Agoda

(PICTURE: Sunset at a Karon Beach.)

Before arriving in Phuket, I had emailed the owner and asked if he had wifi. He said no but that we could use the wifi from the resort next door. When we arrived, I asked him again about the wifi and he told me the only place to use it was in the shower house (the bungalows had shared bathrooms).

So after being totally screwed over by the owner/restaurant we immediately headed to the bathroom to search the web for a new hotel. F irst I should mention that the wifi was very very weak. At most, I had one bar -- more on this later. While doing my research on Phuket I came upon the hotel website Agoda. If you're not familiar with it, check it out. It's awesome. Immediately upon doing a search, we found out that the 4 star resort next door was offering a deal which made it just $5 more than our zero star bungalow. We thought about just moving next door but then we'd end up having to use the same dangerous/dirty beach. Instead, we decided to look for a place at one of the more famous Phuket beaches. We ended up finding a deal at a 4 star hotel called Diamond Cottages Spa and Resort. With tax, we paid $35 a night. That was over and 80% discount from what the hotel is listed as. Yeah, it was a steal. I tried to reserve the room just as a huge thunderstorm swept in and messed up the wifi. After spending nearly an hour and a half searching, we couldn't book our hotel.


(PICTURE: This gecko was next to us while we stole a resort's wifi signal.)

The next morning we awoke early and basically sat in front of the neighboring resort's entrance to use their wifi again. The signal was much stronger and we booked the hotel in about five minutes. We then had breakfast at our garbage site and ordered a taxi to take us to our new place. The taxi cost as much as the hotel since it was about an hour's drive. However, it was worth every penny.

Our new hotel was AWESOME. We had a gorgeous room (with AC) and were right between two nicer beaches. On top of that, the hotel had two fantastic pools. If you read my blog the other day, Huyen and I were now Category 1 travelers. We spent the next 48 hours as happy as could be. We went swimming in both beaches and pools and enjoyed lots of food that was overpriced but still tasty. Changing hotels, yeah, it was a great decision.

Thai Food

(PICTURE: Huyen on our isolated beach.)

I love Thai Food and couldn't wait to have some in Phuket. One of the features of the bungalow was that it had a supposedly pretty good restaurant. After going for a walk on the beach, Huyen and I had an evening meal. The food though was just okay. I've been to Thailand a few times (and Thai restaurants hundreds of times) and this place just wasn't anything special. I really wanted to love it, especially since it cost more than you would expect a bungalow's restaurant to cost.

Because of this, the next day Huyen and I went out in search of some better and cheaper food. We found just the spot about a ten minute walk from our bungalow. You see, as we had driven in the day before, we saw a handful of food stands by a construction site (they're building a new Holiday Inn near the bungalows). We went to the stands and ended up eating breakfast and lunch there. The food was quite good and totally authentic. The only problem was that it was next to a construction site and more or less a garbage dump. You know, besides the garbage it was great.

Here's the thing though, I felt a little guilty not eating at the bungalow especially since we were the only people staying there! There was another couple the night before but they checked out on our first full day. The restaurant was staffed with three girls who clearly had nothing to do except to cook for us...and we chose to eat elsewhere.

In the afternoon, we decided to have a little picnic and took our papaya salad, chicken skewers and Thai iced tea to the beach. I think the owner was a little peeved that we weren't eating at the restaurant because as soon as we sat down, three of his dogs basically jumped on us. We ended up having to walk quite far down the beach before the dogs would let us eat in peace.

Now all that said, we had planned on eating dinner again at the bungalow restaurant that night. I had specifically asked the owner what time the restaurant serves until and he said just to place our order before 9PM. Well, at 8PM we went to the restaurant and it was totally boarded up. This was a problem since we were starving and the construction site was closed. I wasn't too happy about this turn of events and wanted to say something to the owner who lives in a bungalow next to the restaurant. As we got close to the bungalow though his dogs starting to bark quite fiercely at us. The light was on inside his bungalow so we started yelling his name. And yup, he ignored us.

This was quite stupid on his part because we had planned on paying for two more nights and instead decided to check out the next morning...

Mai Kao Beach

(PICTURE: This was about as close to the water as I got.)

