Home Away From Home
For us, traveling to Phuket is kind of like returning to a home away from home. Chelly, Javan, and I had lived there for 8 months in 2013-2014, and we’d explored practically every road and beach of this island on our little, rented motor scooter. But, the truth is, it was never really our home. The Thai government’s visa restrictions gave us constant reminders that we didn’t belong here. And, despite the large population of ex-pats and tourists–bringing all the amenities and luxuries to make them feel like home–you never forget that you’re a stranger in someone else’s very strange land.
It really wasn’t the same island that we remembered anyway. It’s not that it had stopped being Phuket, it was actually that the place had become MORE Phuket. Slowly, what was once a laid-back jungle island on the Andaman sea is being replaced by a bustling, traffic-clogged tourist trap, crammed with resorts, bars, restaurants, gyms, shopping malls, dance clubs, and massage parlors. There were new highways and new towns, and many of the old places I’d known were unrecognizable or gone entirely.
While 3 days wasn’t nearly long enough to catch up with all the people and places we’d known in that 8 months long ago, I was still able to find some familiar favorites, like my #1 beach hangout, still just as I’d left it a decade ago. We stayed in an excellent 3-story AirBnB, with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a full kitchen, and a living room, for only about $60 US per night. From that home base, we were able to explore our favorite parts of the island. We couldn’t do everything we wanted to, but the ladies got their chance to party in Patong late at night and shop on the walking street by day. I got to take the boys to see where we used to live (and work), and to have some fun adventures with them. We all ate to our hearts’ content, and I even got a great Thai massage.
Soi Tiger
Back in the day (2013-2014), I used to work at a place called “Tiger Muay Thai & MMA” in the Ao Chalong area of the island. The street there is called Soi Ta-iad, but most people called it “Soi Tiger”. From what I hear, there was nothing much there 20 years ago, just a series of rubber plantations on a narrow track of road. But, then someone decided to put a Muay Thai gym there, and it grew. That was Tiger Muay Thai, expanding from a place with one boxing ring under a little roof into the large complex it was when I worked there: 6 rings, an octagon, multiple indoor & outdoor gyms, a grill & juice bar, dorms, private rooms, bathrooms, and an office that handled merchandise, vehicle rentals, and tour booking. Now it’s even bigger. As this single Muay Thai gym gained popularity and international renown, the influx of visitors led to more and more restaurants, bungalows, and hotels popping up along the Soi. By the time I got there in 2013, there were already several more Muay Thai gyms on the street, and in my 8 months I saw a number of new boxing camps & fitness centers open up. Now, 10 years later, the place was almost unrecognizable.
The street is more crowded than I could ever have imagined it being. There are even more gyms, hotels, restaurants, smoothie shops, massage parlors, and fight camps than there were, more than it even feels like they could possibly fit along that street. The traffic on the narrow, almost-two-lane road is awful. And Tiger Muay Thai itself is unrecognizable. I got a tour of the place first thing when we arrived, but I could only recognize a few bits and pieces. The Beginners Muay Thai training area and the small rental rooms along the back are actually the only structures left standing from my time. Everything else is brand new. Bigger cafe, bigger shop, bigger offices, more training spaces, bigger open-air gyms, bigger air-conditioned indoor gym… it was impressive, and quite a shock to me and all my memories.
I took the boys for a Muay Thai class. Even though I’m not technically a “beginner” (I had one pro Muay Thai fight back in 2013), I did the Beginners class with the boys just so we could all be in the same group together. Javan was awesome at it. Nathan started out with enthusiasm, but he gassed out quick. It was a 2-hour class, after all, and that’s a long time for a 7 year old to hold up those heavy boxing gloves and keep throwing kicks. I also bumped into an old friend of mine who was at the camp when I worked there and has been living there as a professional Muay Thai fighter since probably 2010. That was nice to see at least one familiar face.
After the class, we chugged massive smoothies at the Tiger Grill, went to play in the waves at Nai Harn Beach, and then returned to Soi Ta-iad for Mexican food. Yes, you read that right–Mexican food. One of my old friends from Tiger (she’s not there anymore) is now the owner of a couple restaurants, including this Lucha Libre themed Mexican joint on the Soi. We enjoyed great food and drinks there in a really fun outdoor atmosphere.
Mud Tracks
Early the next morning, I woke up and realized that I’d somehow left my shoes behind at Tiger. It was a tough Muay Thai class, alright, and with the heat and all the kicking and punching, I was sweaty and tired and hungry. Not having enough free hands to carry all my belongings into the changing room, I left my shoes sitting there at the edge of the mats. When I realized what I’d done, I kind of freaked out a little. These were nice shoes, new hiking boots really, nothing like the bootleg street shoes I’d find in Thailand. Plus, I hate losing things. I don’t like to buy new stuff. And, honestly, I do not like making mistakes. It makes me very uncomfortable.
So I got up while everyone else was still asleep and took off in the rental car, the whole drive nervously worrying that my boots had walked away. when I got there, I was lucky to find a perfect parking spot right up front (rare, because parking on the Soi is really hard to find these days). The gatekeeper let me in and I found my shoes right there where I’d left them. Crisis averted.
I took the opportunity to stop by the office and say hello to the new management staff. Then, I went to the weight room and caught up with Peter “The Thai Hulk”, the only member of the fitness staff still working there from my days. He remembered me even after all this time and that was nice. At the Tiger Grill, I sat down for breakfast with one of the camp managers before taking off on my own little solo tour of the southern part of the island. I went looking for my Rasta bredren, Pi Pele, who used to have a place at Friendship Beach. Then I checked out Ra Wai beach, Ya Nui beach, Nai Harn town, passed Karon viewpoint, then Kata beach, and Karon beach, before returning to our base in Patong.
