Phuket | MY Doramac

Hi Everyone,

It’s Wednesday the 3rd of March. We are still waiting to find out if our Vitron Inverter can be fixed or if we need a new one. Things just move way too slowly here…. Our relaxing, easy going, laid back visit to Thailand has been anything but. So far, during this Year of the Tiger, we are running into its claws! We have done some touring while waiting to hear about the inverter. Here is part 1 of Touring Old Town Phuket.

DoraMac

Phuket Town Treasure Map Tour ….part 1

We came to Phuket to relax, see some sights, and check out some boat yards. Randal had been here 10 years ago on his bike tour and had done quite a bit of touring on Phuket. So far this visit, with all of our unexpected boat issues, Randal has had to spend almost all of his time getting them resolved. They all began when we swapped boat yards to “save money” and to be closer to all of the marine supply and service shops here at Boat Lagoon. Not that Royal Phuket Marina was so far away; but you had to either walk several miles to the marine shops and small supermarket, or you could take the half-mile short-cut, including a tiny bit through brush crawling with ants, ugh! and then walk across the new construction area. So moving seemed to make sense. The channel between the two marinas is so shallow even at almost high tide that we had to basically crawl the 8 tenths of a mile between the marinas with barely enough water to keep us from sticking in the mud and were only able to breathe a sigh of relief when we were safely tied to our berth. But like a bad horror movie, as soon as we hooked up the shore power, our rear salon/pilot house Air Con stopped working. Then more importantly our Inverter stopped working. The inverter changes our DC current to AC current which we need for most of our appliances though not the frig exactly, thank goodness. I only sort of understand. Luckily there is an Air Con shop here and a Vitron Inverter dealer here too. The Air Con guys did get us the parts we needed and some spares and didn’t charge for their time which was nice. The inverter people came and mostly have no idea even when they hooked it up to their diagnostic computer. They do have a pile of old broken inverters that no one could ever fix. Doesn’t bode well especially since the company is in Holland and there a 3 day weekend here in Thailand. I’m writing this Monday so hopefully things will be back to normal tomorrow and Mick, the local Vitron deal will have some answers from the Dutch company. As it is now, Randal was able to jury rig everything so the AC power works with shore power or when we are underway; but not when we are at anchor. The bottom line is that we need our inverter fixed or we need a new one which, with shipping, costs about $4,000 US. I guess it will be rice and beans for dinner!

In the mean time, I have gone touring. Our cruising friends Rick and Suza from Voyager are here too. They had come to Boat Lagoon for the boat services. This past Friday, Suza and I took ourselves on a walking tour of Old Town Phuket. Or rather Suza took me. She had been before but hadn’t had time to follow the walking tour. Both Randal and Rick had boat work to do and didn’t need our help so off we went feeling just a tad guilty. However, we both agreed that had Rick and Randal been there we would have spent more time in hardware stores and too little time really seeing the sights so it worked out best for everyone. If we have time, and he wants to go, I’ll go back with Randal and we can see the sights and the hardware shops and I’ll be okay.

Walking tour map of Phuket Town

Phuket Town is a small part of Phuket Island located close to the east coast. It was the west coast, especially around Patong Beach that was hardest hit by the December 26^th, 2004 tsunami. It is now rebuilt and we spent one afternoon there and that’s all either of us needed. It appeared a mix of Vegas, Atlantic City, and Key West. Great if you like that kind of thing. We’d gone to look for “Charlie” who’d owned a tour company back in 2000. But that’s the Patong story and this is the Phuket story.

According to the Phuket Guide book “most of the buildings in present “Old Town Phuket” were built over 100 years ago when the mining industry (tin) began to prosper. The architectural style of these buildings clearly shows the influence of “Sino-Portuguese” which had more depth than width.” The walking tour map says that during the 19^th century Hokkien Chinese arrived bringing the row house architecture that we definitely also saw in Singapore. Like George Town and Singapore, Phuket was an important trade center for Indian, Malay, Arab and European traders. I found Old Town worth visiting, but it certainly didn’t appear to have the vitality or ethnicity of George Town, Penang. It was more like an “older town” housing a modern way of life than an “Old Town

Basically I followed Suza around having no specific interest of my own. She was a great tour guide and both of us had cameras so we took zillions of photos.

Suza snapping a photo of the Bank of Ayudhaya Sino-Colonia building.

A new pastel apartment complex built in the “row house’ style.

There were wired everywhere! It was hard to get good photos. Now the overhead wires are being buried underground in the designated Old Town area to be less obtrusive. Several days after this Randal and I went back and did the hardware tour of Phuket Town. We walked down this street to check out the supermarket at the far end. We also found that this was a good place to catch a taxi.

Suza taking a photo of the chubby blue yoga figurines!

One of the best parts of touring with another “cruising lady” is that you can skip the hardware shops and browse in the souvenir –local products shops. We’d asked if taking photos was okay and were told yes by one clerk only to have another one several photos later tell us no. Suza did buy a pewter-looking tin bud vase decorated with elephants. And I have to admit that when Randal and I were in town we returned to the shop and I bought one too because of its elephant motif.