Happy Chinese New Year from Phuket

There is a lot to be said for “living” in Phuket, as we seem to be doing currently, and we hope that this blog will show how we are enjoying just a fraction of it…
Firstly, an island that enjoys the presence of many different cultures is great fun particularly as each community celebrates its own festival days… and the other communities get involved in the celebrations! Hence, Phuket celebrated Christmas and New Year, celebrates the Muslim and Buddhist holidays, and recently enjoyed Chinese New Year festivities as well as a Phuket Old Town anniversary. What a bonus to be in the thick of such good cheer!

So 23 January 2554 found us in town,

wandering and picking through food stalls, listening to speeches (understanding nothing and wondering why so many people were saying “song ha ha ha”… till we realised, that is ‘two-five-five-five’ in Thai! Pronounced sawng, haa), and then…. Watched the most spectacular 2 hour display of team acrobatics, tumbling and gymnastics on stage, all with wonderful, creative costumes!

Of course, dragons were busy that night, as they will no doubt be this year, the Year of the Dragon.

This fellow greeted us at the Phuket Town celebrations, again a time to wander along the closed-for-walking streets and wonder at the stalls, people, decorations,

artworks (from large artworks celebrating Phuket’s notorious electrical wiring to intricate fruit carving and roses from banana leaves),

small parades (Jill's photo: thanks!)

and dancers.

Being amongst Buddhist communities and Chinese communities you are constantly reminded of people’s beliefs, prayers, hopes and dreams of good fortune. Shrines, from tiny ones at doorways to grand beautiful ones alongside company offices, display food and beverage put out daily for the spirits;

sudden deafening fusillades of firecrackers chase away bad spirits; fishermen would not go to work without prayer flags draped over the prow of their longtail boats, as do tourist long-tails and many of the small commercial boats;

many entrances to temples are fronted by a snake (Naga) for protection, and the temples and grounds are beautiful.

Surrounded by these daily reminders of our small part in the greater order of things, we hope to benefit from all the positive spirits in attendance!

Of course, Phuket has no end of lovely views and activities that we like to share with our visitors, as we did with Erik and Diana, who spent a week with us recently. They had previously done many of the land sights, so this time it was to be mostly the pretty, less-touristed areas,

dinghy trips up a little river accessible at high tide only,

and … plane spotting!!

With the runway going clear across the strip of island allocated to the airport, the planes coming in must get very low over the beach on approach – the runway starts where the beach ends: an opportunity to lie on the sand directly beneath the incoming plane (whee haa!) and hear and see it roar over your heads!

Of course, we also pleased the local vendors by eating local fare, drinking cocktails,

making use of beach loungers, and greeting Lucky the elephant on a beach (not sure who was the most happy!)

The island always offers special sunsets.

So now we sit at Boat Lagoon marina, and this time are moored in a different berth from before; our neighbours are a stilted fishing village on one side; noisy motor boats for day-trippers (each with 3 x 250hp outboards) that belch smoke and petrol into the water on the other, adding to the litter in the filthy water; a dredger and an excavator on a barge. It is not pretty; it is smelly; it is a working part of the marina. And it is here that we see young men under the water alongside our boat on festival days, chipping huge oysters from the pontoons which are no doubt for sale to festival revellers.

Knowing their origin, we avoid those oysters but watch the activities with great interest, and would not miss out on any festivals or celebrations for the world!

It is indeed our good fortune to be in Phuket!