Today is already our last day in Thailand part 1. David woke up feeling just as bad, but Caitlyn was feeling much better. Sick or not and with it being the last day, we had a few things we absolutely wanted to see before leaving. One big thing we wanted to accomplish was going and seeing the beach, and another was getting a good massage for both of us if possible. We also remembered that we wanted to use the laundry services the hotel provided, so we asked the front desk and they said if we bring the laundry by noon that they would be able to get it back to us by this evening. David brought the bag to the front desk and we headed down towards the beach as David had found a restaurant that looked nice just 2 blocks or so from the water.
We walked along the street and came across some seriously aggressive “salesmen” with one sticking out his hand at David trying to shake it. David said “no” and kept walking, but the guy started following him and being pushy so David sternly told him “I don’t want to talk to you.” And he eventually bugged off.
We eventually got to the restaurant and we’re confused as there was a lot of Australia paraphenalia everywhere. We asked for a menu before being seated and were skeptical when the front of the menu boasted having some of the best Australian food in Thailand. Thankfully there was loads of Thai food on their menu and just a page of “Australian” food so we decided to eat here anyways.
We ordered a coke zero for David (they had no coke light) and ordered the food. A bee must have smelled the coke, as it began buzzing all around David and seemed very interested in the soda. David doesn’t like bees much, and the server must have noticed, as she came back with incense sticks she placed next to the table to try to ward the bee off. This worked alright, but David was definitely on edge for a little while. The food came soon enough. David got the spring roll appetizer, Caitlyn got a papaya salad (one of her fav dishes now!), and we shared a mixed seafood Thai red Curry. The spring rolls were off the charts good, bursting with flavor and so crispy.
The papaya salad was great, being more flavorful and spicier than the one from yesterday. We both enjoyed the curry with nice flavor and a pretty good amount of spice.
David had spent some time today looking for a good massage place, as so many either were “massage” places or had some very off-putting reviews. Eventually we decided that with how sniffly he was, it probably wasn’t a good idea and we could always do it later in Thailand pt2. We finished up here and headed towards the beach. It is a beautiful beach, but the sun was high in the sky and we wanted to avoid burns.
We walked for 2 or 3 minutes along the sand before heading away from the beach to find shade. We eventually decided that we may as well just go back to the hotel for now and swim and maybe later.
A few blocks from the beach, Caitlyn spotted a cute cafe overlooking the ocean, so we stopped in. We were seated at a great bar-style table facing the beach and David ordered a latte and Caitlyn ordered a Thai iced tea and a mango sticky rice. We enjoyed our drinks and Caitlyn enjoyed her sweet treat before heading back towards the hotel.
It was a little after 2:00 at this point, and we wanted to be back out around later to watch the sunset, giving us 2.5 hours or so to hang in/by the pool. We stopped by a 7-11 to see if they had a small bottle of soju or sake for us to share later, and we learned that Thailand has an interesting liquor law. They can sell alcohol at stores between 11:00-2:00, but then there is a break where they cannot legally sell alcohol until resuming between 5:00pm – midnight. We figured we could come back out later and check again! We kept walking and David couldn’t kick the sense that his sickness felt a lot like allergies. While yesterday we googled and our source said all pollen counts were at 0/5, David checked again and saw that Phuket has its highest pollen during September. We weren’t sure if this was the case, but it had us wondering.
We went back to the room and changed, with Caitlyn heading out first to go get us spots while David tried to blow his nose as much as possible before going to the pool. David joined up a little later and lounged until feeling gross and sick and sweaty and decided just to jump in the pool. A few minutes of swimming and David felt much better than he had in days. This pretty much confirmed to David that this may not be a cold but allergies. We hung out for a while, enjoying a bit of happy hour now that David felt up to having a drink after feeling better.
Eventually we went to the room to shower so we could leave by 5:40 or so and catch the sunset by the beach. We decided to touch up David’s hair a bit to perfect Caitlyn’s work first!
Before leaving, we went to the front desk to ask about getting transport back to the airport. They sent us to the tourism desk just outside, who helped us book a shuttle picking us up tomorrow at 10:30am. We stood along the beach watching the sun go down, looking at boats in the distance, and watching people parasail before finally deciding to move along with our evening.
