Phuket, Thailand

From Singapore we sailed through the straits of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping channels in the world with 50,000 ships passing though these narrow straits annually. Everything from fishing and cargo ships to warships ships passed us in the night. We arrived this morning in Phuket, known as the “Pearl of the South”.  The brochure states that it was voted as one of the world’s top 5 retirement destinations. I am wondering where they took this poll. Areas of the island are pretty but it’s hot, humid and I am not sure that I see the draw. It has some nice resorts, golfing and water sports scattered along the beaches.  I didn’t see a heck of a lot to recommend it otherwise, as far as retiring and living day to day on this island.  The 12 by 30 mile island has tall jungles, an attractive coastline with coconut and rubber plantations in the interior. Probably if you know anything about Phuket it is that it was the place hit by a horrendous tsunami in 2004. You see a few remnants of the disaster, but it seems to have recovered for the most part. Our guide’s sister and brother- in- law were killed in the storm. She said they had no warning other than when some people on the coast saw the water being sucked out of the bay and they warned everyone to try to get to higher land. Six thousand people were killed on this little island that day. Their most frequent tourists are Russians – that’s different. They have four direct flights from Russia to Phuket daily. There is one old tribe that still resides here that kept their own language and customs. They are called the “sea gypsies” as they frequently move their village to different spots on the island. These fishermen, fish from brightly colored boats hanging their freshly caught fish on a stick, like wash on a clothesline. A sideline income seems to be selling shells to the tourists. They are sending school teachers into their village to try to integrate them into the general population– without much success so far.  We weren’t sure what to see here. A lot of people took the tour to “James Bond Island” where the final scene of “The Man with the Golden Gun” was filmed. I couldn’t see traveling half way around the world for that. The other tour was an elephant ride and show. We opted for just the general, generic tour of the island since neither of us had been here before. It began with a scenic drive to Cape Promthep. Mainly this was just a photo stop to view the forested hills, rugged shorelines and resort hotels surrounding the island.  Of course, we had our “Temple Stop”  - Wat Chalong Temple, the island’s largest.  You can’t help but be impressed by the color, gilding and unique architecture. Then off to a small Thai Village (culture center).  They were to demonstrate the local culture from boxing matches to a typical Thai wedding ceremony.   I am not too big on these staged performances of “cultural life” for the tourists. I feel like you could see the same thing in the states at a Disneyland Thai Village. I am not sure how this tour made the cut as about now the elephant ride was looking better and better. Then the Thai band stuck up. They were loudly beating on drums, cymbals, sticks and various percussion objects but if there was a melody there somewhere, I couldn’t hear it. It sounded amazingly similar to Hannah’s little rhythm class where each 3 year old selected some noise maker out of the “music” box and marched around happily beating on it with a vengeance. It went on it seemed, endlessly. Just when you thought surely the end was near, they started over again. When blissful quiet finally returned, there was a polite spattering of applause, except for Jim, who hollered “Bravo” – causing about three audience members to quickly turn around and threatened bodily harm if he shouted “encore”.  Some people videoed the whole thing to share with friends back home – hard to imagine you would do that to your friends. Some of the dances and costumes were striking and colorful and some of the later music sounded more like traditional Thai music.  From there we had a tasty Thai buffet complete with Satay and peanut sauce and an assortment of other typical Thai foods.   We did of course make the shopping stop – still no major purchases.  Phuket might be a lovely place to visit but I believe the odds of my being capture by pirates are better than the odds of my selecting Phuket as the place to live out my golden, retirement years.