Bilabong bikini for 350 baht (about 15SGD) from Otop market, haggling included of course. And 700 baht for fake Bilabong surf shorts? I had no choice but to accept the 350 baht price that I bargained for, because I had no shorts left. I realised that I can get the same shorts for 250 baht at the Otop market, but never mind.

But there are still things that I enjoy in Phuket. On top of my list, actually there are only 2 things, is live shooting and the snake show. Pretty interesting because it was my first time firing a 9mm Colt and watching a King Cobra show.

It felt unreal when I pulled the trigger of my Colt while practising, maybe because it felt light. But when I pulled the trigger again when it was loaded, I was in awed of the power of recoil. And when black smoke appeared, I knew that it IS real. It was so much fun.

And oh, there is one tour company which I would like to recommend, KING PK TOUR along the Patong beach area. Why? Because the nice lady Aom only charged us 1400 baht pp for an island hopping speedboat trip, instead of the usual 2800 baht. Our hotel charged us 2900 baht for the same thing. And when we said that we want to do shooting, she recommended her boyfriend, who is a tuk-tuk driver to drive us to and fro for 200 baht. But on the day itself, we had our doubts when the boyfriend showed us a map of where the shooting range is. It is a good half an hour ride from Patong. Because based on previous experience, ten minute ride is 200 baht, so 30 minute ride should be more? So a bunch of us were speculating that it must be 200 baht pp. With this in mind, we just went for shooting and later the boyfriend also brought us to the snake show and to Jungceylon, a shopping megamall. When we asked for the price of this whole trip, he said 200 baht. Were we surprised or what! Half a day for only 200 baht? That is easily the cheapest price we got for the whole Phuket trip. And for 6 pax! We immediately arranged with him for the transportation to the airport. An air-conditioned mini-bus for 700 baht.

I'm very grateful to these people. At least they had made my trip more memorable :)