We had decided to go back to Honeymoon Thai for dinner, so we took the long and slow route so we could enjoy the city. We decided to look for a pharmacy to see if they had any antihistamines for David to test his theory. We figured even if this one didn’t have the meds, literally every block has like 2 or 3 pharmacies (interspersed between 2 or 3 weed shops), so we would find it at some point. Thankfully Caitlyn spotted some Claritin so we went ahead and got some, alongside some ibuprofen as the Claritin didn’t hit the credit card minimum. David popped his Claritin and we got on our way. We quickly came across a nice looking restaurant advertising cheap mojitos, so we got a table outdoors facing the street.
Caitlyn ordered a pineapple mojito and David ordered a mango. They were both really nice, but Caitlyn accidentally got passionfruit which she drank anyways. We decided to get a second round so David got strawberry and caitlyn ordered pineapple, and actually got it this time. While sipping on these, a server came out of the kitchen with a small cheese pizza and walked to the street in front of us. He first went to all of the guests in our kind of seat and offered a tiny slice to each guest (bite sized). We have our rule about western food, but we figured a little bite wouldn’t be the end of the world, so we accepted. We enjoyed our cheat pizza, which was actually delicious and would have made us very happy if we ordered it at home.
We finished our drinks and kept heading towards dinner. As fate would have it, our cocktail cart man was out on this street. We go ahead and order a to-go drink while telling the bartender how much we have loved his drinks. An older European man was sitting in a small chair in front of the stall drinking a cocktail, and we chatted some about Thailand and his travels. The bartender finishes the drinks and gives us the price. We ask about card and he says that he can only accept cash. We pull out our wallets to realize that we were around 60 Thai Baht short. The bartender told us not to worry and he knows us and that we can just get him back soon. We told him we were worried we wouldn’t see him as we are leaving tomorrow and may not be coming back this way. He was insistent that we could make it good later and that it was okay, but we wouldn’t have it, so David headed off to find an ATM while Caitlyn stayed at the stall. Caitlyn and the men (the customer being German and the bartender being from Burma) chatted about how wonderful the Thai people are, and how lovely Phuket is, along with how amazing the food is! David found an ATM a few blocks away and withdrew the smallest amount. We came back and squared things up and said goodbye to both of the lovely gentlemen before keeping our walk going. At this point, David began to notice he was feeling better and better and finally confirmed that this was allergies and not a cold! We finally get to the restaurant and place our order. We order the golden bags again, a papaya salad for Caitlyn, a panang mixed seafood, and we looked at a few whole fish dishes. We didn’t know what to get and asked the server what ued recommend. He didn’t speak much English so he grabbed another employee who recommended the whole fish in spicy chili sauce and basil.
We waited for our food, and as David had hoped, we got another complimentary chicken wing appetizer! Caitlyn loved the papaya salad, considering it tied with the papaya salad at lunch as being the best she has had. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel. We got ready for bed and then laid there for quite a while, staying up later than we had hoped as we saw that the president was set to speak. Unfortunately, this ended up happening an hour late so we didn’t get to sleep until almost 2:00am.
David’s thoughts of the day: This is the first country that we actually have to be careful of the water as well as ice provided. We are brushing our teeth using bottled water, too.
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: Thai papaya salad. That is all. It has revolutionized my life.
Steps walked: 12,755
Miles walked: 6.17
Total miles walked in Thailand pt 1: 22.74
Thailand Reflections:
Favorite memories – David’s favorite memory is probably swimming in the pool at the resort! It felt so good after being so hot for so many weeks now.
Favorite days – David feels that it wasn’t the best experience with how sick we felt, honestly. Best is probably the second half of the final day, once we went to the pool and after that.
Favorite foods – David liked the spring rolls on the last day as well as the fish filet at dinner on the first day the best.
Reflections – It is tough to do this fairly as we 1. Did not do the islands right as we had to cut off a day and decided to stay on phuket and 2. We didn’t feel very good for most of the trip. We can reflect on our experience some but it doesn’t really say much about Thailand. Spending most of our time resting or at the pool, we also didn’t get the best feel for Thailand. We will do the best we can with this in mind. Phuket is pretty diverse as compared to Japan or Korea. A lot of people were tourists, but there also seemed to be a fairly heavy Indian and Middle Eastern population as well. People here are also much pusher than the other countries we have visited. The food was nice, but way less spicy than we thought it would be. Blessing to feel sick and process everything going on in the world
New foods tried:
Papaya salad
We almost tried scorpion on a stick but we were cowards so we may do it if we have the opportunity again.
Bluming Travelers 