I saw a lot on that drive, and it gave me some ideas for fun things I could do with the boys. There were all those beaches, of course, and the Dinosaur mini-golf where we’d taken Javan when he was 3. I passed all these signs for things like elephant treks and ATV adventures. After lunch, I gave the boys a choice of activities and we headed out, leaving the women to do their own thing in town. The boys wanted to ride ATVs and I was cool with it because it’s just the kind of frivolous touristy thing that I never would have done when I was living here.
We didn’t only ride ATVs that day. We also stopped at the Karon view point and checked out the view. That’s where Nathan got to hold a white-bellied Sea Eagle (it looks like the logo of the Seattle Seahawks). That’s also where we met Pi Ramboy, a Thai Rastafari elder with a well-maintained Vietnam War-era US Army Jeep, some very nice handcrafted jewelry made with stones and gems, and a jar of beautiful homegrown herb (“gancha” they call it). After the viewpoint, we checked several ATV parks for their prices and general layout, let the boys feed an elephant, and then returned to our favorite ATV park for a ride.
The ATVs in question were some burly green quads, tough built and ready for the neglected roads and mud tracks that snaked through the rubber forest. We tore up and down that place for probably a couple hours, making a lot of mud. So much fun for the boys, and me too. It reminded me of high school days when my brother and I would take his quad out into the woods, carving trails with machete and ax, then riding them. Oddly enough, there was also a group of “hashers” in the woods with us (those are people who basically get drunk and jog together. Or maybe they don’t get drunk until the end of the jog, I’m not sure…) We had to dodge the hashers at a couple of points, as they also had to dodge us on those narrow trails. It was strange and it made me wonder, who organizes a hash run on the same trails the ATV companies use? Doesn’t anybody communicate with each other when they’re planning events out here?
After the ride, we stopped by Ya Nui beach, my absolute favorite on the island, where I tried to repeat my old, habitual open-water swim to the nearby island. But, this was the rainy season still, and the water was choppy, plus the tide was coming in. I had to turn around and return to shore before too long. I also got scraped against a stone just below the surface as the waves tossed me around. So, not the most fun thing to do. Then we built sandcastles, ate coconut ice cream out of coconut shells, and got a great Thai meal at the little restaurant across the street. Cool jungle vibes in that place.
While it was only a short trip, we were at least making the most out of it.
Shiny Objects
Both of my boys are easily attracted by shiny objects, and on this short visit to Phuket, they each got attracted by something that they were never able to enjoy–and eventually had to abandon their desire for. For Javan, it was the Phuket Tuk-Tuk, and for Nathan it was the Carnival Magic theme park, home to Phuket Fantasea.
A Phuket “tuk-tuk” is nothing like the tuk-tuks in other parts of the country. Tuk-tuks, technically speaking, are auto rickshaws, originally developed in Japan, and mainly manufactured in India these days. They’re based on the antique idea of a rickshaw: with a horse, donkey, or a human up front pulling a bench on wheels where the passengers sit. Thai tuk-tuks usually have a little motorcycle engine that growls and pops like a lawnmower motor as it puts along, lending them the name “tuk-tuk”. They’re fun little egg-shaped three-wheelers with open sides and a canopy over top. It’s a fun way to ride through the city taking in all the sights and smells. Up north near Chiang Mai or Laos, the tuk-tuks actually look a lot more like a traditional rickshaw, with an actual motorcycle (or half of one) up front, pulling the bench behind. But, down south in Phuket, the tuk-tuks are not tuk-tuks at all.
These are more like mini minivans, pimped out with booming sound systems, plush interiors, and flashing lights in the back. Groups of friends rent them so they can tour around all night in a tiny party-mobile. We saw these everywhere and Javan was totally impressed. He’d always point them out and say he wanted to ride in one. But, we had a rental car on this trip, and there was no reason for us to take a tuk-tuk-that-isn’t-a-tuk-tuk to get anywhere. When we came across one parked at the mall one day, he made me take some pictures for posterity. So there you go.
Carnival Magic and Phuket Fantasea are the twin attractions at Kamala Beach that Time Magazine apparently named one of the “World’s Greatest Places” in 2023. Carnival Magic is basically a giant Disney-type theme park, and Phuket Fantasea is an epic stage-show that they put on there in its own massive theater. There are signs for these everywhere around the island, at the airport, on billboards, on the sides of vehicles–everywhere. Nathan saw all the bright colors and shining lights, the people in exaggerated fantasy versions of traditional Thai costume, and he just had to go. We tried one night, at the end of a long and busy day, when everyone else wanted to rest at home and only Nathan and I were up for more excitement. Unfortunately for us, we got there a few minutes before closing, and after the start of the last show of the night. There was nothing for Nathan and I to do but walk around the outside checking out those longed-for lights and colors, get some ridiculously overpriced popcorn and ice cream, and buy Nathan a toy from the gift shop that promptly fell apart after about 5 minutes (the shop clerk replaced it, but the second one didn’t last much longer either). I’m actually glad the place was closed, because the prices were comparable to a trip to American Disneyland, and I was not prepared to shell out that kind of money for amusement park kicks on this trip. At least we got the pictures.
Nic Nakis 