Where in the World is Janelle?: Phuket Details- Day 1!!

Hey Y'all!

Finally had some time to actually post about what all happened in Phuket!!

Before I begin, the "h" in Thailand is silent often. So stop being like Alan from Hangover II by saying "Thigh-land" and that I was in "Fuket" and that I visited "Fi Fi Islands"....it's Tyland, Pooket, and Pee Pee Islands....ok let us begin now that you're reading and mentally pronouncing properly.

For starters, we got in late Friday night, checked into the Hilton, and got upgraded to a sweet suite. Neither Janet or I really had a plan for our short weekend in Thailand. We got breakfast, swam in the pool and Indian Ocean and after about 3 hours in the sun decided it was time to buy some sunscreen. (I hadn't packed any since I was doing carry-on and all my bottles are too large).

We strolled into the downtown Kata area where we got our first dose of bartering. Janet wanted a cover-up and hat and I wanted souvenirs.

The bartering works like this. They cling to you the second you look interested in something. They say some price, you cut it in half. They look all confused, whip out a calculator like they magically don't understand your English anymore and you punch in your ridiculously low price. They say something totally not close to you. You walk away. They chase you down and come within 50 baht ($1.60ish) of your price. You buy it and they ask if you're from Australia (like a dozen plus times this happened to me- Phuket not popular destination for Americans apparently). "No siree, you just got ripped off by an American!" hehe ok I didn't quite say that...but let's just say through this little technique I have THE BEST gift ever for Jill when I get home. Please rest assured that I'll post something with it once I give it to her!

After strolling around for an hour, buying our sunscreen and other Thailand emblazoned goodies we decided to cave and splurge on the massages. And by splurge I mean 250 baht ($8.10) for an hour long massage. I considered bartering but the whole alley had this price listed and I already felt guilty for how cheap it was.

The lady at the door kept saying "Thai massage?" so I asked what it was...she said whole body so I figured it was like the one Melissa had in Bali. Janet chickened out and went for just a foot massage while I was led upstairs to a room full of hospital curtains blocking off little mats on the floor. As a laid down little did I know about the assault that was coming my way! It seemed straight out of a movie- innocent tourist gets walked, crawled and pounced on by local masseuse with anger management issues. The walking on me was ok as she was quite petite. But when she decided to crawl on me and dig her elbows into my shoulder blades while grinding her knees into my butt checks I got a little concerned- and then things got weird. She flipped me over and it was like I was doing yoga while a petite Thai woman was trying to wrestle me. At one point I had my left knee by my right shoulder while she had both hands pinned down and a knee on one thigh and the other uncomfortably close to my crotch. She kept whispering "relax relax" while I was wondering how that was humanly possible and freaking out about what pose was ahead. At the end she redeemed her assault with a pretty incredible neck and head massage but for next time....I will be MOST DEFINITELY PASSING on the Thai massage. If any of you want a demonstration, I'll cut you a deal and only charge 4 bucks :)

After the attack we hit the much needed happy hour at the hotel before our show that evening. There are two shows people told us to see while in Phuket- Fanta Sea which is an elephant show with circusy acts and a lady-boy cabaret. We chose the Simon Cabaret. Conveniently there was a round-trip shuttle from our hotel. The show banned filming or videoing of any sort but to sum it up- transvestites in the most elaborate and glittery costumes POORLY lip-singing to a mixture of American, Chinese and Thai songs. They danced (some so lackadaisically it was like warm-up rehearsal) but I still enjoyed the entire thing!! The sets were elaborate, it was totally unpredictable and I was amused about how bad their lips were off. Plus the whole time I was in awe that they were dudes. Below is a video of the cabaret I found on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qel4U0nmQOI

After the show the whole cast lined up and you could pay 40 baht to pose with them. I passed. But I did manage to sneak some photos on the way back to the bus.