WEATHER FOR THE 11 DAYS: Hot, sticky, rain at times and 30C
HIGHLIGHT OF THE 11 DAYS: Getting my 22 entries on my blog
up to date
BUMMER OF THE DAY OF THE 11 DAYS: Can’t think if a single
thing
WORD OF THE 11 DAYS: Phuket Paradise-lunch time drink of
choice
So I’ve been to Phuket before, twice. My main reason for being here so long was I
got a great room deal; I needed somewhere cheap to stay until my Sri Lanka tour
stated at the end of September and the bonus was I could now come to a friend’s
wedding on the 26th September.
I wasn’t coming here as a tourist as such, I had no plans of going to
the islands, of riding an elephant or going to any lady boy shows. I came to have some time off from being a
tourist and my main aim was to get my blog up to speed and I knew what a bloody
BIG job I had ahead of me. Each blog is
normally 3-5 pages, depending on what happened that day and it can take 1-3
hours to write one entry. I had 22 to do
not including this one. I am lucky that
I can sum my 11 days in Phuket into one entry and with the girls arriving
tonight at midnight I am officially up to date till tomorrow once I post this
entry. I can’t tell you how good it
feels to be caught up and I swear I am never going to fall that far behind
again. I think part of the reason,
besides being so busy, I had 7 weeks off at home where I was only blogging once
a week, to get thrown back in again to daily grind (with love) of writing was
something I had to refocus on. Thank
goodness I still had the sense to take all my millions of notes and it is the
next best thing of not writing it fresh each day.
Phuket is one of the southern provinces of Thailand. Neighboring provinces are (from north clockwise) Phang Nga and Krabi, but as Phuket is an island
it has no land boundaries. Phuket, which
is approximately the size of Singapore, is Thailand’s largest island. The island is
connected to mainland Thailand by two bridges. It is situated off the west
coast of Thai land in the Andaman Sea. The island
was on one of the major trading routes between India and China,
and was frequently mentioned in foreign ship logs of Portuguese, French, Dutch
and English traders. The region now derives much of its income from tourism.
On December 26, 2004, Phuket and
other nearby areas on Thailand's western coast suffered extensive damage when
they were struck by the Boxing Day tsunami, caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
The waves destroyed several highly populated areas in the region, killing up to
5,300 people nationwide and tens of thousands more throughout the Asian region.
Some 250 were reported dead in Phuket, including foreign tourists, and as many
perhaps as a thousand of the illegal Burmese workers building new beach resorts
in the Khao Lak area. Almost all of the major beaches on the west coast,
especially Kamala, Patong, Karon and Kata, sustained major damage, with some
damage caused to resorts and villages on the island's southern beaches. By February 2005 many damaged resorts were
back to business, and life slowly returned to normal. Following strenuous
recovery programs, no tsunami damage can now be seen except in the most remote
beaches. In early December 2006,
Thailand launched the first of the 22 U.S.-made tsunami-detection buoys to be
positioned around the Indian Ocean as part of a regional warning system. The
satellite-linked deep-sea buoy floats 1,000 km offshore, roughly midway
between Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Besides my very first day when I
was still jetlagged and needed to still find my bearings I ate at the hotel’s
restaurant which is a third party business not actually attached to the hotel, but
it was only a 2 minute walk to the main road and it was located there. I needed to get some money on my second day
and found an ATM a 5 minute walk from the hotel and then I discovered a
restaurant simply called ‘ Outdoor Restaurant’ and this was to become my new
home away (eating ) from home (sleeping).
BY day 3 I knew I had become a recluse and I have to say I actually
enjoyed it. Normally after a 7 day stay
somewhere I am ready to move to my new destination, start my new tour and get
people orientated again, but I think because I was so busy blogging, I found
that I possibly didn’t have enough hours in the day and before I knew it I am on
my 11th night at the hotel.
So every day was the same from
day 3 and it ran like this:
I wouldn’t go to bed till 2-3am
each morning
I would wake at midday every day,
shower and then head out before house-keeping called.
I would be ay ‘my restaurant’
from 1-4pm each day. I started taking my
computer with me and would pump out a blog over my 2 course meal and 2 Phuket
Paradise cocktails each day.
I would then head to the 7/11 and
buy my dinner which comprised of a 2 minute noodle bowl, a can of coke and
maybe a snack for later.
I would then head back to my room
any time after 5pm where I would then pump out another blog, eat dinner around
9pm and then head to bed at around 3am and then the whole process would start
again the next day. If that is not the
activities of a recluse I do not know what is.
I did shake it up a bit at the
end of the week. I went down to the
beach to say that I had been down there and I dipped my feet in the ocean and
just for a change with the food yesterday I headed back to the restaurant on
the beach, which is actually part of the Kata Beach Hotel and I had some
western food just for a change and because I could and I had a serve of wedges
with bacon and cheese, but I also did have a Thai chicken dish as well. Talk about living on the edge…. Not……….. It was nice to hear the motion of the ocean
and the wind in my hair, but they didn’t have Wi-Fi and the prices were a
little bit more but you would expect that for the location. I am having a big lunch each day and then
finding that the 2 minute noodles is enough for dinner each night and I am not
sick of them yet as there are so many flavors to choose from.
