Budget Phuket Holiday (Part 2)

The same as before, the next day the tour driver picked us up and drove out to Ao Poh Pier. Here is the detailed itinerary for the day:

And here are some photos to you:

On Ao Poh Pier. Had to walk along this shitty long bridge to go to the cruise. Sunlight made it worse.

On board, waiting for take off while offered some drinks and snacks.

Taking photos from the front of the cruise. Feels like Jack and Rose in Titanic. Only more cheesy. hahaha

Arrive at first destination, canoeing to see the bats inside the cave.

Secon canoeing in Panak Island. No more caves but astounding panoramas of cliffs inside.

After that, we had our lunch at the cruise while heading to the next main destination, James Bond Island.

Arrived at James Bond Island. We were only given 30 minutes to do the shopping and taking photos of the stand-alone rock. And our cruise can docked directly at the pier. We changed to a smaller boat first that took us to the pier and take off from there.

The small boat.

After finished with the James Bond Island, we were unto the next destination for swimming. Too bad the tour guide said we couldn't visit Naka or Lawa Island for swimming because on those days the beach can be quite dangerous because of many stingrays swam around it. So we decided to stop near some what-so-called small beach to swam and feed monkeys!

Last entertainment, male version of Ping Pong Show! The show was so hilarious and so vulgar!! Hahahaha

In conclusion I can say that this James Bond Islands isn’t as exciting as the one we do at Phi-Phi (and not as tiring as before too), but somehow more soothing and relaxing. Watching beautiful scenery through the whole trip made us “whoaaa” “wooow” and so on. It is a beautiful scenery indeed. 

But the excitement didn’t end at that time! We were very waiting at the next activities to do, watching Cabaret!! Maybe all of you wonders why the heck I would be so excited about watching cabaret its so ordinary blah blah blah but guess what? There’s something special about Thailand Cabaret!

Yes, maybe as most of you already know, most of the performers, in spite of the beauty, it’s all BOYS. They are called Lady Boys because most of them are transgenders. I don’t know how far they go, are they already had their sex-change surgery or not but as far as I know most of them already had their breast implants! You see it yourself, this is the photo after the show:

Be careful, they are beautiful but bitchy! Hehehehe

In spite of they are mostly Lady Boys, but the cabaret show was beyond expectation! It was very good and beautiful and funny you gotta watch it in Phuket. An entertainment can’t be missed.

For overall, those two days were the main point of my holiday in Phuket. In the final day we only search for Hard Rock Cafe to take some photos, walk alongside Patong Beach, bought some souvenirs to be brought home, ate some good food in Jungceylon Mall (The biggest mall in Patong) and packed up to the airport.

Stop a little while at BK to have some ice cream and hash browns:

What we had for lunch was Thailand Lumpia, Tom Yam Seafood, and Mango Sticky Rice for dessert. The desert was so amazing!!!

That concludes all of my journey in Phuket.

Here are some tips to travel to Phuket:

• Based on my experience, always bought more money with you. Phuket is the center of tourists attraction thus makes the average price of things higher than Thailand. My cousins count all the approximate money needed for me. I bought around 6000 baht and spend ALL of them right on the last day. I have no spare money to buy several souvenirs and food there. It’s recommended although this is a budget holiday, you bought around 8000 baht per person for 4D3N.
•  Don’t trust taxi/tuktuk services easily. They have a lot of sales there that attracts you with all the taxis and tuk tuk. I myself didn’t know which one to believe in so I didn’t take the risk of asking one and ended up being fooled. Live in Patong area, and everyhing reachable by foot.
•  Sunblock, sunblock, sunblock. The sun can go a bit rough. You’ll get sunburn before you realized it. And Dark eyeglasses. It’s important.

      In the end, I'm not regretting at all for went to Phuket! It was fun!! Although somewhat a little bit crowded but the change of environment is worth it!

Budget Phuket Holiday (Part 1)

Yayyy, this is another traveling post that I've been waiting for! And maybe the last post about my traveling ‘cause next month I will already starting my Japanese language study so intensive (everyday!) that maybe I don’t have time to travel anymore. I’m trying so hard really to enjoy this last week of May to be sloppied off my bed, doing nothing until I’m bored as death for I know maybe I will not be as idle as today starting June.

Alright!

At 12 until 15 May last week, I've finally step on Phuket Island for some another short yet impulsive break with my cousin. My cousin, San-San whose arranging all this stuff since I’m kinda busy with arranging my Sg trip. So in a nutshell I’m just steadily contacted her about the progress of our trip and voila! It went well and EVEN BETTER than the Singapore one.

In Singapore, I arranged my trip manually all by myself! While in here, my cousin had some research around blogs and found this 3 ultimate local tour that can’t be missed: 1 day Trip to Phi Phi Islands, 1 day Trip to James Bond Islands, and Cabaret Show.

