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As we bounced along the streets of this beach side resort town en route to the emergency room, all I could think was that it was a good thing we hadn’t decided to spend our honeymoon on a practically deserted island. When my husband, Bob, and I were planning our wedding, I pushed for a honeymoon trip to a tropical South Pacific paradise. So we researched and nearly signed up for Fiji. But right when we were preparing to put down our nonrefundable deposit in December 2006, Fiji underwent a bloodless military coup. We figured that perhaps it would be better to go where we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting stranded … or worse.

The island of Phuket (pronounced “pooh-kett”), Thailand, seemed like a great alternative. Beautiful white sand beaches, glistening turquoise water and craggy rocks poking out of the Andaman Sea would be an acceptable swap for the South Pacific. We chose Patong, giving us our tropical paradise without the political unrest. Plus we’d be contributing to the economy of an area that had been hit very hard by the December 2004 tsunami. We could do good and bask in the sun simultaneously.

Phuket has done a phenomenal job of rebuilding after the tsunami. Additionally, there is a lot of infrastructure in place to handle all the tourists who annually flock to the island. It was this infrastructure that helped Bob breathe again. His asthma was greatly aggravated by the stress of 22 hours in the air that we spent getting to Phuket, and the humidity of the tropics, not to mention the last-minute fuss involved in a wedding. Three days into our honeymoon, he awoke, unable to take a complete breath. Our hotel didn’t have a doctor on-site, but the very helpful staff offered to drive us to the local hospital. Off we went, expecting it to be like arriving in an American beach town’s emergency room: hours of waiting, followed by ridiculously overpriced, harried service.

We were wrong. The staff dealt with Bob immediately, giving him oxygen, some aspirated steroids and a shot. They wrote him a prescription for some medicines, which cost around 670 baht (or about $19), and the whole trip cost 1,070 baht (about $29), an amount that was less than our fancy dinner the night before. Everyone was very nice and, as in most places, English was the foreign language of choice.

Before Bob got sick, we’d signed up for a snorkeling tour. After stopping at an island with turquoise water and white sand to pick up more passengers, we headed out to Monkey Beach. We weren’t allowed to disembark, but we got maybe 10 feet from the water line and a group of cute gray monkeys came running over to be fed. The boat crew, led by our charming tour guide, Mr. Adi, had brought bananas for us to toss to them. Mr. Adi gave us the bananas with the stern warning not to “make them angry.”

As part of this tour, we went through the harbor of Ko Phi-Phi Don island, which had been devastated by the tsunami. It lost 2,000 people and roughly 75 percent of its buildings. But the island is bouncing back; we could see rows of both luxury and fishing boats floating in front of freshly planted palm trees, a hospital and many other new buildings. One of the unexpected consequences of the tsunami was that it had cleaned a lot of the trash that had gathered in popular tourist places, sweeping out all the plastic bottles and bags that unfortunately tend to follow vacationers. Plus, the local governments have used this as an opportunity to promote more sustainable and eco-friendly development.

We then set up shop at Maya Bay (where they filmed “The Beach”). Maya Bay had also been inundated by the tsunami. There were signs alerting us to the fact that we were in a tsunami danger zone and to head for high ground if there was an earthquake.

That night, we decided to take a tuk-tuk, which is like a motorized rickshaw, into the craziness that is Patong Beach, and got dropped off at the main drag, where they close off the major streets to everything except foot traffic. It was the first of many shopping trips. Patong is famous for its nightlife, but we didn’t find it that impressive. Unless you’re looking for, um, paid companionship, or to get drunk, there isn’t a whole lot to do. In fact, it was quite depressing to see all the bored local teenage girls sitting there sipping water or soda while a drunk, sweaty, middle-age Western tourist desperately tried to impress them.

Shopping, however, is a full-contact sport. Prior to this trip, I was intensely uncomfortable with bargaining, as it’s just not something that most Americans do. A crucial part of the bargaining process, I learned, was the calculator. The buyer and the seller would hand it back and forth with offers and counteroffers until everyone would end up satisfied.

Later in the trip, after Bob had fully recovered from his asthma attack, we hired a local guide to drive us to various Buddhist temples. Our first stop was Wat Phra Nang Sang, the oldest and most famous temple in Phuket. It is on the site of a famous 1785 battle between Phuket and Burma. At present, it is in poor condition and looks like a battle was held yesterday on its grounds. However, China, in a good-will gesture, is helping Thailand to fix it. We also visited the Big Buddha, where they are building a Buddha statue that will be 45 meters high (the largest in Thailand) at the top of a hill. There was a set-up for donations, at which we bought a bag with 37 1-baht coins and put 1 baht in 37 containers, making a wish (or asking Buddha) for something at each one. At the top sat a gong that you could ring three times for good luck.

Asking for good luck seemed to be a running characteristic in many places we visited. In the course of our travels around the island, we often were driven up one particular hill, where drivers would always honk at the top. I thought that maybe it was for safety considerations, but when asked, our driver explained that there was a Buddhist temple there and drivers were honking for, you guessed it, good luck.

The other thing that is ubiquitous in Thailand is the elephant, so an elephant trek was in order. The Asian elephant is smaller than the African elephant (Stompy on “The Simpsons” was the latter), has a bigger head, and only has tusks if it is male (unlike the African elephant, where both sexes can have tusks).

Our elephant was a freckled female around 40 years old. We sat on a bench on the elephant’s back, while the mahout (or handler) rode on the neck. It’s a weird feeling – you’re about 15 feet up and swinging back and forth in what feels like a very haphazard manner. I spent the first few minutes calculating how I could jump free should the elephant start rampaging, and wondering how strong our bench’s lap bar was. Then I relaxed and enjoyed the ride. At the end, the elephant trek company had information about the preservation of the elephant and ways in which you could help. There are about 4,000 of them left in Thailand. Considering how the elephant is practically Thailand’s national symbol, they’re trying to fix that.

On our last morning in Phuket, we realized that there was no way all of our new purchases would fit into the luggage we’d packed with us. Patong caters to the night-time set; as such, few stores open before 11 a.m. However, given that we had to leave our hotel by around 9 a.m., waiting was not an option. So we got a tuk-tuk to drive us through all the back alleys. Fortunately, after about 15 minutes of frenzied tearing up and down streets, we came across an open store and were able to buy a backpack and suitcase that could do the trick. We left Phuket reluctantly, bags completely overstuffed with souvenirs. We intend to visit again and hope that next time there won’t be any trips to the ER.

Written by Victoria Samson
Published on Express News - mysanatonio.com