Sunday, October 8, Day 12 

After a morning of correspondence and writing, we ventured out for lunch. I decided on Pad Thai again, ha. It was another sunny day with high haze. It felt too hot and humid for a long walk so we decided to wait for evening. We finally made our excursion to Wat Doi Thep Nimit Monastery that Neil has been viewing up on the hill from our room. Sadly, the clear skies hazed over and we didn’t have very good light for photos or sunset. Follow the link above if you want to see it in dazzling sunlight.

When Neil was exploring the footpaths in the jungle when searching for the monastery early in our visit, he said he could easily imagine the jungle teeming with tigers, elephants, and rhinos like it was 500 years ago when it was first being settled by outsiders. Back then Phuket was known as Jung Ceylon, which was originally derived from an incorrect transcription of the Malay phrase “Tanjung Salang,” meaning Cape Salang. Driving through the jungle on our way to the monastery I could also imagine the old days when it was abundant with wildlife.

This was our first tuk tuk ride in Phuket. We remember tuk tuks as being a cheap way to get around town in Bangkok and Chang Mai – but that was years ago – now they are almost 10 times as expensive as we expected. They wanted $17 to go about 3 kilometers and come back!! Yikes, no wonder they were mostly idle and desperate for riders. We had the driver drop us at the Banzaan market for dinner again tonight.  

Monday, October 9, Day 13

Today was our last full day in Thailand. I had my last dental appointment to check my healing. The oral surgeon said I was healing well and she took out my stitches.

Throughout our meanderings in Phuket, Neil was having fun looking for the most interesting business names. Here are some notable ones, now he regrets not having photos of them:

We went to the rooftop pool area for sunset and enjoyed an Indian dinner for our last night.

Tuesday, October 10, Day 14, Departure day

The day before we had arranged for the hotel to have a driver for us at the specific time necessary to make it to the airport. We took our bags down and the driver wasn’t there yet. We said we would be right back and walked the few steps to our little SAW Thai restaurant, where we saw them panic and look at the clock because they hadn’t opened yet. We said no, just saying goodbye. The proprietress got the biggest smile and was so happy to give us hugs. The cook came out too and we got fun photos. 

We said goodbye to the hotel staff after a 2 week stay and climbed into the frigid cab which finally arrived. Neil was laughing the entire way to the airport at the speed the driver was going; we were being passed by semis in the slow lane and sometimes by motorbikes on the shoulder! We wondered if he was conserving gas or whether the engine was just well worn. When we got to a steep hill that question was answered. Our cab had the “Little Engine that Could.” We slowly made it up the hill (being passed by scooters and everybody else.) We wondered if he turned off the AC if we would surge forward another 10 or 15 kph. Luckily we got to the airport in plenty of time since it wasn’t very busy.

Off to Singapore! We enjoyed the view of the white sand beaches and green hills as we look off over Phuket Island (we had arrived in the dark and didn’t have the views coming in.)