Phuket birthday adventures

Two thousand nineteen has been a good year. Already. On the 3rd of April I celebrated my birthday in solitude. My 5th birthday abroad, the first on my own. I guess 23 is a good age for it. 

Anyway, 30th of March 9:20am and I was up and away again! Off to the beautiful Island of Phuket, Thailand. I could not have been more excited, nervous and ready for the trip. Even-though it was only for a week, the thrill of stepping into the unknown like this once again was exactly what I needed after having lived and worked in Byron Bay and having been in Australia for almost half a year already. 

Six months is a long time if you live every day and not just let life pass by. This is something I have learnt during my travels. They say time flies when you’re having fun which is true but doesn't time always fly by in hind sight? I mean to say that I feel like I've been to so many places and met so many new faces, it wouldn't be right not to acknowledge all the awesomeness of my last 182 days spent here. 

Back to Phuket. Now, I feel like I must start with sharing something I would have liked to known beforehand. This being that Phuket is quite a big island with plenty of little towns. Public transport is close to non-existent and taxi’s are quite pricy for Thai-standards. 

The single piece of public transport that I found was the airport bus. Which is the easiest/cheapest combination to get to Old town. Costs 100Bhat and takes about an hour and 20 min to and hour and a half from the airport to Old town. If you say which hotel you’re staying at in old town the bus driver might just drop you off in front if it’s on the way. 

Although old town is quaint and has it’s charms, things to do and see are well spread over the entire island. On Sunday nights though, you'll find the Thalang night market right in the centre of Old town, which I most definitely recommend to everyone staying in Phuket over the weekend. 

So the thing about Phuket is, is that you’ve got two big hubs where you’d want to be. This being Old town and Patong beach area. Now Patong beach is world renown for it’s party scene and I made the very conscious decision NOT to stay there because I wanted to go explore and relax rather than party. So I started off at Vitamin sea hostel in Old town. This beautiful little hostel is an easy walk from the bus station 1 where the airport bus ends and is an equally easy walk up the road to the central streets. Probably the best thing about the hostel is the ever so friendly and helpful staff. Most definitely recommend when in Phuket. 

Spent my first morning pretty slow, figuring out a plan on what to see and do in Phuket and if I would even stay in Phuket for the entire week. After a good couple of hours going over maps and talking to other travellers I decided not to make a decision quite yet on what to do with my week. I went for a walk in stead. Ended up wandering through Old town for most of the day. 

Turns out there's quite enough places to discover in Old town I soon found out. Temples and murals just around corners and down alleyways. As well as a nice park here and there and of course all the food waiting to be eaten. After a quick nap back at the hostel I ventured to the night market to stuff my face in all that's weird and wonderful. Ran into two girls I met at the hostel and ended up eating loads of mango sticky rice which made my soul really happy.

I'd also decided on doing an island hopping day tour, which I booked through the hostel. So day two started early with a pick up shuttle to Rassada pier. I booked a 3 islands day trip tour with Sea Angel for 1 400Baht (39€/62AU$) as it was recommended by the hostel and I had a great day. 

Air conditioned shuttle to the pier, animated briefing by the tour guide accompanied by free water, juice, coffee and some biscuits. And then off we were!

Speedboating to the first stop which was Yao Yai Island where we were free to go snorkelling and so I did of course. Met some really cool people too with who I ended up hanging out with for the rest of the day. We also got fresh pineapple and watermelon sliced to munch on before heading off for some sightseeing. Where we stoped in monkey bay and went snorkelling in the Phi Phi marine national park among many other places. For lunch we headed to Phi Phi Don, where we spent another couple of hours relaxing and enjoying the island

one of the snorkel sights, where I saw
the entire Finding Nemo-crew !

Take three for the sea

Koh Phi Phi Don

Had such a great time and laugh with this crew!

