Phuket Revisited - Day 2

14 Feb 2011

The first greeting from my dearie today.. ‘Happy Anniversary!’ :)

Dining area at the hotel

We went for breakfast at 8am. Food was quite ok.. with the usual sausage, ham, bacon, eggs and some local dishes like fried noodles, rice etc. We noticed most of the guests staying in the hotel were all Mat Sallehs.  And I think they’re big fans of tropical fruits – from seeing how every plates of pineapples and water melons kena sapu-ed by them. We love the pineapples too… it doesn’t have that ‘itchy’ feel on the tongue after eating and it’s sweet.

Very nice and sweet pineapples :)  our dose of Vitamin C hehehe

After breakfast, we hang out at the lobby. I was checking with the front desk if I could make a local call and they told me it’ll be charged at 20 baht per minute @_@ and I can only make the call at the front desk (we can only call room-to-room from the phone in our room). I might as well make the call using the free sim card that we got yesterday. I remember in my last visit, the hotel allowed us to make phone calls from the room and it only cost us 10baht per local call.

Anyways, main thing is to call up the tour company for our Phi Phi Island trip cuz’ when we first signed up for the package, we informed them that our hotel is APK Resort. So, I have to update them we have shifted to APK Resort & Spa so that they can pick us up the next day. By the time I’m done with the call, we’re already running low on credits. Yuen went to the nearby Family Mart to top up the credits – 150baht.

While at it, we also tried to call some car rental companies, hoping to be able to rent a car. In our last visit in 2006, we have no problem at all renting a car once we arrived. But this time around, most of the cars are fully booked. Maybe cuz’ it’s peak season this time. We got 1 contact that still has a car available but rate seems to be higher a bit. We KIV that while we went out to jalan jalan.

The cables are really scary.  Occasionally, I'll hear some 'sparking' sounds :s

We walked to Jungceylon, a shopping complex about 10 minutes walk from our hotel.

I saw Swensen’s there… thinking of the 59baht ice cream that we had in our last visit :p But nopes… no special promo and the price is about the same as in Malaysia. So, we didn’t go for it this time but went for a cheaper option at Dairy Queen. We are a fan of their sundae cone.. so, we had one each.. mine of course, was coated with chocolate :p 

After we have cooled down a bit, we walked around Jungceylon for a while and also went to Carrefour to grab some snacks, water and also multi plugs. We were hoping that the hotel will be able to loan us a multi-plug but their reply was ‘no have’. Hmmph…

We then continue to explore Patong. It was so hot and sunny! Along the way, we kept a look out for any rent-a-car service but unfortunately…. They’re all out of cars for rent :/

We also rest a bit near the beach while we had some BBQ corns and some coconut water. Nel also tried the BBQ pork ribs. I didn’t try cuz’ ribs with fatty meat are not quite my thing.

Huge corns... I felt so full after I finished 1 corn...

BBQ pork ribs

Then, we tried to locate ‘Let’s Relax’ for our massage session. After a long walk and after calling them twice for direction…. We finally found it! By then, we were totally exhausted, hoping that they still have some available timeslot for today.. but.. they’re fully booked!  :(  So, we made booking for 8.30pm the next day instead.

While we were resting a bit over there, Nel called up the car rent company to confirm our booking. They will send the car to us on 16 Feb and we will return it on 17 Feb at the airport.

Sawadeekrap!  Somehow Ronald looks different here.... 

We walked back to Jungceylon after that… and realized that ‘Let’s Relax’ is actually quite near to Jungceylon… and here we were.. walking one big round to reach there.. “-_-  

Also saw this sign at one of the streets

At first, we thought of having dinner at the food court but once at the food court, we saw a massage centre next to the food court. All of us were so tired after all the walking and tho’ we have signed up for massage at Let’s Relax tomorrow… we walked-in for at least .. a foot massage.

Rates are much cheaper here. I only go for foot + back shoulder massage (for 250baht an hour).. while the rest went for 1 hour Thai massage (350baht). It’s a small place, and those who’re doing Thai massage got into a bed area.. divided by just curtains. As for me, I just need to sit at one of those single sofas outside. First, you have to take off your shoes and then go to a basin area for them to wash your feet. You just need to sit there and they’ll wash for you :p

I quite enjoyed the foot massage. 3 people actually attended to me.. first 2 were ladies who put the massage oil on my legs and then the last one was a man who did most of the massage. It’s so good when I could feel the ‘crack’ on both legs.. phew! After he’s done with the foot massage, he asked me to sit on the stool, and started to massage my back/shoulder. It’s actually quite painful :s  But quite a relief after the foot massage :) Next up… we were hunting for food. Once we got out of Jungceylon, we saw this crowd across the road. We went over to check it out and guess what? We found a night market just near the Banzaan Fresh Market.

The first thing that we ordered was sticky rice with mango! Then we also ordered Pad Thai, noodles and shaved ice … yums! The lady selling noodles could actually speak Mandarin :)

We walked around the place after that and found out there’re quite a number of stalls at the other side.

But most of the stuff are fried/bbq and we wanted to go easy with our throat :p We tried the ‘pancakes’ (yums!), some fried popiah looking thing and some ice blend drinks.

Check out the carrier for the drinks...

The boxing stadium is just opposite of Banzaan

We walked back to our hotel at about 7pm. Tried to loan a hair dryer from the front desk and again.. their reply was ‘no have’… “-_- At times like this, I wish I’ve brought along my own dryer.

As I was all soaked in sweat, I went for shower straight away. Once I got out from the shower… I saw some roses on the table… Dearie gave that to me with a Happy Valentine’s Day wish :)

So er.. it’ll take some time for my hair to dry. We rested.. watched some TV and I started to pack some stuff for our Phi Phi Island trip tomorrow. They will pick us up at 7.45am.. so, we gotta make sure we have enough rest/sleep tonight for a long day tomorrow….