Swimming in the Rain

We waited on the side of the road with one of the guys from Treetops for the local bus to arrive to take us to Phuket. After watching a child play with rocks and picking out what we could of a couple of Thai men’s discussion about the conflict in Burma, we boarded the bus. It was air-conditioned (thank goodness) and the a/c was nice enough to drip all over me on our 5 hour drive. In addition, about 3 hours in, our driver put on a dvd of Thai music videos. Not only did it play on repeat, it was deafeningly loud and the music was really screetchy.

Our first day in Phuket was spent walking around shopping for souvenirs and checking out the beach, swimming in the hotel pool and we went to a fancy dinner and ordered drinks with star shaped pineapple pieces and flowers sticking out of them. Our hotel was just off the boardwalk, and after a few painfully hot hours we got them to turn our heat to air conditioning! The three of us cuddled in our huge king bed (with the twin bed empty next to us) and finally got a decent night’s rest.

Day two, we woke up, ate breakfast at the hotel and went straight to the beach. They don’t call it the rainy season for nothing.. what started off as a relatively sunny day soon turned into drizzle and then a downpour! We ran into the ocean to escape the rain and splashed around in the warm waves during a monsoon!! Eventually, the rain was just too stinging and the thai ‘lifeguards’ recommended that we wait it out. We took advantage of the break to check out the famous Thai Massages at a place on the boardwalk. “Friendly Massage” was an interesting experience. We were naked except for our bathing suit bottoms and a towel, and for an hour we were rubbed with oil, sometimes a little too exposed, with Mariah Carey in the background for a little while. We left, laughed hysterically on the rainy walk towards our hotel, and spent the afternoon playing card games and drying out. We then decided we needed henna tattoos. At the nearest tattoo parlour, where there was a white guy tattooing a Thai guy, for about a dollar fifty we got henna elephants on the insides of our wrists.. no worries, they rubbed off in about a week.

That night we attended the famous Simon Cabaret. A lip synching show of transvestite performers all dressed up to resemble dancers in Vegas. I sat next to an Israeli couple and we tried to figure out if any of them were women.. the jury’s still out. We were front row to see these lady-boys, as they’re called, and laughed hysterically throughout the performance, it was insane!

The next morning we headed back to the beach for one last attempt at soaking up the sun. It was cloudy, but we finished the morning a little rained on and sufficiently sunkissed. After a full day in the shops and on the beach, we got a taxi to the airport, and prepared for a long night of flying back to Sydney.

As requested, photo album #3

Rachel