Monkey bay laughs

 So about the monkey picture. If you know me at all I feel quite strongly about animal/wildlife conservation and keeping wildlife wild. Which naturally includes not exploiting wildlife for tourism or any proposes really. This includes feeding wildlife, which I can get really angry about if I see people doing this (certainly if it's just to take a picture/selfie with the animal??!) as it disturbs their natural habitats and food patterns. So in the picture we're at Monkey bay, a little bay on one of the islands close to Phuket known for it's monkeys that inhabit the beach. Tourists come to the island in boat loads and although we were explicitly asked not to touch/feed nor interact with the wildlife clearly others weren't. As there were loads of people feeding the monkey it's clear that these monkeys already have changed their habits greatly and now fully associate humans with food. 

So as I was getting angry at idiots feeding the monkeys another monkey climbed up my leg to sit on my shoulder/head. Quite ironic, I know, as I was telling people off for feeding the monkeys and letting them climb onto them for pictures. But I still think it's a funny picture so imma still gonna leave it right here.

Case in point: DO NOT FEED WILDLIFE, nor ride elephants, take selfies with tigers, .... the list goes on and on really. people are idiots 🙅

ok rant over, back to my trip.

As it would be my birthday in just a few days I decided to spoil myself completely and book myself into a resort. So thanks to the expert searching skills of my sister I found The Mangrove Phuket. Located about 20 min out of Old town in Chalong Bay I went all the way and booked a taxi to get there in style haha!

So for the next four nights I found myself in bathing in (affordable) luxury. I got on of the studio villa's with views over the bay for just 281AU$ (178€) breakfast buffet included. The resort also rents out SUP-boards and kayaks for free to explore the bay and next-door mangroves. I cannot recommend this place enough. Honestly. Very friendly staff, always happy to help. 

Not everyday has to be extraordinary, even in paradise

This is a line I think I read somewhere, although I can't remember where so it could also just be something that just came to me. Who knows. Doesn't really matter, what does matter is that by (finally) coming to this realisation my life truely has sort of changed. Or maybe it's more my look on life that has changed. Either way, it really helped me lift the pressure of adventure off my shoulders which resulted in me finding ways to find something extra ordinary in everyday again!

So this is the deal, here's some real talk.

I had never worked two jobs as such before in my life. I’ve always been busy doing about a million things at once combining my horses with music classes, high school and scouting for instance and still finding the time for a social life. But I never actually had to combine two jobs with life. Turns out that's harder to do than combining hobbies when you're a kid.  

So it took me quite some time to find a balance between working and still going on adventures/ having fun.

this was the result of a pretty
average day working both jobs

And in doing this I learned something really important. I decided to let go of the crazy idea that, because I’m living this travellers life in the far far away country that is Australia, that I should be doing something extra ordinary everyday because I would otherwise be “wasting” my time here in paradise somehow. 

Almost funny to think about it like that now, because after all, this is MY life and My adventure and if I feel like doing nothing I'm quite entitled to do so. And certainly because of some recent events that happened like some kid throwing up on (and effectively destroying) my laptop as well as some struggles I had with my skin I felt tired and just didn't want to do more then I was obligated to do with my work. Which is quite normal tbh, life's though and sometimes it just wares you down. It happens all the time and to everyone in certain degrees. Everybody needs down time.

But with only 5 weeks left to my time in Byron I decide to make sure I have at least 1 full day off a week, and to dedicate that day to exploring. This way I would be able to have my extraordinary days and see amazing things and still have my time to chill and do absolutely nothing at all in those 2 to 4 hours in between or before shifts. You see the thing is, spending time doing something you want or enjoy doing at the time isn't wasting time. I've come to understand that this is mostly just self care and self love, to let you just be you.

And so I started planning and setting out at least once a week exploring Byron Bay all the way. This lead to finding some great spots like the Killen falls, lunch at The Farm and dips in the tea tree lake with Loreto between shifts. Meeting up with Fien, an old friend from ponycamp and exploring the Springbrook national park on the Gold Coast hinterland. As well as solo day tripping to the Mynion falls and a lot of Byron bay hinterland along the way.

I'll take more about and give you all the deets on these great places to explore very soon!

First I'm dying to talk about my birthday adventures, which I'll be doing next. So stay tuned on all the sweet stuff about Phuket, Thailand!!

xoxo Liz