May 9th, 2013 - Lizard

Random Picture of the Day: Lizard on a Barbed Wire Fence.



- LuckyStar

May 5th, 2013 - Thai Massages at Panwa Beach

I am a delicate flower. I know this now. Many a person has said it before due to my slight frame and quiet disposition and I scoffed and waved my hand dismissively at them, but no, really, I am a delicate flower. Few things have made this more apparent to me than getting a Thai oil massage on the beach today. Ow. Now, I don’t think these things are supposed to actually hurt, but I was in worse shape when I got off the table than I was before I got on. It is therefore my conclusion that I was doing it wrong. Hence the whole delicate flower thing.

April 26th, 2013 - Makham Bay and Dilapidated Buildings

Ever heard of Makham Bay? Neither had I. And there’s a reason for that. Geo and I took a nice little walk in that direction, only about 1.4 km, because we’ve seen the signs at the sides of the road and figured, hey, why not? It appears to be nothing more than a fishing port of some kind (or a docking port? Is that a thing? Regardless, there was a little pier and a couple of boats), sort of off to the side and a bit of a trek over roads not-frequently traveled.

April 15th, 2013 - Cape Panwa Viewpoint

Random Picture of the Day: The View from Cape Panwa Viewpoint.



- LuckyStar

April 8th, 2013 - Klong-Mu-Dong Views Point

After taking the shuttle bus to Panwa Beach and stopping at The Beach Bar for some of their killer papaya salads, we finally decided to take the trek up to Klong-Mu-Dong Views Point. It was not as much of a hike as we’d anticipated. Here we’d been avoiding it, thinking it was like three kilometers past the beach or something, but it turns out it isn’t far at all.

April 4th, 2013 - Sunrise

Today we have another random Sunrise in Panwa picture for the blog!




Yes, you read that correctly, I was (briefly but not regrettably) awake to witness a sunrise. Wonders never cease here in Phuket.

- LuckyStar

March 28th, 2013 - The Sea Cucumber

Topping today’s list of strange creatures: The Sea Cucumber.



We ran across this little guy during low tide at Ao Yon beach. By little, of course, I mean disconcertingly large. Bigger than my hand, smaller than a breadbox—you get the drift. It didn’t do much…mind you, it was trapped in a puddle so I can hardly judge (I’ve done less in a day without being trapped in a puddle, so I think we can give it the benefit of the doubt here).



We are fairly certain after having poked it with a stick (humanely and with the utmost care for the Sea Cucumber’s physical and psychological wellbeing) that this is the bottom of the Sea Cucumber.



Geogirl and I stared at it for a while. It may or may not have stared back, we couldn’t really figure out which end was which. Regardless, we thought it necessary to share these pictures so that you, too, can experience the nightmare/really weird dream-fuel that is a Sea Cucumber.

- LuckyStar

March 25th, 2013 - Storm at Panwa Beach

We took another trip to Panwa Beach today. It was sprinkling a bit when we left, but by the time we reached the beach it was pouring rain. Not pouring rain like it does in Canada, either. This was a torrential downpour. Even our love of rain couldn’t stop us from seeking shelter after a few minutes of getting pelted by it. We waited out the storm in On the Beach, a restaurant at Panwa Beach, and enjoyed some papaya salad and drinks while watching the sea churn in the distance. The Big Buddha and all the lights and hills across the water were almost completely invisible through the storm. It was much more fun to watch from inside, but the ocean during a storm is a beautiful thing to see.

A picture can’t do this storm justice, but trust us, it was staggeringly powerful.

March 13th, 2013 - The Wasp Saga Continues

Our landlord stopped by today to deal with the Wasp Problem for us. Now, I don’t have a ton of experience with exterminating insects, but my granddad (hi grandpa!) has a pretty practical way of getting rid of wasp nests. It involves some very sneaky ninja work, where you take a plastic bag and go out at night when the wasps are asleep (or so you hope) and you knock the nest into the bag and tie it up before they catch on to your devious little ploy and stage a counterattack.

