Phuket, Thailand

Days: 47-52
Miles Traveled: 24,187
Countries Visited: 10 (includes the separate 3 week trip to China in April)

As you probably determined from my previous blog post, Bangkok was one of my least favorite places of this trip so far - well, now Phuket is one of my favorite places!


Beautiful beaches, warm and clear waters, unbelievably friendly people, fantastic scenery all around you, and everything is dirt cheap! What more could you want?

For starters, I have had a couple of people ask me about the pronunciation of Phuket - it's Poo-ket or Poo-ged...so get your minds out of the gutter! It's an island off the coast of Thailand and therefore it's actually Koh Phuket or Ko Phuket (Koh or Ko means island in Thai)...just like "Operation Koh Samui" - bonus points to anyone that can name the film (except Geb, the human movie quote database).

The island has 8 or 9 small villages and a couple of larger towns on it one of which is Phuket Town. I mainly stayed on the west coast of the island but ventured over to the east coast (where Phuket Town is) one day.

I have to apologize in advance for the lack of pictures in this post but I'm having some camera problems. I have two memory cards that I'm swapping out every few days and while I can see all the photos on my camera, I cannot download the pictures from one of the memory cards onto my iPad (I even tried a computer in the hotel's business center but no luck). Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out at some point and post the other pictures. Needless to say I've stopped using that card.





I stayed at the Dusit Thani Laguna Resort (pic of hotel and view from my hotel room patio) which is part of a larger complex of 5 luxury resorts located in the northern half of the island. If you want seclusion, your own golf course, no touts bothering you every 30 seconds, and relatively empty beaches - this is your place! However, if you're looking for the "party beach" you're only about 20 minutes from Patong which is the crazy tourist town - also known as the "red light district" of Phuket. I spent a few days and more than a couple of nights in Patong but enjoyed being up at the Dusit for several rounds of golf and lazy days on the beach watching the sunset. On Patong Beach, you're attacked by touts selling everything from massages and tattoos to t-shirts and little wood carved elephants. It's more than a little annoying. Some sell cold drinks...and will even do your laundry!


If you need to relax a little yourself, turn your speakers on and watch this short video of the sunset. I'm sitting about 20 yards from my hotel room patio while shooting this video.

While on Patong Beach, I had to partake in all the touristy stuff - parasailing (which I haven't done in 20+ years), rode an elephant, and went jet skiing. Interestingly, it is illegal to jet ski on the beaches in Phuket - but on the beach there are probably 30-40 jet skis lined up with twice as many touts trying to get you. Apparently the laws are loosely enforced here. I think I was only 9 or 10 in Mexico the last time I went parasailing so that was a fun little diversion. (The pictures from this day are on the bad memory card - sorry!)


(Patong Beach on a different day...it was obviously cloudy)
As part of the deal with my hotel, I got unlimited free golf which sounds awesome if you're prepared for it. First, I obviously don't have my clubs with me so after renting clubs, shoes, buying golf balls ($27 USD for a sleeve of balls...yes for 3 golf balls!), and paying the caddie it came to about $290 USD for 18 holes. So much for "unlimited free golf"...they know what they're doing! I still played twice at the Laguna Phuket Golf Club which was a nice golf course but fairly short (6,200 yds) and fairly easy. Funny thing with the caddies - they're all women, barely speak English with the exception of "dogleg right" and they don't bother helping you read the greens other than "it goes left"...yeah, thanks! I should have guessed they'd be bad when the cost to rent the shoes for 18 holes was 300 baht (~$9 USD) and the cost for the caddie for 18 holes was only 250 baht (~$7.50 USD). One of the caddies in our group spoke a little more English and told us there were 240 caddies at this course (all women) and it's a lottery for them based on how much play they get each day. She said she only works 1 round a day and then usually has 2-3 days off before her "number" comes up again in the lottery. She was probably just trying to make us feel bad for her so that we'd tip more...we fell for it anyway! (pictures of the course are also on my other memory card)

The recent terrorist attacks in the rest of Thailand definitely had an impact on the number of people in Phuket as well. The beaches near the Laguna were all but deserted.


Patong had a few more tourists, but even so you could look into most restaurants during what should be peak hours and only see 3-4 tables taken and 30-40 empty tables...at every restaurant!