The weather has been hit and miss
and I don’t think there has been a day where it hasn’t rained. Well at least not before midday. I am on holidays after all and I guess after
being on the road for so long and actually not having a ‘home’ as such anymore
I will not feel guilty that I did jack shit the while time I was here. I know my sleeping patterns are going to have
to change, but I think I will just tackle that problem when the time comes when
I have to rise before 12 noon. Well
actually that will be tomorrow as Shelly and I have planned to have a champagne
breakfast tomorrow at my new hotel. I
check out of the wonderful Sugar Palm Resort at Kata and I head to the lap of
luxury for 4 nights at the Hilton Phuket Arcadia at Karon Beach. I can’t wait to see the girls tomorrow and if
I have my information right I think the Hens Night is tomorrow night!!!
Not only have I been doing my blog but I have been
putting together iMovie’s, which is basically a programme that links my photos
to a song that I select and I have been loading them to You Tube as I finish
them. It is not hard to do, it is just
time consuming ploughing through the hundreds of photos for that particular section
of the trip and picking the final 40 odd photos, which is the length of an
average song and then the upload process.
This can be quite lengthy and for some reason the hotels internet would
not let me upload any no matter how many I tried, so I would do the work at
night and then I have been uploading them over lunch at the restaurant. Their usage over the last week must have gone
up for sure with the arrival of me eating there every day.
I used a different shop for my stock up during the week to
restock my supplies and you will never guess what they had in there. Tim Tams (5 different varieties) and Mint
Slice biscuits! So I snapped up 2
packets of Mint Slice, bought some more noodles, some soft drink, 2 Bacardi
Breezers, some chips and wafers and I was back to the hotel. I was online to Shelly chatting to her via IPad
messages so it wasn’t costing us a penny and we had a virtual drink together as
we chatted. I got a little sad when they
mentioned that Collingwood had just won and they were now on their way into the
Caxton. I miss those girls.
It was interesting to watch the traffic go past ‘my
restaurant’ each day and there are a lot of western people riding mopeds either
without helmets or just in their bathers-are they crazy? All it takes is a wrong move or someone to
not see them and they are toast and in a whole world of pain. Crazy people.
I have also noted a lot of Russians and Polish people holidaying
here. A LOT. My restaurant’s menu is in Thai, English and
Russian and there is even a Russian TV station they have on here in the hotel.
I did go one day without my Phuket Paradise and consider
that my AFD (alcohol free day) as come the weekend I think I will permanently
have alcohol in my system with the arrival of the Elk and Randall clan on
Saturday night. They are staying at the
Hilton at Karon, so I will be changing hotels on Sunday morning and then staying
4 nights at the same property. Shelly
text me today telling me the girls are so excited. Tess has packed het card game Fish and Zoe
has packed her card game Snap so we can play when we are together. They are just so cute. This was also the day
that Blogger, my blog host (as the names suggests) had upgraded their platforms
and everything looks different now and they are doing away with the old
templates and we need to move to one of the new platforms. They have been advising us since January that
it was going to happen, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. I was lucky it happened while I was here and I
had the time to devote to upgrading my 2 blogs and it took a day and a half,
but I am super happy the way they look now and they look so much more modern.
I have also been reading my Kindle over lunch before
pulling out the laptop and I finished one during the week about 3 UN Workers
and how they coped, worked, and survived on their missions over a 10 year
period and wonder just how much good they actually did during their time. They were in tough regions including Haiti,
Rwanda during the Genocide, Serbia, Somalia and Cambodia to name a few. It was tough and it is a true story and
really opens your eyes on what people actually do to try and help people.
Which brings me to my project I have where I am trying to
raise 5000AUD to put water well into a community of 250 people in Rwanda and I
thought I would be easy to get people to donate 10AUD and we would have that
well all signed, sealed and delivered.
Well to date I have had 3 generous donations and have raised
120AUD. It is something, but I did
expect more. People are telling me how
brave and courageous I am to be moving to help people and you give people a
chance to be a part of it without leaving their homes and they don’t donate a
penny. Anyone would think I am asking
for 100 bucks but all I need is 5 bucks from all my Facebook friends and we
would have that well. I’m thinking of a
new plan and I think I am going to message all 1033 Facebook friends personally
and maybe then they will be more inclined to make a donation. I will let you know how that goes. I have also now finished a short story of an
American lady that spent 7 days on a mission to Ethiopia and it took all my
will not to cry over lunch at the restaurant and it has made me even more
determined to get the money for this well, and I am thinking maybe I may just have
to put the money in myself….. It is a
little frustrating…..
Lastly I have decided I better start getting my Philippine
trip organized as I will be there in 3 weeks.
So Beth and I have been emailing and we have found a 10 night package where
I will be spending a few nights in Manila, 4 nights in Cebu and 4 nights in the
magical Boracay-sounds great right? This
will be off the back end of Sri Lanka which I think is going to be a busy tour
so it will be nice to sit on one of the world best claimed beaches with a cocktail and just hope I get some good
weather. Then the last thing to book is
my trip back to Ethiopia but need to wait a little longer to see if Zeme will
be flying with me back to Singapore or not…. And I have spoken to him twice
this week and he will start that ball rolling in the next few days.
So that has summed up my 11 days here at Kata Beach in
Phuket. I have been a recluse, I have
enjoyed it, but it is now time to hang up the computer and what better reason
and excise than to spend my last 4 days here with my best friend, my
god-daughters and friends that are all here for the wedding.
MY BLOG IS OFFICILLY UP TO DATE.
I SWEAR THAT I WILL NOT BE MAKING THE SAME MISTAKE AGAIN.
I enjoyed being a recluse-but it’s time to join society
again.
So love from the weary blog writer-let the cocktails flow
and I welcome back the laughter again starting tomorrow.
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