After my completely sleepless night, the last thing I wanted to do was go anywhere. At the same time, it seemed like a royal waste to come all the way to Phuket and not even go ashore.
So I had a nice leisurely breakfast aboard the cruise (ah, seriously people, this is the life!!!) and then decided to be brave and venture out onto Phuket.
We had stoped on the west coast of Phuket and as such on Patong Beach which is the main touristy place in Phuket. The reason as I found out later when going through the place was the nightlife - the place is full of fantastic looking very chic nightclubs. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We got off the ship like the previous day on a smaller ship. Except that on this day, we stopped at the end of a looooong gangway like thingie (perhaps not so fortunate people were made to walk off this place by scary looking one-eyed pirates in bygone eras?).
The long walk led us straight onto the beach.
At this point (leaving my bias for Goa aside for just a minute) let me say that Phuket beach is one of the world’s most picturesq beaches. It will just take your breadth away. I got tons of photos this entire trip (Singapore included) but none could compare with the ones taken at Phuket. Simply beautiful.
And here are some more of the ship, as seen from the shore:
Back to reality: Patong was one of the worst affected areas of Phuket by the 26 Dec, 2004 tsunami. There were signs all over the beach as we walked showing how far the tsunami had struck & leading to evacuation routes for the future.
We enjoyed our time at Patong Beach & even managed to get a little shopping done:
By this time I was pretty pooped & wanted to head back to shore. Mum too seconded that notion as we had to take care of some other stuff. We unwisely however let ourselves get talked into by a well meaning fellow cruise passenger who wanted to go into the main Phuket city.
We had no idea that the darn Phuket city was more than an hour away (by taxi) from Patong beach nor did the horrible taxi driver tell us - we in fact had told him we wanted to be back at the ship in one hour’s time & this horrible man was taking us on this leisure trip (driving at a measely 30 kpm on empty roads). Finally we had to tell him to stop, turn the cab around (without even having reached the city!) and go back to the ship. It was honestly a terrible ordeal.
On a more positive note though, you could say we saw a lot of the place by car. And my, does Thailand have a lot of Massage places 
We reached back & I got my absolute favorite picture of the whole trip:
Time to board the ship now, before it takes off without us. Unfortunately the timings of the cruise does not allow one to enjoy the nightlife at Phuket - which I really suggest one checks out, by the looks of the clubs (have no idea of the people though).
Back on the ship I headed straight off to work. When that was over I was so pooped that I went straight to my cabin & crashed. I had planned to see a show called the “Tropicalia” which everyone later told me was fabulous but unfortunately was so tired I couldn’t make it.
In the night got all dressed up for the fancy “Captain’s Gala Ball”. It’s an entry by reservation thing only & we all were assigned table places etc. First up though was cocktails (in my case, mocktails) in the main level.
We also were introduced to our crew (only top level mgmt), all one more gorgeous than the other. Sigh.
In between, mum & I sneaked out onto the deck to watch the sun go down. An amazing sight I promise you! These pics do not do it justice. Serenity at it’s best (thank you God for this trip!).
We went back to the cocktail party, I truly enjoyed myself - had some very intelligent & fun friends aboard the cruise with us! From there to the “Bella Vista” for the sit-down dinner.
As I said, it was a very fancy affair & a several course meal - the cutlery kinda made me feel like Leonardo on the Titanic, tons of forks & knives & glasses, each for their specific use. There was a fantastic display during our meal, when all the chefs came out (more than 20 of them I think) with special bomb like cakes with firecrakers lit on them… the room lights had been purposely dimmed at this point & they were dancing & balancing the stuff on one high hand, all very good to look at.
Enjoyed my dinner (& the company!) but took care not to overdo it after the excesses of the previous day.
(Leave your comments only at the end of this adventure!)
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