My cousin contacted the one called Miss Ladda (a local tour guide service) and she helped us to arrange the trip and calculate all the expenses. And based on my experience, almost all of the tourist use this services (although maybe via different contact person) and have those 3 ultimate destination in Phuket.

You can contact Miss Ladda (and as far as I know this Miss Ladda is trustworthy since I've met other tourists that use her services as well) for all the arrangement of the trip. You can discuss about the trip arrangement, the picked up from and to airport, cabaret, car rent, and everything even somehow she managed to cut trip prices! For example, most of the island tour can costs you as far as 2800 baht/person based on the brochure available but I've only been charged for about 1500 baht/person with the help of Miss Ladda. Isn't that awesome?? You can ask Ms Ladda's contact personally by giving your email on the comment box below. I'll replay as fast as I can :) 

In a nutshell, why my Phuket holiday is better:

• It cost me only around Rp 5.000.000 for 4D3N trip! What an amazing budget holiday! This is the detail expenses (not as detailed as in my Sg post because for the hotel and flight, my cousin arranged that):

• The trip is arranged neatly, we are picked up and went back to hotel really on time based on this local tour travel so no big fuss about schedule.
•  My hotel is in Patong as the centre of tourist attraction (and nightlife!) so it’s very easy to find entertainment here. Everything is reachable by feet.
•   I’m very healthy in this holiday so I enjoy this trip so much!

So, let’s begin with my trip!

Since on the first day we arrived at Phuket around 09.00 p.m, we couldn't do much that day. We were picked up by arrangement (through Miss Ladda) right on the airport to our hotel and checked in immediately  Go out a while to had our dinner on Subway, back to the hotel and rest to prepare for the next trip to Phi Phi Island, the trip that we've been waiting for!

The next day, we were picked up by the driver (which picked up several other tourists too after us) to the gathering point at Chalong Bay Pier. This is the detailed schedule of the trip for Phi-Phi Island:

And these are some photos to show you:

The boat baited alongside the beach.

Some of the tourist were seasick hahaha

Arrived at Maya Bay, where it said that Leonardo Dicaprio once shoot a film here called "The Beach". Crowded as fuck. Trying to take photos without all the people but failed miserably. Anyway, it's indeed so beautiful!

Continued our journey to Viking Cave and feeding monkeys. Even some of the monkeys drank Coca Cola that are given to them..

Finally had our lunch at Phi Phi Island. This is our restaurant and the view outside, including several shops. On 2006 this is one of the island that are washed away by the worst tsunami at that time, but they've managed to build it as fast as possible to keep it available as a tourist spot. Natural disaster is no challenge to natural beauty I guess.

Cat everywhere is the same, always sleeping.

Arrived at our final island of the day, Khainai Island where we can relax and swim. Heaven on earth!! Relaxed and swam and ordered cocktail and screamed "It's so fuckin' beautifullllll!!!!!!!!!" several times.

The water is so clear..

Went back to Chalong Bay, we found that our photo were available to be bought in a cute frame that were hand-maded by local residents! We took all of it it's so cute..

Finishes with those day, we feel so, so so much fucking grateful with all the chances to visit such beautiful places He created for us, human. All I can say was how great is our God thousand times!

After arrived at our hotel and took a bath, we decided to visit Banzaan Market to have our dinner and some shopping to do. Banzaan Market at night is very lively! The main attraction was their hawker food stalls. It tempted me sooo much I wanna try them all. They have something ordinary to somthing strange such as grilled squid, grilled pork, pork skewer, fried chicken, sushis, even fried insects! WHAT THE HELL hahaha (although I’m curious as death I’m not willing to try it. I HATE INSECTS why should I eat it WTF) (please ignore the date on the photo, taken by my cousin didn't realized it was the wrong date!)

The fried insects.. ugh!

We decided to buy grilled squid, fried rice and coconut pancake for our dinner. After dinner we went on a further walk around Banzaan and Bangla Road, a famous road where all the nightlife of Phuket begins. Bangla Road is so lively due to it’s many pub and bar and cafe and STRIPPERS. Yes, each bar had some strippers and pole dancers ready to tempting the tourists enough to make them stare. Even they do it in the front of the bar! They had like this some kind of front pole where all the sexy dancers gather and people can watch them for free. Really ah. Since I was a girl I’m not that interested, just amazed by their performances. What If I am a boy? The show was enough to make you tingle down there!! Hahaha

some shops near Banzaan continued with Bangla Road. Sorry I couldn't take the photo of the strippers hahahah you can't be expecting that do ya

After some further walking, we went back to hotel after satisfied to prepare for another tour trip tomorrow, to James Bond Islands. Had a very deep sleep that night cause the day trip very tiring!

See you guys on the next post! It’s all about day 2 until I went back home :D