The food, however, was fantastic - everything from the higher-end restaurants to the street vendors. Some of the street vendors sell fresh fruit - I quickly fell in love with two fruits in particular.


The rambutan (the red hairy looking thing) was very tasty - a little sweet, a little sour and very juicy! You can buy them from the street vendors for 10 baht each, but with a little bargaining I was getting them 5 for 20 baht (about 12 cents each). For all I know, I'm probably still getting ripped off! The other fruit I really liked were these tiny little bananas. I'm not sure if they have a special name, but they have a stronger flavor than a regular banana. Same banana taste - just a lot stronger. The first two mornings, I had a bowl of fruit in my hotel room with some apples, oranges, and these little bananas. On the third day I saw the fruit lady restocking the bowls and she had rambutan in her cart so I asked if I could trade in two apples and two oranges for more rambutan and the little bananas. She had no problem with it. On days four, five and six when I came back to the room in the afternoon my bowl was filled with just these two fruits...nice! It's the little things that make for great service...both figuratively and literally!

If you read my previous post, you saw that I was disappointed with the cleanliness of Bangkok. While there was still a lot of poverty in Phuket, it was very clean, no bad odors, and there was the pride again that I saw throughout the rest of Asia. I'm not sure what it is about Bangkok - but I still can't believe how bad it was there.

I forgot to post one picture on my Bangkok post. As I was walking through one of the markets, I came across this gal selling teeth - individual teeth, bridge work, dentures, etc. Apparently there's a market for this??


Overall, I loved Phuket and would definitely want to go back if the opportunity ever comes again. Next stop is Dubai which should be fun because I was there 4 years ago and would love to see how things have changed in those 4 years - especially now that the government is basically bankrupt compared to the 20%+ GDP growth they were experiencing the last time I was there.

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Location:Choeng Thale,Thailand

Bangkok

Days: 41-46
Miles Travelled: 23,759

The US State Department lifted the travel restriction on Wednesday - I arrived two days later on Friday. I was planning on coming either way, but with the ban lifted, at least I wasn't going against any US warnings. Saturday morning's paper said there were two additional incidents in Bangkok the previous day - a fuel depot was attacked by the terrorists and a undetonated bomb was found near one of the Thai government buildings in Bangkok. Even though there was no longer a travel advisory from the US, there was still stuff going on. Ironically, I was reading the US Today on the same day and there was an article about 50 shootings in Chicago last month - of which 17 people died. Why we feel safe in the US and not in foreign countries is beyond me...but we do.

While I'm on the subject, I walked by one of the shopping malls that the "Red Shirts" attacked last month. Apparently local press was reporting it was just a fire, but as you can see by some of these photos, it was definitely more than just a fire.










Beyond the damage in the pictures above, the damage to their economy was seen everywhere in the lack of tourists walking the streets of Bangkok and visiting the tourist spots. There were still some tourists, but you could tell the numbers were way down. Lines to get tickets to typical tourist spots were non-existent, restaurants and bars were empty, and the famous "red light district" in Patpong was practically deserted - yes, I had to check out the red light district. They don't bother hiding it, no shame, and no end to the touts following you everywhere saying "you want massage?" Crazy, but interesting to witness.

Overall, I'm not a fan of Bangkok. It's an extremely dirty, ugly, and smelly city. The smells were horrible - from the open canals everywhere that are essentially their sewer system, to the vendors lining every street selling nasty fish and other bad smelling things that I couldn't even tell you what they were. The poverty is by far the worst I've seen on this trip. From my somewhat limited perspective, I think the difference between the poor in Thailand and the poor I've seen in Taipei, Beijing, Shanghai, etc. is that up until now there appeared to be a sense of pride in other countries regardless of their wealth or status. Streets were kept relatively clean (and odor free!) In Bangkok, there was trash everywhere - piling up on the sides of streets, the people were dirty and just didn't seem to care. Even the "nice areas" of Bangkok were surrounded by trash and bad odors!


Truly a third world country. There was no limit to what a family would do to beg for money - this girl looks like she is only 2-3 years old. Very sad.

Here's a short video of one of the canals:

And another of the main river that flows through Bangkok - as you'll see, even the fish are trying to get out of the river!

