Our first stop was on the northeastern corner of the island; in particular, the Ao Po Grand marina to view their haulout facilities. En route we had the opportunity to see G&T’s haulout facilities too. While Roy walked around to find the information he wanted, Elaine enjoyed the gardens and the beautiful little shrines. The detail on these are just fascinating.
From there we headed to the southwestern side of the island to a little shop called The Mac, where the owner replaced the battery on Roy’s MacBook while we waited; in fact, it was replaced in less than 5 minutes. Another shining example of the level of service we’ve experienced thus far.
Our last stop before our stomachs informed us it was lunchtime, was the Chalong boatyard, not only to view their haulout facilities, but to meet the owner, Eric, of another yacht called Paw Paw and to drop off lifejackets that had been delivered to us in error while we were in Rebak Island marina, Malaysia, during the MCO (Movement Control Order) that commenced in March last year. Him and his wife have patiently waited 14 months to finally take delivery of their lifejackets, which, fortunately, they don’t need immediately, as they are finalising the construction of their new catamaran.
Driving around Phuket Island, though, definitely left much to be desired. Besides the maniacs on the road, we had to contend with motorbikes driving on the wrong side of the road, we learnt that certain roads entering and leaving a roundabout are closed at certain times of the day, all major intersections are bridges or tunnels so you need to know whether you are going “up and over” to turn or “down and under” and, if you get it wrong, you have to drive for miles to make a u-turn, since all the major roads are barricaded, but, although there are u-turn lanes, in some cases, after you’ve already entered the lane to turn, you discover it’s closed.
So, having transversed the island in various directions, it’s fair to say, the hodgepodge array of businesses mixed in with residential and industry extends across the entire island and here we were thinking it was just the Boat Lagoon marina that was so haphazard. In fact, we could have been on any Caribbean island or indeed in Indonesia. There is definitely no such thing as Town Planning or Zoning, but little shrines are everywhere and we passed some fabulous looking temples, which we’ll definitely want to visit once all the errands are out of the way.
There were, however, the gems to be found; areas that were well organised and well maintained, including the excellent Central Phuket mall. Besides the usual high-end shops, it had a fabulous supermarket and “food court” area. Unfortunately we didn’t find the latter until after we’d had lunch at the Golden Chicken restaurant, which was a gastronomic adventure in itself, but something must have been lost in translation with Roy’s dish, because it appeared to be curried offal. Fortunately Elaine’s stir-fry was delicious and there was plenty of it to share. There were, of course, the items on our plate which we didn’t recognise at all.
One thing we did notice, though, besides the wonderful and unique decorations scattered around the mall, besides the usual temperature checks and hand sanitising routine when we entered the mall, the soles of our shoes were also sanitised as we walked over special mats. There’s only one other place where we’ve seen this done and that was at Entopia, the Butterfly Farm on Penang Island, Malaysia, but what an excellent practice in this era of COVID-19.
Unfortunately we have no idea what the significance was of the decorations, in particular, the sunflowers and peacocks everywhere, but the sand “castle” display was amazing.
By the time we’d completed our errands in the mall, including get our new sim cards, we were exhausted and just wanted to go home.
A light dinner and a chat to Craig off Il Sogno wrapped up another busy day.
