World Cruise: Phuket, Thailand

From Singapore, we sailed through the Straits of Malacca into the Andaman Sea northward to Phuket, an island off the southwest coast of Thailand. It is a top holiday destination for people from all over the world. On Monday, March 31st, we anchored in a beautiful bay and tendered in to a pier within walking distance of several beaches. We walked along the busy beach road to an area called Patong. We spent some time in the morning walking around the beach resort town. Brian got a haircut at a local salon. After exploring the town, we were ready to hit the beach for a swim to cool down. We rented a couple of chaise lounges with an umbrella and settled in for the afternoon. We met a young couple from Australia that were spending a 10 day vacation in a resort there so we asked them a lot questions about their experience vacationing there. They, in turn, were curious about our cruise experience as we looked out at our ship anchored in the bay.

There were a lot of tourist activities going on at the beach -- jet skis, parasailing, banana boat rides, snorkeling, etc. We noticed that safety regulations and liability concerns are definitely different from the U.S. The parasail operators use a driver in the boat and a mate on land that accompanies the parasail customer by simply hanging onto the ropes -- no harness!! They also land right on the beach smack in the middle of a row of chaise lounges with incredible accuracy. We saw them take a lot of children up for rides, including a child that was only 5 years old. All went well, thankfully.

Both of us agree that the best part of this trip so far has been to experience the souls of the people that you meet from such a different culture and background from us. As a small example, when we rented the chaise lounges on the beach for the day, we paid the vendor, then 2 young guys attended to us, positioning the chairs and adjusting the umbrella for us. One of the guys was a boy about 12 years old with a beautiful big smile. He spoke English pretty well. Periodically, he would just appear and adjust the umbrella for the changing sun and sweep the sand from our cushions. At one point, seeing that we had finished our beers, he offered to go fetch 2 cold Singha beers for us. Brian gave him a $500.00 Thai baht (local currency) and told him we would need change. He promptly returned with the beers and change. He took care of us all afternoon and never asked for any compensation. Of course we took care of him for his good service and pleasant demeanor, but, more importantly, a great memory for us of a trustworthy, gracious young man working so hard to please the tourists on the beach.

On our stops in southeast Asia we often marvel at the overhead electrical wires that we see dangling above the sidewalks and wonder how those tangles of wires are maintained. Below is an example that we saw in Patong.

It was a great day on the beach for us. It's easy to see why this "Pearl of Thailand" is so popular with tourists.