Phuket day 2

For our second day in Phuket we did not have anything organized, we simply wanted to have a beach day. We’d talked to a taxi operator at the port on our return from our excursion the day before and arranged a trip out to Kata Beach on the island’s west coast. After some further reading that evening we revised our destination to Kata Noi Beach, which is adjacent, but figured the trip would still be basically the same.

Devin was up and ready to go, but Thomas wanted to lounge a bit longer so we agreed to bring him some food down from the Terrace after the three of us ate breakfast. That all done we gathered up our beach gear and headed out. The driver from yesterday was not there but his associate was with the picture of us taken the day before (I later learned he had told Liz he would not be and his associate would be picking us up). We hopped in his very nice van and were on our way. It was about 40 minutes over to the beach. Once there we arranged four lounges with umbrellas as it was way too hot to just sit in the sun. These were only 400 baht for the four of us (about $3 each), but no credit card facility was available so I had to run across the street to the ATM at the 7-11 to get some cash. That taken care of, we had our spot.

There were some rocks at either end of the beach that provided some snorkeling opportunities. It was not spectacular but still fun. We saw some large parrotfish, Moorish Idols, a pufferfish, and various other reef fish. There was also a good swimming area directly in front that the boys enjoyed.

Thomas was excited at the prospect of a 7-11, so he and Liz walked over. Sadly, neither slurpees nor big gulps are a thing in Thai 7-11s. They did get some sodas and pringles, though, so not all was lost.

At the appointed time we went back out to meet our driver for the return trip. He was right on time. On the way back I noticed how many of the stores along the street were open air. Most had no front door or any means of securing the premises, they just had canvas drapes that they’d let down to signify that they were closed. Pretty nice that you can leave your inventory there and not have it all stolen when you return the next day.

We wanted a chill evening together, so we planned to order room service and watch “Wicked” in the room. We ordered a bunch of stuff, but when it came the attendant asked if we had intended to get both tofu and chicken in our Thai curry. No, I told him, we’re vegetarians and don’t eat meat; we just wanted tofu. He apologized and said he’d “hurry back” with a correct order. Fine, we had some other stuff to eat while we waited for that. But we waited and waited. After an hour I said forget it, I’ll just run up to the Terrace, grab something and bring it back. I did that, and then of course after we’d eaten that the corrected orders showed up, a good 90 minutes after the original delivery. While nearly all of the service on Insignia has been excellent, room service has been problematic. We haven’t done a lot of room service, but when we have we’ve had a poor success rate in getting what we’d asked for. Not sure why this is so difficult.Read more