Monday, July 25, 2011

Phuket Getaway - Final Day [Part 10]

26 April 2011 @ Phuket, Thailand

The mission for our last evening in Phuket is SHOPPING!


While hunting for souvenirs, we stopped at this stall for pancakes!



We then headed on to McDonald's for dinner. There's pork burger in their menu!


Wanted to try something different, all of us had the Samurai Pork Burger. Nyam!



The rest of the evening we walked all over the streets of Patong searching for souvenirs and food.


Bargain! Bargain!

We went inside Jungceylon's Carrefour to shop for some local products to bring back to Malaysia. We were awed by the size of the mall, never thought it's so big! Sadly, we had very little time left, thus didn't really explore the place.


After all the shopping, we're hungry again! It's midnight and there are still quite a number of shops open for business.

We had supper at a shop near our hotel to stuff our growling tummies and also to celebrate HanChin's birthday! Yup, the last day in Phuket coincidentally falls on the same day as his birthday.



27 April 2011 @ Phuket, Thailand

Our flight back to Kuala Lumpur was in the afternoon. We took the opportunity to visit the beach one last time before flying back to reality.


Patong beach in the morning was really calm as there weren't a lot of people there yet. We were relaxing at the beach until...


...this elderly man pulled down his speedo and started scratching his ass cheeks in front of us! First the right side, then the left side. Eww!


We didn't stay long at the beach as the sun was getting really hot. We got back to pack, check out and our taxi driver took us to the airport.

WoonLee, HanChin & our luggages

At 1.35pm, we left Phuket with a heavy heart. I think I'll return to Phuket for more visits in the future if got chance lah. Hehe... The End. Billy, out

Note: Credits to WoonLee & HanChin for some of the photos.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Phuket Getaway - James Bond Tour [Part 9]

26 April 2011 @ Phuket, Thailand

It's Day 4!

A driver picked us up from the hotel and headed towards Ao Por Pier (located at north-east coast of Phuket island). It was quite a tiring and long journey from Patong to Ao Por.

4 of us wore the same t-shirt

We boarded the boat (or should I say ferry) and out to the sea we went.


On the boat, free flow of drinks, snacks and fruits were provided. At the same time, we were all briefed with the activities awaiting us for the day.


The boat has 2 decks. All passengers will sit on the upper deck while toilet, kitchen and store room were all at the bottom deck.

JooLi and I at the front of the boat

Soon enough, we reached our first stop. And our first activity is kayaking. However, we were not allowed to kayak ourselves as it requires really good maneuvering skill to sail through the tiny cave.

kayak in the hole!

With our paddler

someone's trying a kayak stunt

Lunch was on its way when we came back to the boat after first round of kayaking. There were fried chicken, fish, vege, tom yum kung and etc to satisfy our taste buds.

I like how they organize things where they arranged the food nicely in the centre and they let the ladies take their food first. Very gentlemen indeed. But there were a few ignorant Asian men lined up with the ladies as well. Hmph!


The second stop would be the most anticipated one, it's James Bond Island. James Bond movie - The Man with the Golden Gun took one of their scenes here, and that's how this place shot to fame.


Yup, it's that pillar thing there that's damn famous now. Everyone wants piece of it and I can't seem to get an empty space to take a good picture with the pillar.


We also tried some playful shots but they didn't turn out that nice.

On the island, there were some stalls selling drinks and accessories. They should sell something like the replicas of the Bond's Golden Gun or try imitating Bond for tourists to take picture with. It'd make good business there aye?


After James Bond Island, we went to another nearby island for kayaking again. This time, we get to choose to paddle ourselves or not.


Of course I wanna kayak myself!

JooLi and I took one kayak while WoonLee and HanChin had their own. We followed the crowed into the caves. The formation of the rocks were just amazing.

The way going in is also the way coming out. There was a bottleneck where everyone was stuck in a kayak-jam. Instead of waiting, we decided to turn back and paddle to somewhere more spacious.


The boat then take us to another small island for swimming. Many of the passengers actually jumped into the sea from the upper deck. Kinda scary for me because I'm not a good floater...

Four of us kayak-ed to the shore and one of the guides followed us (Forgot what's his name). He talked to us, cracked some jokes and we had a nice time on the shore.


The last agenda before hitting the pier was the performance by the crew. 2 of them were breakdancing while another one dressed up as a ladyboy to entertain us. They were really hilarious!


After I got back from the trip and browse through the photos, then only I realized THIS! WoonLee was maneuvering the boat!!



The tour ended around 5pm.

I had loads of fun and decided to tip the crews for their efforts of making sure all the passengers are happy and well taken care of. For sure I'd recommend this tour to anyone making their trip to Phuket - Phuket Siam Seacanoe. Billy, out.