Traffic is unbelievably bad - just pure gridlock during rush hours. The public transportation system is very weak, so taking taxis and tuk-tuks everywhere was the easiest and best way to get around, but going 5 miles in a taxi could take 30-45 minutes depending on the time of day. After spending an hour in a taxi getting back to my hotel one day, I took this video of the traffic from my hotel room on the 46th floor:

I toured the Grand Palace which was nice, but as I've said in previous posts, pales in comparison to places like the Forbidden Palace and the Summer Palace in Beijing. Here are a few pictures anyway:









As with every other stop along this trip, I'm keeping track of where I'm staying. I stayed at the Banyan Tree Hotel which was very nice. Location could have been better, but not the worst spot to be.





I'm now on Koh Phuket (Phuket Island) which is in the southern part of Thailand. It rained the first 24 hours I was here so not much fun yet. The forecast is hit or miss each day, so hopefully I get more "hit" than "miss".

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Location:Bangkok, Thailand

Sydney

Days: 34-40
Miles Traveled: 17,985

After coming off a great few days in Queenstown, New Zealand, it was time to cross the ocean to Sydney. Great city, great people, great food...and FANTASTIC wine! If it weren't for the Australian accents everywhere, you could easily think you were in Newport Beach or somewhere in the SF Bay Area.

As I said in my previous posts, the touristy type spots are starting to wear me down so just enjoying the city for what it is, walking around the harbours and neighborhoods, grabbing a glass of Australian red and relaxing by the harbour were on the top of my list of "things to do" while in Sydney.

Here's a video of just that...relaxing:

(taken on the Sydney Harbour at a café called Sugaroc with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background)

Originally I had considered spending a few days in Melbourne and possibly a few days up the East Coast to Brisbane and Cairns, but after the whirlwind tour of New Zealand and not really getting to thoroughly enjoy any one spot due to plane flights every other day (literally), I decided to spend 6 days in Sydney rather than bouncing around Australia before my RTW ticket takes me to Thailand.

I haven't completely sworn off touristy spots - I still had to check out the best of the best, like the Sydney Opera House (which really is cool architecture although the interior was a disappointment)...


...the Sydney Harbour Bridge (the walk across the top of the bridge tethered to a railing is overrated)...





...and Manly Beach (about 40 minutes from Sydney via ferry)...


Manly was a cool beach town but remember I'm still in the Southern Hemisphere and it's winter down here so the beach was empty with the exception of a few surfers in full wetsuits. The strip of bars, restaurants, and shops just off the beach are a pretty cool place to hang out for an afternoon.

A question for any surfers out there: is there some sort of unwritten code that when a surfer goes from the water to his house/car/bar/or wherever he/she is going that they have to jog? Same was true for those going towards the water. It was odd...everyone wearing a wetsuit was jogging with their board tucked under their arm. I'm not a surfer so I do not know if there is an actual logical reason behind it but it struck me as interesting.




I've been to several zoos and aquariums on my trip already, but one afternoon I got caught in the rain on Darling Harbour so I decided to check out the Sydney Aquarium there, at least until it stopped raining...fairly decent place.


Not sure it's worth the admission price if you're not into that kind of stuff, but I thought the underwater glass tunnels with stingrays and sharks swimming all around you - and to within a few inches of your head - were pretty cool!

Sydney was a great "break" for me between the touristy spots of Asia and my next stop of Bangkok, Thailand. I enjoyed the city and look forward to the next time I'm back in this neck of the "planet" so that I can spend more time exploring both NZ and the rest of Oz!

A quick side note that Julie Bowlen was in town for a few days and we enjoyed several bottles of wine and a couple of great dinners...thanks for keeping me company Julie!

I'll also note that a fantastic restaurant, albeit a bit pricey, was the Café Sydney on the 5th floor of the Customs House located directly across the street from the Sydney Harbour Ferry Terminal. If you ever make it to Sydney, give it a try. Thanks for the recommendation Randy Scheffel!

PS - I forgot to take a picture of my hotel but I stayed at the Swissōtel downtown Sydney. Nice hotel, great location, but nothing special.

