Phuket Island in 3 Days (Day 3)

Day 3
I know I know, it has been like eons ago, but yet this information may be useful for someone else reading this post.

We have planned for a white water rafting trip on this day and Jeff has opted out of this program together with Jayne, which is a good thing since Jeff is down with a fever and Jayne could take care of him. My wife stated that Jeff truly made good use of the accommodation amount he paid since he is in the apartment most of the time HAHA! Anyway, we have earlier booked the white water rafting at Bangla road on day 2 and the cost is the same at THB1,200 per pax excluding the transport but include lunch at the base camp.

Anyway, the white water rafting location is quite far up north from the hotel, which took us 30+mins to reach. We did stop half way to visit the monkey temple but it was nothing much to us as it was not part of what we are expecting. The temple is filled with plenty of macaques and note that they will snatch whatever loose items on your body, so beware!

When we are about to reach the base camp, we were greeted by plenty of elephants on the roadside which are meant for the elephant excursions and of course at additional cost. When we reached the base camp, we were given the life jacket and helmet. Once ready, we are all transported to the dam in a pick-up truck. On site, we are briefed on simple techniques and safety measures. Most of the rafting guides are young locals and before we started the rafting, we engaged in some splash war with the guides and other rafters and the dam water is dam cold~!

Since we are all amateurs (With exception for W and J who both are Dragon boat champion rowers), we opted for the 5km rafting. William later continued with some Australians rafters to challenge the 9km rafting, which includes more advance obstacles such as a river plunge…gulps! Prior to making this booking, Jeff has informed us that one of his cousin has been hurt in the rafting process and was hospitalized for a few days, which I guessed is the reason why he has opted out of this program in spite of his fever. Anyway, there was a minor accident nonetheless as we were tossed and turned in the raft throughout the 5km rafting. PS suffered a bruise on her forehead (Slightly shy of injuring her eyes) as we collided with another raft as one of the other rafters stuck the handle of the paddle right into PS’ forehead. The bump is small but very visible on PS’ forehead but we’re thankful that it subsided the next day and no facial scaring occurred.

After the rafting, we headed back to base camp to have our lunch and to wait for our hunk, W, to complete his 9km course. Lunch was average but due to our fatigue, taste doesn’t really matter that much. There’s mangosteen and Rambutans after lunch and I lost count how much of these fruits that I have downed. Anyway, once our stomach is satisfied, we headed to the waterfall to cool down our body. The water is even colder than the dam’s water! My mentioned some dizzy spell due to the heat stroke and was totally shagged, but after 30mins of soaking in the waterfall’s water, she is fully recharged! She claimed it’s the water and the anions there… oh well, whatever works~

After the rafting, we drove back to our hotel and along the way, I saw some local Thai fruit stall and decided that the durian looked enticing and decided to make a U-turn and buy some durian. Two local men man the fruit stall and they don’t speak a single English word so I have to revert to human race’s most ancient form of communication i.e. the sign language. I requested for two big durians and asked him to show me the flesh. He understood and that gave me some sense of satisfaction that my sign language worked! Upon showing me the flesh of the fruit, one of it is not fully ripe and was kind of hard and firm (In a bad way). Now how do you sign this to the man??? I pointed to the flesh and shake my head indicating “No good” but he doesn’t seem to get it. He kept poking the fruit and muttered something that sounded like “Neem… neem” (Sounded like the word “soft” in Chinese). Since I am not able to communicate further than that, I just decided to take what was shown to me. It costs me THB160 or approximately S$7 to get 2 big durians, so can’t really complain that much, can I?

The durian tasted like durian minus the smell or some prefers to call it odor. Not fantastic but good enough to suppress the durian urge. W disliked durian and would probably not thought of him eating one and actually quite liking it. Surprised? I am. During W & J’s wedding, some guys even made W eat durian and then, if I didn’t know any better, I thought he probably would have cursed that guy in his heart there and then!

Anyway, I downed perhaps 4 chunks of the durian flesh and went straight to bed. BAD IDEA! I slept for 2 hours and when I woke up, I can feel the heat spell in me. My wife affirmed that I have heat stroke after touching my forehead and neck. Well, two guys down and one of them have to be the one and only driver! I soaked myself in the tub for an hour and vomited a little… all durian paste (TMIs). Initially, we intend to head to Karon beach for dinner and sightseeing but having Jeff and myself down with fever and all, we decided to just head out to somewhere near to have dinner. After the soak, I am slightly better, so we drove out to the nearby yatch club for dinner. This place is nice albeit a little run down. Food is good and price is reasonable but the location is a little hard to locate. You can find it here, just keep a lookout for Sea Heaven Restaurant (If I recall correctly).

Sadly, for this day, none of us brought our camera with us for most part of the day so too bad, not much photo to show off.

Click here for earlier postings of this trip:
Phuket Island trip Pt 01
Phuket Island trip Pt 02
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