After doing a bunch of research, I found a place on Mai Kao beach that was supposedly the last beach side bungalows on Phuket. This wasn't exactly true considering that there was another beach side bungalow place down the beach; besides that though, we didn't see any others. The place was called Seaside Cottages and is run by a British expat named Malcolm. The place definitely lived up to its billing as bungalows by the beach and was exactly what we wanted..except for one thing -- the beach.

We arrived around 4PM and immediately dropped off our stuff in our bungalow and headed down to the water. I had planned on taking a nice sunset swim but was put off by how violently the waves were crashing at the shore. I went up to my thighs and could feel a very strong undertow. Where we were was very isolated but we could see quite far down the beach where there are four and five star resorts. There were a handful of people out and about down the way but NOBODY was in the water. Frankly the water was too scary to swim in for me, let alone Huyen. We ended up spending two nights at this place and didn't go into the ocean once. Upon leaving, I asked the owner when the best time to swim is. He said, "I don't know. I can't swim." I shit you not, the owner of a beachside "resort" can't swim.

The second problem with the beach was that it was FILTHY. It was as dirty as any Vietnamese beach I've ever been to. I asked Malcolm if this was because of debris from the tsunami a few years back and he said no, it was always like that.


(PICTURE: Beach trash.)

The Long Way Home

(PICTURE: Sunset in Phuket on our first night.)

Huyen and I decided that instead of flying directly to America, we would continue our honeymoon. You see, it was basically the same price to fly one-way from Hanoi to NY as it was to do a couple of one way flights to some places we had never been. Originally, we had planned on doing two weeks in Sri Lanka, two weeks in India and then two weeks in France. However, getting visas was a pain in the butt so we decided to just go to India. While booking our flight there, we saw some super cheap flights on Air Asia that we could pass up. Basically for both of us to fly from Hanoi to Bangkok, Bangkok to Phuket, Phuket to Bangkok and Bangkok to Kolkata cost us less than $450. We had absolutely no intention of going to Phuket until a deal flashed on my computer screen as we booked our plans. It cost us about $50 each to fly round trip to the island.

As I hit the purchase button on Air Asia's website, I started to immediately have second thoughts. I didn't know much about Phuket but the things I had heard all were not so good. Mainly, I read/heard that Phuket was now just an island of 4 and 5 star resorts and not a place for backpackers. And yes, I'm 32 and still consider myself a backpacker. As I see it, travelers fall into two categories:

Category 1: People who can only take 1-2 week vacations a year and want to spend every moment in luxury.

Category 2: People who have lots of time on their hands and don't mind sacrificing luxury to be able to travel for months to years.

In total, Huyen and I will have been traveling for more than 3 months when we land in the USA. Considering that we don't have jobs, we thought it would be wise to pinch a few pennies along the way. And hence, my nervousness going to Phuket where supposedly nothing is cheap...

Airport Party

(PICTURE: We found our own quiet corner in the airport.)

I've got a lot of blogging to make-up for. However, I'm going to skip our final days in Vietnam as I personally feel those stories should come before landing in America, albeit out of chronological order. However, I will give you a quick snippet:

After spending two weeks with Huyen's family, we headed to the airport. Most of Huyen's family had never been to the airport so they decided to come with us to check the place out and to say goodbye. But really, just to check the place out since they left two hours before we took off! Almost all of Huyen's immediate family were there except for her mother who was too sad to make the trip. Needless to say, there were a lot of tears that day. We'll get into this at a later date.

On a happy note though, we had quite a party at the airport. We ate a whole chicken (killed/prepared the night before), sticky rice (which Huyen's mom prepared at midnight), corn and a bunch of refreshments...including lots of Hanoi beer. Frankly, it was a great way to leave the country!


(PICTURE: A sample of the feast.)

Hiatus...

Dear Loyal Readers,

Take a deep breath...

Huyen and I are currently backpacking around India. Despite this country having 600,000,000 IT jobs, it's been a pain in the ass to find internet and nearly impossible to find WIFI. This is the reason my blogs have been so half-ass the last week or so. I promise that as soon as I get good internet I'll throw up some new posts. Thanks for your patience!

Ben

An Amazing Trip...

Without a doubt, there was no better way to say goodbye to Vietnam than to travel from Hanoi to HCMC on our Honda Wave. What an amazing trip: