Day 137 - We didn't need to get up early for our 12:25 PM flight to Phuket. We took a Grab car right to KLIA2. Next to the international airport in Kuala Lumpur, a second was primarily designed and built for Air Asia. It is a low-cost carrier which had the slogan which suggested that it provided flights cheap enough so that everyday people could fly. It's true and the aviation industry growth in SE Asia has been phenomenal.
These flights were provided as a refund that Jay got back from them after two years of dogged determination. The flight time going to the island of Phuket was just one and a half hours. However, there is a time zone difference of one hour which chopped the hour part off. The inflight chicken biryani cost extra but was tasty.
Thailand has been doing bulk tourism for, well, as long as we've been travellers. However, we were last in Phuket directly at the end of the first Gulf War. As these things occurred before blogging, we had to piece together a lot of facts to come up with the year of 1991. I blog about things in order to have an external memory as we travel a lot and our brains are not good at keeping track of such things without help. This is an eJournal but I'm pleased if anyone has the inclination to read it.
It took about one hour to get to Patong Beach from the airport. We bought the standard shuttle bus tickets for ฿180 each. A US dollar is around 31 Thai Baht these days. Every passenger for the vans were able to verify the hotel and were delivered directly.
We are staying four nights at the Club Seven One Hotel. It's about a five-minute walk from the beach and around a 15-minute walk to JungCeylon Mall.
We used the whole evening just to walk up to the main part of Patong Beach and around the tourist areas. We chose this, the oldest, beach area. Phuket is a series of beaches each with different characteristics. I savour the old-school, over-developed scene of with many bars even if I use none.
Daylight ended as the sun slipped into the Andaman Sea. Nowadays that happens at around 6:30 PM here.