The Phuket Escape - Pt 5

Day 5

The last night had been a fitting closure to this trip. No pink confetti or cherry on ice to bid farewell to the local we love so dear, but I did it the only way I knew how… break a heart and as of yesterday it seems, 2.

B left early as she said she would. No emotional speeches, no clinging shirts, just a 2 sec pause before she hailed the cab off.

3 hrs later, I’m chatting up a very cute sales girl and swooning her with my most romantic pickup line, “let’s go drink coffee”. Just as we’re to leave, she gets me to write down on her notebook my full contact details.

Me: “$10 says she’ll call me..”
LB: “Breaking another heart again huh?”

And yes, for the record, I would have won the bet had it been validated. She’s called me already and apparently, she had to buy an overseas prepaid call card just to do so.

The Departure Debacle..again

As it’s evident, our holiday was plagued by time issues. Late for departure, late for our coach pickup for Phi Phi, not enough time in Phuket and now, faced with a possibility of missing our flight back.

To begin with, Huixx and Nikki could not be back in time for the hotel pickup service to the airport. The story to which resulted in this is quite a comedy..

The girls had extended their Phi Phi stay and decided only to take the earliest ferry back to Phuket on Tuesday morning (our last day). This was well inside the screw up buffer zone as the boat leaves 9am and arrives Phuket 11.45am. This was until everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

Huixx called,

Huixx: “We’re going to be late, we took the wrong boat and it’s to Krabi..”

It was hilarious when she related to me how a guy had asked her up to the deck for smokes and their short lived banter ended with his,

Guy: “How long are you staying in Krabi.”
Huixx: “Oh I’m not going Krabi, I’m going Phuket.”
Guy: “This boat goes to Krabi..”

Like all true seasoned travellers, their initial panic eroded into laughing about how silly they had been and eventually anchoring it into a boasting right on having actually been to three places on a single trip.

What made things worse was that they only had 430bht with them and Nikki didn't have her credit card pin with her to withdraw cash. They eventually managed to secure a mini bus back to Phuket for 350bht each, which still left them with 300bht short. The plan was simple. They would reach our hotel at 3pm, we’ll pay the remainder to the driver and still be in time for the airport pick up at 3.30pm.

3.30pm: No sign of Huixx and Nikki. I call them only to learn that the bus had to make a detour because it was overloaded and it couldn't climb a treacherous hill road, thus it'd reach only an hour later. They ask if we can pick them from Phuket town instead.

3.40pm: Receptionist confirms with me that going to Phuket town takes 40mins and another 1hr to reach the airport. We are ALL going to miss our flight with this arrangement.

3.50pm: The final arrangement is to have them meet us at the airport.

By the time we finally got to the airport, it was 5pm. If you consider the flight being at 5.50pm, this was a marked improvement over how we left Singapore.

On the plane back, I got a little tipsy and was laughing loudly at everything the guys said.

Stewardess: “Chicken with pasta or Lamb with rice?”
Me: “BOTH.”

In honesty, this didn’t feel as much of a holiday as it was a getaway. The pace at which we engaged this trip was with almost the same frenzied anticipation and expectation I have when we party anywhere else.

Sure, there were the lazy days on the beach but half of that time, I was filled with the pre-occupation of sucking in those abs and counting my calories. There was also the arduous task of keeping one eye on the bevy topless people, hot Japanese asses and bulging beer guts, while another on falling parachutes and from tripping over sand castles.

In all, I was actually pretty upset we didn’t miss the flight back.