March 11th, 2013 - Land of the Lost Flip-Flops

Have you ever wondered what happened to that flip-flop you lost years ago to the cruel and crafty designs of the ocean? Well, we found it!





Like socks taken as sacrifice by the dryer gods, lost items all have to end up somewhere. Turns out that Ao Yon beach is the Land of the Lost Flip-Flops. We’ve passed by this particular palm tree dozens of times and only today noticed that it is covered in flip-flops.  From the bottom of the trunk to the very top, dozens upon dozens of mateless flip-flops that have washed up on shore have been nailed to the tree. It’s quite a sight. I kind of love this place.



- LuckyStar

March 8th, 2013 - Pancakes at Panwa Beach

We took advantage of the shuttle bus today to visit Ao Yon Beach, which cuts a considerable distance off of the trip to Panwa Beach. Under normal (walking) circumstances, it’s about 3 km, so you can imagine how thrilled we were to avoid that. And because Panwa Beach is so gorgeous, here’s another picture:

March 7th, 2013 - The Free Shuttle Bus

You’ll never guess what our hotel offers: free shuttle bus service.

Yet another example of my unparalleled talent at finding the most difficult possible way of doing something, only to find out much later that there was a simpler solution right in front of me all along.

That’s right, we’ve been walking all this time when there was a shuttle bus right there. In fact, I think we even stepped around the bus a few times on our way out, so intent were we on completing the 3 km roundtrip walk to Ao Yon Beach, or the 4.6 km walk to Cape Panwa Village. Yep, I sure earned that university degree; it serves me well.

Regardless, we were quite thrilled to discover this. The bus comes every two hours and drops people off at Ao Yon Junior Beach (meaning that it is a far shorter walk from there to Secret Cove) and to Panwa Bay Village, where we went for dinner tonight. We stopped at Live India for the second time and had some absurdly delicious masala kofka, mixed vegetable korma, and bombai aloo.

And then we walked home. Because that’s what sandy-feet do. They walk. Even when they don’t have to.

- LuckyStar

March 4th, 2013 - Panwa Beach

Panwa is just a tiny corner of Phuket, but it has plenty to offer. After having explored the main areas of Panwa (primarily Cape Panwa and the Ao Yon beaches), we’re now pushing out a little further to see what else we can find. It’s a slow process, mind you—we are going to be here a while so we’re trying to draw it out as much as we can—but a worthwhile one.

Today we wandered up the hill, then up a few more hills because wow this place is hilly, past Ao Yon Senior and Ao Yon Junior beaches and all the way up to Panwa Beach. We’re talking a 40 minute walk, at 3.1 km one way, so a good trek but not unreasonable.

Wandering past Ao Yon beach.

February 26th, 2013 - Pancakes, Storms, and Possessed Air Conditioners

My pancake addiction is unrelenting. Geogirl and I went to Secret Cove this morning for a delicious pancake breakfast and enjoyed a brief but pleasant walk along the beach—brief, due to the heat.

It was 33^oC. I’m used to insane temperature changes at home—sunny one moment, freak snowstorm  the next—and I barely notice most of the time (only enough to complain about it, naturally). But here, three degrees higher than usual seems to make a huge difference. It was positively sweltering today, even though it was overcast. And, of course, we walked the 3 km roundtrip to Ao Yon and back, which includes multiple hills, so by the time we returned home we were both exhausted and in desperate need of air conditioning.

February 15th, 2013 - Panwa Bay, Live India, and Walks Along the Beach

We took a long walk up to Panwa Bay Village and along the pier today.

The Pier.

Panwa Restaurants - Ship Inn Bar and Restaurant - 2/5 Stars

It's a good restaurant, but the Secret Cove is literally right next door. The Secret Cove has a more extensive menu, better service, cheaper prices and more comfortable seating. The chairs at the Ship Inn don't allow you to slide your legs under the table with any comfort, which gets annoying very fast. The service was decent, but again, Secret Cove was better. And finally, the food also left me wishing we'd just gone to the Secret Cove instead.

Over all, not a bad place, but due to its location (right next to a better and cheaper restaurant), I doubt we'll ever go back.