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Location:Sydney, NSW, Australia

New Zealand - South Island (part 1)

Days: 30-33
Miles Traveled: 16,012

It's hard to believe I've been on the road for 30 days now (not including the separate 3 week trip to China & Hong Kong in March). Not only is it hard to believe that I've been traveling for that long, but also knowing that I still have 120 more days to go! This is going to sound odd - but I need a break!

After rain and cold on New Zealand's North Island (Auckland and Wellington), I flew into Christchurch which is in the northern part of the South Island. I'll give you one guess as to what the weather was like...and if you get the answer wrong you're either an idiot or you haven't been following my blog! (Some of you may qualify for both...you know who you are...don't look at the person sitting next to you!) Yep, raining and cold. Christchurch was completely uneventful - not much to see, not much to do. The original plan was to fly into Christchurch and immediately get on a train to Greymouth and back then leave for Queenstown the next day. The train trip is a full day trip from the east coast of the south island over (and through) the Southern Alps to the west coast and back again. It's ranked in the top 5 most scenic train trips in the world as ranked by many different travel sites...including the guy in "Seat 61" - apparently some world renowned train guru that I've never heard of until now, but it sounded impressive even though I'm not much of a "passive-sit-on-a-train-and-stare-out-the-window" kinda guy. Unfortunately, after landing in Christchurch and talking to the hotel's concierge about booking my ticket - she said the rail line is undergoing maintenance so the train only goes about a third of the way to Greymouth to the Southern Alps and then you get onto a bus for the rest of the way. She didn't recommend the trip because of this. So - another "plan" out the window. One of the disadvantages of booking 5 months of travel - you can't really be that well prepared for each location until you actually get there and you need to wing it - but with that comes disappointments like this. So far, I'm really bumming about New Zealand especially because this was one of the top countries I wanted to visit out of the 34 I'll hit on this trip.

For those of you that want more pictures - there's nothing spectacular in Christchurch so I'll give you the boring hotel photo (Crowne Plaza). It is in a great location and the cabbie told me it's the nicest hotel in Christchurch. A little better than a Holiday Inn in my opinion.



(I'll make up for the lack of pictures later in the post!)

If you ever come to New Zealand, cross Christchurch off your list - skip it and go straight to Queenstown.

A short side note about how I'm picking the stuff I decide to do when I get to a new location - which will become meaningful in a minute. I've been using Frommer's Guidebooks. They've been absolutely fantastic and 95% of the time their recommendations for hotels/restaurants/bars/tourist attractions/etc. have been spot on. Once in a while I wonder if the author of that particular guidebook is getting some sort of an incentive from a restaurant or bar because it hasn't been as good as the book says it is, but most of the time the recommendations are perfect. I've tried Lonely Planet guidebooks (horrible in my opinion!), and Eyewittness Travel guidebooks (decent but too limited in the information they provide and fill space with too many pictures). For some reason both Lonely Planet and Eyewittness seem to feel the need to cover every possible tourist attraction in a given location regardless if it's a good place for their readers to visit and they provide very little in terms of recommendations with those they do recommend being a hit-or-miss. Frommer's on the other hand, covers their recommended spots in great detail, and then just gives a quick mention to other "attractions" that they don't necessarily recommend or they'll tell you when something is overrated and not worth the cost. They also use a simple three star rating and I've found anything that gets three stars is worth the trip/cost/effort/etc. Most stuff in their books don't even get a star - which I've found usually means it's a waste of time - at least for those places that I decided to go to anyway. One star is recommended if you have extra time or if you are in the area already, two stars means it's highly recommend and three stars are the "must see" places. I've tried to hit just about every three star place in the books and have yet to be disappointed...until now.

Frommer's New Zealand misses the mark...completely! The author of this guide gives 3-star ratings to just about everything under the sun. I feel like the world's 5th largest ball of twine would get three stars...yes, 5th largest! I'm not sure what other brand guidebook for New Zealand would be better, but absolutely stay away from Frommer's in this case. Any other location and Frommer's has proven to be the best (in my opinion). Good example here is that Christchurch got 3-stars. Why? I had no clue until I found out the author lives in Christchurch! I'm seriously considering writing Frommer's to let them know that this particular guidebook hurts their brand - but that may have to wait until I return to the US.

