Phuket, Thailand... that is.
I was five minutes off the boat and there was a line of taxi’s waiting to take people into downtown Phuket. I hired a woman named Penny and her brother Aroon, who made their living as taxi driving tour guides. On a very tight budget, Penny and her brother managed to show me in five days more than I had ever expected.
While I was getting the locals tour of the island we drove by a beach that had a sailboat abandoned on it. I asked why it was there and Penny told me the story. The boat had belonged to a Russian man. He and his son had gone on a round the world trip only to be stranded when the old clunker broke down out to sea.
They had floated around the ocean with no food and very little water for several weeks until the Thailand coast guard found them and dragged the boat to land. They both made full recoveries and were released after a couple of weeks. They flew home leaving the abandoned boat on the beach, where it still remained months later when I took this picture.
While trekking through the countryside in search of a secluded empty beach I started to get a little hungry. Penny decided to stop at her parents’ house, where she got me some fried bananas and cracked open a coconut for me to drink. After making dinner plans for later that evening we continued our search and eventually found a beautiful deserted beach where they dropped me off for a few hours of relaxing and swimming in the eighty degree water.
My five days spent with Penny and Aroon made for an amazing adventure in a foreign land. They treated me so well I felt like family. From wake up calls and door to door service to taking me to their family home for an authentic Thai dinner, my time in Thailand was an amazing adventure. So far outside of the “tourist” trap of bars and beaches, I got to see the real Thailand, the people and the places of the everyday.
I was five minutes off the boat and there was a line of taxi’s waiting to take people into downtown Phuket. I hired a woman named Penny and her brother Aroon, who made their living as taxi driving tour guides. On a very tight budget, Penny and her brother managed to show me in five days more than I had ever expected.
While I was getting the locals tour of the island we drove by a beach that had a sailboat abandoned on it. I asked why it was there and Penny told me the story. The boat had belonged to a Russian man. He and his son had gone on a round the world trip only to be stranded when the old clunker broke down out to sea.
They had floated around the ocean with no food and very little water for several weeks until the Thailand coast guard found them and dragged the boat to land. They both made full recoveries and were released after a couple of weeks. They flew home leaving the abandoned boat on the beach, where it still remained months later when I took this picture.
While trekking through the countryside in search of a secluded empty beach I started to get a little hungry. Penny decided to stop at her parents’ house, where she got me some fried bananas and cracked open a coconut for me to drink. After making dinner plans for later that evening we continued our search and eventually found a beautiful deserted beach where they dropped me off for a few hours of relaxing and swimming in the eighty degree water.
My five days spent with Penny and Aroon made for an amazing adventure in a foreign land. They treated me so well I felt like family. From wake up calls and door to door service to taking me to their family home for an authentic Thai dinner, my time in Thailand was an amazing adventure. So far outside of the “tourist” trap of bars and beaches, I got to see the real Thailand, the people and the places of the everyday.
1 comment:
Really nice boat picture.
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