Phuket Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Bangpae Waterfall and Old Town Street Market

So far we experienced most of the things we wanted in our trip to Thailand: Khao Lak friendliness, The diving (Part I and Part II), The Thai food, and the most of the Phuket island. To round up our vacation we wanted to visit Phuket Gibbon Rehabilitation Center, Bangpae Waterfall and Old Town Street Market.

We started with Phuket Gibbon Rehabilitation Center. The Center lies in the northern part of the Phuket island. We used our valuable scooter skills and found the Center easily. It was very simple and descriptive place. The center was founded in 1992 and is based on volunteering and donations. People working there take care of gibbons, that were taken from the forest illegally. Mainly they are used as a tourist attractions or pets. After rehabilitation the suitable candidates are released back into the forest.

There was a billboard with pictures and description about particular (well-known) lady who is using her captured gibbon to get money from tourists. She is a regular visitor in night clubs in Phuket where tourists do all sort of things with this gibbon for a money exchange.

Behind of these sad stories there was a hope. A hope for better life of gibbons on the Phuket island.

Our guide (volunteer)

We were lucky enough to get close to some of the gibbons in the rehabilitation center. Most of them are kept in another location far away from human, where they have potential to be released back to the nature. Our tour guide (volunteer) explained us some stories about gibbons kept there. We immediately fell in love with a female gibbon called Tam. She is a permanent resident at the center due to her physical disabilities. Tam was previously kept as a pet and when her wild instincts caused her to disagree with her human owner. He beat her and left the resulting injuries untreated far too long. By the time Tam received help, the only way to save her from dying of blood poisoning from the infected wounds, was to amputate a hand and a foot. Subsequently her new owners tried to house her with other gibbons. An attempt that failed when Tam was attacked and lost 3 fingers on her remaining hand. Shortly after this event Tam was brought to the center. Despite all this, Tam gets on with her life as everyone else. As a matter of fact she seemed to be very happy and full of life now.

Tam

Tam (copyrights Phuket Gibbon Rehabilitation Center)

Tam's best friend Bo

Like in Elephant Nature Park 3 years ago, we learned again that supporting any kind of animal show or activity as a tourist is not a good idea. Whether it is about elephants, tigers, gibbons or any other wild animal think twice before supporting such behavior.

With sadness in our eyes we hope for better future. Nevertheless we moved on to the nearby Bangpae Waterfall.

On the way to the waterfall we encountered some local people...

The path was rather easy, yet very humid and it took us about 20 minutes to reach the waterfall.

We were not in a mood to put our swimsuit on. Hence we went back to the hotel to get ready for the evening street market. The Street Market was on the west side of Phuket Old Town. Despite the rain there were a lot of people. The market was all about clothes and food.

In the last evening we headed back towards the hotel where we packed our stuff for the next day fly back home. The next day we had just enough time to visit The Cook again and taste some great pasta.

Jerneja and The Cook

At the end of the trip to Thailand we were again not disappointed. This part of Asia is such a great place to be. Let's see what comes next!

Greetings until the next time,
Boris & Jerneja

Southern Phuket

Next days were dedicated for cultural and on-land underwater wildlife education. But before we headed off towards new adventures, we needed to enrich our stomachs. We chose Pancake Corner where sweet pancakes and salty eggs with bacon makes sense.

And off we go. We went to south part of the island. First stop Big Buddha. It lies on top of the hill and it could be spotted from all over the island.

Due to it's perfect location the view from the top is simply outstanding.

It is a 45 meter tall remarkable Buddha statue. Locals told us there are ongoing constructions around the Buddha going on for past decade and it doesn't seem to stop any time soon.

selfie o'clock

construction site

nice and clean view

We put our helmets on and continue our journey.

...but first, let us take a selfie...

Next stop was Wat Chalong which is considered as 29 the most important buddhist temples of Phuket. You be the judge.

For the last southern point of the island we decided to visit Phuket Aquarium. We witnessed some odd animals like electric eel, color-free fish and even fake version of mermaid.

To conclude our trip we treated ourselves with some spicy Thai food.

More animal and gourmet experiences to follow. Stay tuned!

Greeting from Phuket,
Boris & Jerneja

The return to the island

The return to the mainland was bitter-sweet. We already missed the diving, but we knew that more adventures await us. We started off with delicious dinner at our favourite restaurant in Khao Lak, where lobster was the star of the evening.

As entree we got onion rings with spring rolls and home made spicy sauce

Table was nearly big enough for the star of the dish

To recover from 4 day liveaboard we had to eat a lot.

American breakfast

We decided to spent the rest of vacation on beautiful Phuket Island.

We settled down in Phuket Town. This part of the island is not known as the best place to be as a tourist. Therefore perfect for us. It was not crowded and a lot of local people live there. We found a very interesting restaurant in our guide book owned by Thai chef, who was spending some time in Italy. Thus his food is supposed to be a mixture of Italian cuisine with Thai enrichment. The restaurant is simply called The Cook and this name was already promising enough. Nevertheless we needed to experience that. From the street it was really hard to find restaurant, since the restaurant's logo has almost fully faded away. Once we found it, we went inside. There were a lot of pictures of pizzas with all sorts of toppings like green and red curry with chicken, pork with coconut-milk, sea food, etc. We were amazed after a waitress hand over a menu. Our decision was quick: green curry pizza with chicken and shrimp pizza.

Food was delicious and we were certain to come back. We rented a scooter and started our journey around the island. One of the reasons we visited Phuket in particular was to accomplish another visit of the Hard Rock Cafe. Therefore, we headed off to the west side of the island called Patong. As a matter of fact this is the most touristic place in probably the whole Thailand. Patong is a half an hour of scooter ride away from Old Town where we were staying. We arrived there in early afternoon and we saw a lot hangovered young and old people, weird dressed men and women and yet a few people still drinking in a bar or club from previous night(s). We were looking for Hard Rock Cafe and voila...

Again we were not disappointed about HRC, in the middle of afternoon there were only few people inside the cafe nevertheless we experienced live music of a local band.

View on the street we awesome, specially this 3-wheeled-pancake-maker.

For a dinner we chose The Hooters where the food was very american-ish.

BBQ ribs

Fried chicken

This was more of a gourmet experience. More cultural and natural to follow, stay tuned.

Greetings from Phuket Island,
Boris & Jerneja