Note: Credits to WoonLee & HanChin for some of the photos.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Phuket Getaway - No. 6 Restaurant [Part 8]

25 April 2011 @ Phuket, Thailand

Later in the evening, JooLi and I strolled to the nearby Patong beach to soak in the cooling water and watch sunset. Sitting on the fine sand, we watched the fireball slowly sinks down.


Right after that, we jumped into the hotel pool to rinse ourselves before taking our bath and get ready for dinner.

The night before, we saw this shop - No. 6 Restaurant packed with people and we thought that it should worth a try. It's located along the Rat-U-Thit Road, on the opposite side of Jungceylon Mall. We happily walk to the shop to find out that the shop is fully occupied.

Tuk-tuk to bring us to No. 6 Restaurant branch

After a while, the waitress there offered us a free ride to another branch, which has fewer people. We didn't think long before we decided to take her offer.


First tuk-tuk we took in Phuket and it's a free ride. The ride lasted about 10 minutes and we can look at the menu on the way there. They even took a Polaroid photo of us and stuck it to the tuk-tuk.


The place is up on a hill and the waitress was right, we were able to see the city from up there. The ambiance of the shop was quite relaxed too, as it's quiet and surrounded by greens.



Playing Jenga while waiting for food

Fruit juices, Tom Yum Kung & Stir Fried Pork

Pad Thai, some Fried Rice thingy & Veges

The kind people there drove us back to down town again after our dinner. Food's nice, people are nice, I'd surely recommend this shop to others if you planned to go to Phuket.

Back to Patong, we shopped for some clothes, went for massage and head back to rest. All of us bought the same design of t-shirt to wear for our tour on the next day. Billy, out.

Note: Credits to WoonLee & HanChin for some of the photos.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Phuket Getaway - City Tour [Part 7]

25 April 2011 @ Phuket, Thailand

From Phuket's Southern most point, we went back up North to visit the Big Buddha. But our guide decided to stop by this place to show us many other activities that we can do in Phuket - Snake show, monkey school, elephant rides, go karts and shooting.

All of the activities are quite expensive, so we have no plans to participate in any of those until we saw... Rifle Shooting!


Before we could step foot into the shooting range, all of us were given ear defenders to protect our ear drums.


The price is not cheap but for the sake of holding a real gun, HanChin and I paid 890 Baht each for 10 Calibre .45 bullets.

Me in action!

One of the staffs loaded the bullets for me and taught me the basic things to fire. Duh, just pull the trigger and the bullet will shoot lah!

He didn't really teach me how to aim and all so I belasah only.. Ended up getting really low score. *sigh* HanChin did really well though, he managed to get 75% score! Pro shooter!


After we finished shooting, some girls tried to sell to us photos taken when we were shooting. We politely reject and walked towards the elephant camp, which is just around the corner.

Guess what? The girls literally chased after us until the elephant camp, still trying to sell the photos to us with discounted price - 100Baht I think. Still too expensive for piece of photo. =P


There were only few elephants were spotted in the camp, most of them were feeding. We checked out the price and it's darn expensive - 890 Baht for 30 minutes ride.


We got into Jimmy's car once again and head uphill towards the most significant statue in town - Big Buddha.


From there, we gotta climb up a few flights of stairs to reach the building itself. Sadly, the building was still not ready despite the fact that this project started more than 9 years ago!

They were struggling as funds were insufficient. This project's fund solely comes from donation only. So, if you happen to visit the Big Buddha, do support them by sponsoring a tile which can be bought there.

Smaller version beside the big one

After Big Buddha, we headed to the most beautiful temple on the island - Wat Chalong. True to what we've heard, it's really magnificent.


We didn't really go into the temples as we were wearing shorts and singlets, to respect the culture. So, you'll only see exterior of the temples.

Elephants at Wat Chalong

We visited a few buildings in that compound and this is what we saw in one of them. Believe it or not, it's not a real human being, it's a wax statue of an old monk. Look so real aye?!



After a long day visiting places, we stopped at the Cashew Nut factory for some snacks. We were greeted at the shop and we get free testing for ALL the products sold in the shop.

Us at Cashew Net Factory

We only picked a few items from the shelf and it costs us more than 1,000 Baht already. These stuff are nuttily expensive!

Jimmy explaining how the nut is harvested

We told Jimmy that our last stop would be cheap shopping and I've emphasize the word "CHEAP" to him several times.

Yet, he brought us to a Pearl Shop and a Gems Shop. We reluctantly paraded around the shops once and told him to drive us back to hotel. We gave up asking him on where to get cheap souvenirs.


He dropped us near Jungceylon Mall, we paid him and venture on for food on the street.

We found a stall that sells soup noodles with a huge crowd of locals buying it. Out of curiosity, we bought a bowl and tried it out and it tasted great! So HanChin bought another bowl to share.

The sun was killing us at that time of the day. We quickly walk back to the hotel before we melt down. Billy, out.


Note: Credits to WoonLee & HanChin for some of the photos.
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