thai trip

Let's start w/my Thailand-Phuket trip that happened this last couple of days. I cannot say whether it was a good trip or a bad trip; it was just a NEW experience overall.

I went to phuket w/my sister's family (my sis, bro in law, and their 2 kids), so I was the baby-sitter by default (it's fine w/me coz they are kids that i can handle). We left Taiwan 8pm to arrive at destination around midnight, and spend the night at Surat-Thani island. That hotel was ok, could not do much coz everyone was exhausted, and we all wanted to get good sleep so we can get enough energy to travel for the next few days.

2nd day, we drove from the hotel early in the morning to Phuket, it was a freakin 5hr drive, quite boring since there was no scenery to enjoy... Our 1st activity was at this cave, involving canoeing and some walking over water to see stones. It's funny coz those caves, they seem like a mountain, but also like a huge stone that stood up in the middle of nowhere, what's even more amazin is their empty structure that allows water to run inside. Mm~ ta bueno pero solamente para mirar no mas. Then we took a fastboat to canoe around... (yeah... so much fun for me... yay... I can canoe anytime at the WAC...) But I guess it was fun for the 2 kids. We 3 took the same canoe, and the canoe-man was quite good at it (duh! it's his job!). He then let all 3 of us take turn to canoe back, in a good way, we can say that he was lettin us have the experience, but in a bad way, I thought that he was tryin to slack-off coz we canoed for quite a long time. HAHAHAHA. He was a cool guy though.

For lunch, we went to a so-called Muslim village that was over water. The food was so-so, because it's open air, and flies were flying all over the place, not very sanitary. After lunch, we went to Phuket urban area, and enjoyed the highlight of the day--Thai Massage.

Oh yeah~~~~

It was very VERY nice. 2hrs of massage, that's a first. She started from the legs, and I was afraid that I might get too ticlish, but she's a pro, hohoho~ so no laughin for me. then she worked all the way up to my back, and man, I think that made up for all the chiro session that I'll miss during this holidays. She popped almost every single bone in my back! WOW!
I've never heard so many cracking, and such a long cracking sound coming from my back. Could feel that all the bones in my spine were adjusted. I should probably suggest Dr. Shaun to do that to me more often, coz it felt REALLY NICE. I was smilin after that.

After the massage, I dun really remember what else we did. Nothing important to me I guess. My mind was all in the Thai massage and how good it was... (and still thinkin bout the massage till now...)

Then the next day, we went to the beach for the 1st time (and the last, quite sad). Basically, it was mostly water activities such as parachute, banana boat, and doughnut boat, but those stingy guys just gave us an extremely short ride, if you want a longer ride, then you have to pay extra fee.

Damn blood suckers... I had more fun when I went to Cancun... even though I had to pay for my ride, but at least they made it clear that those activities were extra, not like this one that they made the schedule so blurry, mentionin "water activities" w/o the small print of "rides only last for 15 seconds, additional fun not provided".

So, it seems that after the massage, all the activities sucked. They took us SHOPPING. Buy what? The so-called 'pearl fish wallet', 'Burberry' bags, yatta yatta yatta...

Burberry my ass lah!!! I touched the material, and man... did not feel like Burberry. Even though I haven't have the priviledge of ownin a Burberry bag, but I dun think that what they were sellin were the reall bags... The salesman didn't even know what kind of leather they used!

Not only that bag store, but the tour guide took us to other specially designated stores to "shop", so he can get comission outta our purchases. That really disgusted me. Ruinin pple's fun for their own pockets. Oh, well.... I guess this is how things go pah...

Then, one last sad thing that really surprised me. I thought Thai pple treat elephants as their god, as their holly animal, but when I took the elephant ride for my first and last time, I saw the elephant rider/trainers' hand holding one sharp hook thingy.
I tried to persuade myself that the hook was for other uses, that the riders only use their legs to push the elephants to move (like when u ride a horse), but then...
... then there was this other elephant that stopped, so the rider banged the hook onto it's head. The bang was LOUD!

Until I saw the small red holes and scars on the elephants' heads, I really could not hold my tears anymore... How can those pple hit the elephants' heads with such sharp tool? How dare they mistreat them then call elephants as one of their precious creatures?

I cannot stop but think that men are hipocrites. Sad but true.

If reencarnation really exists, I don't mind switching places with the elephant that I rode.

It was my first time to ride an elephant, and will be my last. Pple say it's quite an experience to ride an elephant, yeah... quite an experience