Enough about guidebooks. After a full day in "waste-of-time-Christchurch", I hopped on another plane to Queenstown (the southern part of the South Island). WOW! Let me say that again...WOW! If you have a need for an adrenaline rush, Queenstown is the place to satisfy it. It's the birthplace of the bungee-jump (seriously), the birthplace of jet-boating (a blast!) and probably the birthplace of anything else that can get you killed or seriously maimed! Skydiving, helicopter rides, extreme skiing, parasailing, paragliding, mountain climbing, bear fighting (just kidding...they don't have bears in New Zealand), and anything else that is adventurous is here in Queenstown. And to top it all off, it is the most scenic place I have ever visited in my life! That may change as I continue my trek around the globe, but up to now, Queenstown is in first place!

Finally I get some decent weather. (picture from the plane on my flight in to Queenstown):


It's very cold (remember I'm in the southern hemisphere so it's winter and just a short plane trip to Antarctica (they actually have those!) Cold but the sun is out and there's little wind. Being from Colorado - it's practically golfing weather! (30's-40's fahrenheit as a high for the day)

Here's a quick picture of the hotel (Sofitel) and a view from my room. For those of you that haven't been reading my blog - I'm including these hotel pics to help me remember this trip many years from now. Very swanky hotel, right in the middle of town and at the base of the gondola that goes up to the top of a nearby mountain with a viewing area, restaurant, and a couple of luge tracks...more adventure. By far the best location in town.





The mountains in the background are the Remarkables - which they absolutely live up to their name, they are remarkable! (Video of the view...pretty cool!)

The town of Queenstown is only about 15,000 people and feels very much like a Vail or an Aspen but a little bigger. Great restaurants, bars, cafés, shops, etc. It's located right on a lake and at the base of several mountain ranges.

Here's the sunrise from my deck over The Remarkables (zoomed in)...



Unfortunately, I've only planned on spending one full day in Queenstown (because of that d*&%$d Frommer's guidebook) and I can't possibly fit it all in. I've already extended my time in New Zealand by two days, so the more I extend the less time I'll have in other locations the rest of the trip. Since taking on a bear in a fight to the death isn't really up my alley (even though I probably would have won because of my cat-like reflexes), I decided to take a helicopter tour out to Milford Sound and to try the jet-boating. WOW! Let me say that again...WOW! I know I used that already but it deserves repeating!

First the helicopter tour. At the break of dawn (sun rise is 8:30am at this time of year, so don't think I'm getting up early or anything) we head out to the airport. It's normally a 30 minute helicopter flight from Queenstown to Milford Sound. By bus the trip to Milford Sound is 5 hours - each way, which will become understandable when you see the type of terrain we go over in the videos below. I said "normally" because the boat cruise in Milford Sound portion of this tour had to be cancelled due to weather coming in off the ocean and the pilot's fear that he wouldn't be able to get us back to Queenstown if we stuck around at the Sound for too long. So instead of 30 minutes each way via helicopter and 1 hour on the boat, he gave us 1 hour each way in the helicopter and landed it a couple more times than what is normally included in the tour. We landed once on a mountain near a frozen lake, once on a glacier, once at the Milford Sound, and once on top of the highest mountain near Queenstown with a great view of the city. Since we didn't do the boat cruise it's hard for me to compare that with the extra tour/landings in the helicopter but I think we ended up getting a sweet deal.

The scenery is absolutely stunning.


I've seen pictures of New Zealand before, I've seen all three Lord of the Rings movies that were filmed here, but nothing I've seen in pictures or movies comes even remotely close to the views experienced in-person from a helicopter flying over and around these mountains. "Majestic" is the only word I can come up with to describe these views, but even that seems lacking.





("New Zealand - South Island" is continued in my next post)

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Location:Queenstown, New Zealand

New Zealand - South Island (part 2)

(continued from previous post)

Even now as I look at these photos, I'm disappointed that they don't capture the beauty - the awe inspiring beauty! I took a little over 100 pictures and probably 30-40 minutes of video. I'll try posting all of them up to web album when I get more time. Here are a few of the pictures and videos to chew on until then: (note these videos are low-resolution so that I can post them via the iPad, but when I am able to post the HD videos, you'll have to check them out! Also, these videos are only 30-45 seconds long because I have limited bandwidth in the hotel but some of the HD videos are 3-4 minutes long and well worth the time to watch them! Turn down the sound on your speakers - all you can hear is the helicopter whirring...we have headsets on so that we can hear each other and the pilot pointing out different things along the way but I couldn't capture that in my videos.)



