Our last day on the beautiful island of Phuket. I woke up early and took a walk around the area, getting some iced coffee (at 20 baht it would be a crime not to take advantage of this local coffee everywhere) and then hiked to the top of Windmill Point.
I grabbed breakfast with the others around 10am and then we made a plan to check out Old Phuket town. The town has a little historic center with old buildings and cute little shops. We took a taxi for 500 baht and once we hopped out we met Mr. Tong.
Ah, Mr. Tong. He jumped out at us, pointed to his Tuk Tuk and said “For 500 baht I will drive you around today and take you back to your hotel tonight! Where do you want to go? Are you hungry? I know a good cheap place! I treat you like family!”
It seemed to good to be true, but we let him take us to a restaurant he recommended. He came back 40 minutes later when we were done and drove us to the historic old town for some shopping.
We wanted to check out Monkey Hill as well, but the monkeys were sleeping when we went around 3pm, so we went back to the old town center where we met Mel.
Mel came up to me and Lauren as we sat on the corner waiting to get a taxi. (Mr. Tong realized we didn’t want to do many big money spending things and told us he needed to go big up his grandson. It’s the last we saw of him.) Mel started talking about food places we should try and how he worked on a boat nearby. He was an artist from the Phillipines and excitedly showed us a book he drew in. He also told us in exchange for a room a hostel was letting him paint their wall. I joked “I’ll remember you when you’re famous.” And he said, “I don’t want to be famous. I want to inspire.”
That night we went to the weekend market and it was huge. You could get lost in there. People sold everything from clothes and bags to jewelry and electronics. There was also a huge food market with Thai food and desserts and smoothies and fried bugs. If you ever go to Old Phuket town, come here and barter for some awesome souvenirs.
Rachel Meets China 