We give this restaurant a 2 on the Regrettable to Edible Scale of Restaurant Judging.

February 12th, 2013 - Ship Inn, Snails & Hermit Crabs

We had dinner at the Ship Inn Bar & Restaurant tonight, which is adjacent to the Secret Cove. It didn’t win us over the way Secret Cove has, but the food was good and it has the same view. The tide was very low when we went out—so low that we could walk far out along the sandbars.

Ao Yon at low tide

It was along these sandbars that we found entire little ecosystems thriving in the sand. There were thousands of shells, most of them tiny, and most of them very much inhabited. This was pretty thrilling to us—not something I’ve had the chance to experience in Canada before, and never to this degree in Mexico. We spent the better part of an hour combing through the wet sand, inspecting all of the snails and hermit crabs. I took a ridiculous amount of pictures, but I’ll show some self-restraint and only post a few here:



- LuckyStar

February 6th, 2013 - Violently Stupid Wasps

A Wasp. Or Possibly a Bee.

There is a nest of wasps lurking beneath our balcony. They might be bees. Hard to say. What we do know for sure is that these wasps are violently stupid. Both Geo and myself have been stung now, and neither of us are happy about it. She was stung on the wrist and had to dig out the stinger. I had a wasp fall down the back of my shirt. Yeah. You can imagine how entertaining I found that.

The thing is, I was just sitting there, minding my own business, totally willing to peacefully coexist with this wasp. Out of nowhere, he suddenly notices me (thirty minutes into flying aimlessly around the balcony and knocking into things), and he divebombs me. I don’t even know if it was intentional.

It looked like he’d gotten lost, confused the gas pedal with the brakes, and just flew into me at full speed. At first he bounced off, stumbling around a bit like he was drunk, and then he somehow managed to fall down the back of my shirt, presumably because it seemed like a good idea at the time. It was about five minutes later that I realized this.

Good news: neither of us went into anaphylactic shock! No allergies for us, apparently. This is useful to know.

Better news: the wasps die after stinging you. And I’m not talking about a simple dropping-dead-out-of-the-sky kind of death. Oh no. They land on their backs and start freaking out, whipping around in little circles on the concrete while buzzing very loudly for a solid five minutes, around and around and around. It was quite a production. A touch melodramatic, if you ask me.

Now, when we come out in the mornings, there are little wasp carcasses strewn about all over the balcony, and armies of tiny ants dragging them away in disturbingly large pieces. The wasps seem to be ramming their little wasp bodies into stationary objects, such as the wall or the balcony door, and they do so with so much zeal that it kills them. Hence, the wasps being violently stupid. We don’t understand what’s wrong with them, but at the rate they’re killing themselves off, we may soon no longer have a wasp problem.

- LuckyStar

February 5th, 2013 - Ao Yon Beach

Ao Yon Beach (By Secret Cove)

Geo and I walked to Ao Yon Beach today, intent on exploring the section of beach that lies around the corner from Secret Cove. I’m not sure if it has its own special name, but it’s a lovely spot. There seem to be frequent weddings (or wedding photoshoots, at least) taking place in this particular area, no doubt due to the scenery.

January 31st, 2013 - Central Festival, Phuket Aquarium, and the Not-Actually-A-Supermarket Supermarket

Internet, as it turns out, is a lot harder to figure out how to set up when all the instructions are in a foreign language.

I know, I know; you’re asking yourself, “But Lucky, why didn’t you just use Google translate like a normal person? Wouldn’t that have been a better use of the one day’s worth of internet from the front desk that you paid a ridiculous amount for?”

Well, that’s an excellent point you have there. But you see, that would have been too easy. I’m not the type to take shortcuts; if there’s a hard way of doing something, I will find it.


In my defense, though, most of the words I needed translated were actually in pictures and thus couldn’t have been translated by Google anyway.

After a few days of trying to get it figured out on our own, we reached a state of internet-deprivation that we could no longer endure, so we went to the Central Festival mall in Phuket Town to consult the professionals. The professionals being the very nice and very patient ladies at the AIS shop in the mall.