{"id":788,"date":"2010-12-23T10:00:44","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T00:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/?p=788"},"modified":"2010-12-19T19:10:18","modified_gmt":"2010-12-19T09:10:18","slug":"thailand-travelogue-familiar-and-surreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/2010\/12\/thailand-travelogue-familiar-and-surreal\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand travelogue – Familiar and surreal"},"content":{"rendered":"

18 October (cont) – Schnitzel and shooting<\/h1>\n

We returned to the hotel so P could make extensive use of the day spa (which she continued to do on subsequent days). I’ll admit that I did, too. It was literally a hop, skip and a jump from our room, and really cheap. I got a great massage and skin treatment out of it. Sure, I probably could have gotten the same on the beach or street but this was so much simpler.<\/p>\n

For dinner, we headed up to Patong, which is kind of the equivalent of Kuta (for those who know Bali). The popular beaches, the tourist shopping, the bars, the red light district… and the ping-pong shows<\/a> (seriously, be careful about that link). Anyway, we did none of that. Our driver, recognising that we were just out for dinner and not interested in any “action” dropped us off at Jungceylon, a large shopping mall with the promise of picking us up in a couple hours.<\/p>\n

We wandered the shops for a bit, then settled on a german\u00c2\u00a0restaurant\u00c2\u00a0for dinner. For a total of about $30, we had drinks and two all-you-can-eat buffet meals of vaguely passable standard. And then I saw it: “First shooting range in shopping mall in Thailand.” Out of morbid\u00c2\u00a0curiosity\u00c2\u00a0and the need to prove something to myself about my convictions on gun control, I felt compelled to try it out.<\/p>\n

\"Firing<\/a>
Yes, that's a real .45<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

19 October – Phuket town<\/h1>\n

This is where the locals go to shop, and hence is purportedly cheaper. I have to say that I didn’t really notice. Probably because I looked entirely like a tourist. The whole place looked and felt like Block M did when I was a youngling in Jakarta. I don’t know what it’s like now, but I remember canals, people, rubbish, heat, and shopping.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a> \"Scooters<\/a> \"Down<\/a> \"Tuk<\/a><\/p>\n

This cart is very typical in Thailand, and something I had never seen before. It serves the same function as the kaki lima<\/em> of Indonesia, being a portable street-side vending cart for all sorts of foodstuffs. It’s like Indonesia never got around to motorising it.<\/p>\n

\"Motorcycle<\/a><\/p>\n

We were at odds over what to do in the evening. Originally, we had considered Phuket Fantasea<\/a>, a theme park that hosts a nightly cultural cabaret and dinner buffet extravaganza. It came highly recommended by at least one of our friends and local tourism spruikers. Not deeming that to be sufficient, we turned to the ubiquitous Internet and judged that TripAdvisor might be a little more telling<\/a>. Once you sift through the gushing “must see” reviews, you get to the heart of the matter: dinner is mediocre, and the show is hard to follow and an average performance.<\/p>\n

So we opted for dinner at the hotel, and enjoyed some local dances without the crowds. The music was quite good (reminiscent of gamelan<\/em>) but the dancing average. About the same as what I expected from Fantasea, so I guess we didn’t lose out after all!<\/p>\n

\"Traditional<\/a> \"Thai<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Next up: I go and explore the island paradise of Phi Phi Ley!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 October (cont) – Schnitzel and shooting We returned to the hotel so P could make extensive use of the day spa (which she continued to do on subsequent days). I’ll admit that I did, too. It was literally a hop, skip and a jump from our room, and really cheap. I got a great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[131,458],"tags":[498,496,495,493,497,492],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p149Qe-cI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":800,"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions\/800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daedalist.com\/conjunction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}