(The landing on top of a mountain)



(View of the Southern Alps from about 9,000 feet)




(Coming into Milford Sound - these peaks are about 6,000 feet above sea level and the Sound is about 1,300 feet deep...that's deep!)



(Landing at Milford Sound)



(I think this is Mitre Peak - but it was hard to understand our helicopter pilot sometimes...English in New Zealand could be classified as a different language in my mind!)





(The tide was out when we landed, but would have come all the way up to my feet if the tide was in.)



(I love this shot - the base of these mountains are at sea level so it's basically a lush rainforest type environment, then shear rock faces up the to peaks of these mountains.)


(Another landing with Queenstown in the distance on the edge of Lake Wakatipu - click on the photo and zoom in, there's actually a town way down there!)


It's interesting that the highest peak in all of New Zealand is only 12,500 feet (+/-) and all of the peaks around me are no more than 7,000 - 8,000 feet. My Vail house is at 8,120 feet so it is actually higher than all of the tops of these peaks you see in the pictures and the videos. The difference is that the bases of these mountains are at sea level so the mountains climb 8,000 feet very quickly versus in Colorado the Gore Range is 14,000 feet climbing up from the base of 8,000 feet - so you only see a 6,000 foot vertical rise. Here, we're looking at an 8,000 foot vertical rise which gives the appearance that these mountains are higher than those we see in Colorado.

(continued in next post)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Queenstown, New Zealand

New Zealand - South Island (part 3)

(continued from last post)

Video from one of the landing sites:

Video of one of the glaciers...and what appears to be flying within a few feet of the peaks. It doesn't just appear that way...we were that close! Be sure to watch this one...it's really cool.

So after a great morning on the helicopter and a good lunch with some new friends from Wash DC that were on the helicopter with me and can be seen in the front seat in one of the videos (a shout out to Christian and Annabelle!), I decided to give the jet-boating a try. WOW! (I know I'm overusing that word, but what else can I say?) The concept of jet-boating on a river is that the water is too shallow (just a few inches deep at some points) for a regular motor so they tack two jet engines onto the boat!


Each has 520hp and can propel the boat to 80 km/h in seconds (about 50 mph). In an open ocean or lake, 50 mph is not that exciting, but when you're in a canyon with sheer rock faces on either side, in a few inches of water, making precision turns to avoid the rocks, and the driver of the boat definitely has a screw-loose, it's fantastic! At times, the boat was within 2-3 inches of the rock walls of the canyon (that's not an exaggeration!) and it's not like we're floating up to these rock walls, but flying towards them at top speed making a turn just moments before crashing into the wall!


And to top things off, they decide it would be fun to throw in a few 360° turns at high speeds! I asked our driver if he had ever hit a canyon wall and his response was "once...only once!" I think I should be thankful he didn't expand on that.

We weren't allowed to take our cameras onto the boat (which was a good thing because it would have gotten drenched), but they did have a video camera on the front of the boat and recorded 3 minutes of the ride. Of course, I bought it for a ridiculous price along with some pictures which I will try to post later when I get a chance to download off the CD and upload onto the web. For now, here's a short video of the group after us.

As you'll see, the boat will go in between the rock walls and it will appear that he's only inches away from both sides of the wall...it's not an illusion, he actually is only inches away...on BOTH sides!

Afterwards I grabbed dinner with Christian and Annabelle and then played a little blackjack with them at a tiny little casino on the wharf (Christian - stay away from the PP...you can't win buddy!!) I lost about $1,000 US in a very short period of time, but thankfully I'm still up after the winnings in Singapore!

The next morning it was back to the airport for my return flight into Auckland in order to link into my "RTW" ticket to Sydney. Great weather so far and looking forward to a little relaxation (yes, I said relaxation - hopping on a plane every other day is exhausting!)

6 full days in Sydney and then to Thailand for 11 days. I'm thinking 4-5 days in Bangkok and then 4-5 days in Phuket, but if anyone has other suggestions as to where I should go in Thailand, please let me know.

Thanks for following along - I know this was a long one!

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Location:Queenstown, NZ