Day 4 - Phuket — Wayfaring Abroad

Our day began early, very early. We had a 7:50 flight out of Singapore direct to Phuket. We made it to the airport much earlier than anticipated the night before and found that getting through the Changi Airport is a breeze. It took us no more than 10 minutes to get our boarding passes, go through immigration and make it to our gate where we waited to go through security.

The plane we rode in was a smaller plane with seats that couldn't have been more than 25 inches apart. This was a big problem for me as I barely was able to fit. I spent the next hour and a half with my knees jammed in a locked position and going slightly numb. The only saving grace being that I could eventually put the aisle seat arm rest up and stick one leg out in the aisle.

Upon arriving at Phuket airport, we got off the plane at what looked like a new terminal and went through immigration relatively quickly. Seeing as it was barely 9 am at this point and we couldn't check into our hotel until 2 we were in no rush to get anyway. This meant we bought a phone SIM card and found a taxi stand to buy a ride to Patong.

We had heard stories of how long taxi rides could be and how the drivers will take you to shops to try and get you to buy things. All of this meant that we were hoping we could bypass any of that and get a smooth ride south through Phuket.

Unfortunately, we made one stop along the way where they tried to sell us on a return trip to the airport when we leave and excursions to neighboring islands. Luckily though, this stop was only a couple minutes and after that we were on our way.

We got to Patong after the 45 minutes drive and attempted to check in, which we couldn't do, but we were able to leave our things at the hotel so that we weren't schlepping 20 lbs on our backs for 4 hours until we could check in.

After grabbing our valuables to take with us, we began by walking towards the Patong Beach through the big and central mall. We were so early that the mall was only just opening and barely any stores were open. We didn't care though, we just enjoyed the air conditioning as it was already 85 degrees outside.

We walked through the mall and down Thanon Bangla, the main road down to the beach and the central hub of Patong nightlife. This is one of those streets that looks scummier in the daytime. There are stalls and stores along the road with bars and strip clubs in great numbers. Multitudes of guys asking if you want a taxi or a tuk tuk.

All of this leading to Patong Beach where guys try to sell you on parasailing and boat rides. We decided to at least take advantage of our free time and took a walk along the beach and looked out at the sea surrounding the inlet.

After sitting in the shade and listening to the waves crash against the sand and the many people selling things we headed out to find some lunch and somewhere in air conditioning.

Finally it was close enough to 2 o'clock that we made our way back to the hotel to check in and get settled. We were all exhausted from being up early, the heat pounding down on us, and the little bit of travel we did.

Once we finally got in our room we pumped the air conditioning up and sat around getting our bearings. We still needed to decide what to do for the rest of the day and where we wanted to get some dinner.

After doing some reading online we decided on Freedom Beach. Everything we read talked about how it was one of the nicer beaches due to it being hard to get to and being surrounded by hills and cliffs. The easiest way to get to the beach is to hire a long boat and take a 10 minute ride, however the long boats will charge you whatever they please. We decided that a nice walk was in order so after going to the store to stock up on water we made our way out of the hotel and on our little 4 km hike to Freedom Beach and sunset.

Our hike took us down to Patong Beach and along the water until we began making our way up the hills and over until we began to hit resorts. We kept going until we finally hit the long dirt road past the final resort. This dirt road wound down to a mini parking lot and small food stand.

We kept past it until we hit the steep stairs in the hillside that led down to the beach. These stairs wound down and took us ride up to the beach and dirt paths led up to different sections of the beach. We took the first path that led out to a mini alcove with rocks blocking the way to the main part of the beach. We jumped up and around the rocks to the other side of the beach where we found a seat on a rock and watched the sun settle into the clouds and slowly slip down to the horizon.

After enjoying the crash of waves and watching the few people that had been on the beach leave, we followed suit knowing that we had a good walk while it would be getting darker and darker.

After all the walking we had done the days before and the uphill hike to the beach we found ourselves tired and struggling up the same steep stairs we had come down just an hour before. We finally made it to the top and began our slow walk back to Patong. We were taking decidedly slower pace but were enjoying that the heat had slipped a little bit.

Before heading back to our hotel where we were to shower, kick our feet up and go to bed, we made a stop for dinner and a quick reprieve from the pain in our feet.

Upon arriving back to our hotel we enjoyed the sudden blast of cold air from the air conditioning that we had left on and found that we had a good travel day in the end.