Trip down to Phuket

We decided to take the overnight train down to Phuket, in order not to lose a day to travel. Since we were catching the train at 745 that evening, we checked out of the guest house, but left lots of our bags, and tried to find interesting things to do in Bangkok for the day in the meantime. Not far from us on the map is the Chatuchak weekend market, and since it was Saturday, we thought it would make a nice walk.

This market makes the night markets in Taipei look silly. Seriously, this market was a good ten times the size of the market at Shilin. It’s amazing. It’s every shopping mall you’ve ever been in, combined, and crammed into a tiny space. One of the staff members at the guest house told us there are something like 4 or 5 thousand stalls. And on Sunday after 4pm, they let vendors in who haven’t registered for a permanent stall, and they set up shop in the walkways. Of course, we were typical tourists, and didn’t bargain over anything (but, on the other hand, most prices were listed in writing, so we at least weren’t getting the white price). You could go in here with 100 bucks, and not be able to carry out everything you buy. We saw lots of other westerners, but the crowd was still 98 percent Thai. It’s a combination shopping trip and social event, I think. I don’t like shopping. Actually, I hate shopping. But, this was fun. After a few hours, I was tired, but it was still fun.

We also went to a Thai department store that’s near the guest house, called “Big C”. That was fun, too. Evelyn fell in love with these miniature washing machines they sell which have a small washing chamber on one side, and a centrifuge on the other, for really getting the moisture out of the clothes. Nobody here seems to have a dryer – they just hang clothes out to dry. I don’t think this scheme would work in Seattle.

The train trip down was brief for me, really long for Evelyn. We got second class tickets, which means an air conditioned car, with a sleeper bunk for each seat. We got top bunks, which were a little cheaper (and all that was left when we bought the tickets – about 700B each). This ticket was from Bangkok to the town of Surat Thani, which is little more than a train station in the middle of nowhere.

Our original plan was to take a train all the way down the Malay Peninsula, ending up at Singapore. In the interest of time, we’ve scratched this plan – too many things we want to do, and not enough vacation to do it in. So, we decided we wanted some time on the beach, but also to go to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and to Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand, which everyone recommends. Anyway, after much research and debate, we settled on Phuket for the beach part of this plan, over other places like Krabi or Koh Samui. We were told that it’s the rainy season in Phuket, but we decided to take a chance.

Anyway, not long after leaving, the steward comes along and folds each set of seats facing each other in to a lower bunk, then folds down the top bunk from the ceiling. There are curtains for privacy, and a little light for reading. The entire trip takes about 10 hours. I figured I would read for awhile, but immediately passed out (I can sleep anywhere, especially while traveling, which wears me out.) Evelyn was awake the entire time, as she can’t sleep in strange places. (So much for saving a day by sleeping while traveling.) The steward had to wake me up when we got close.

On getting off the train at about 7AM, we had to find a bus to Phuket. This wasn’t hard to find, and cost 200B. We were afraid we were being ripped off on the ticket price (anyone is allowed to sell a ticket here and take a cut – even though it’s a state run train, I don’t think there are any state run ticket booths.) But, every ticket agent quoted us 200B, and an old Thai man sitting across the aisle from me bought his on the bus for 195B, so not that much of a markup. There were touts everywhere trying to help people figure this out (this involved walking across the street and buying a ticket.) If anyone offers you a taxi ride, or tuktuk ride, etc, just say no, or better yet, ignore them and keep walking. This bus trip was supposed to take 6 hours, but only took 4, and let us off in Phuket town.

How to pronounce Phuket? This is a fun one – there’s a restaurant in Seattle called Phuket, which everyone delights in mispronouncing “fuck-it”. I’m not sure they’re even aware they are mispronouncing it. If you read my previous thing on Chinese pronunciation, this ties right in. The “h” after letters like p, t and k indicates aspiration. No “h”, no aspiration. So, since we normally aspirate p initially, this “ph” sounds just like our “p”, not like our “f”. And since there is no “h” after the “k”, you have no aspiration, so what will it sound like to our ears?

That’s right, it will sound like a “g”. So, the closest we’re going to come to pronouncing this properly is “pooget”.