Phuket FantaSea!

We rise late in the morning. Not too seedy from the antics last night but I still knew I had been drinking. Breakfast was included in our stay at Banthai so we donned our thongs and hit the buffet.

Hotel buffets have always been a hit and miss affair in my experience. Too little of the crispy bacon and too much baked beans. This place however had table upon table of pastries, breads, hot meat, cold meat, fresh fruit...let’s just say it went on and on! They also had a big egg station where they did eggs every which way. I opted for coffee, greasy bacon and sausages plus a pile of fresh fruit. I could feel the slight hang-over disappear so we headed off to see what was around.

Instead of heading left we set of up the road. It is a lot of the same as down the road but seemed a little less more exciting. After walking for a good 30 minutes or so we decide that the action is in the other direction and make a beeline to the beach front for a stroll.

So Patong Beach is quite long. It was low tide at the time and the thing that struck me the most was the amount of debris, plastic bags, bottles and junk that had washed up over night. It was quite messy and I felt a little deflated and saddened by the sight of all the rubbish on what should be a pristine, untouched strip of coastline. I quickly remind myself that we are in a high tourist traffic area and this is what happens when people don’t respect what they have and sell it all out to make money.

People to the left...

People to the right...secluded it aint but still nice

Heavy! We arrive at the area where our hotel is situated and walk back down the busy strip again. Tuk-tuk, suit, copy watch, massage, diamonds, happy endings...everything was thrown at us as if we hadn’t met them yesterday. It was hot and they still insisted on trying to shake my hand. Oh well, it is their problem that I sweat profusely from the palms. (At least I didn’t have sticky hairy palms lol). We make a few purchases, sunglasses and shit. It is baking hot and it feels like beer o’clock to me, Vicky is thinking the same.

We don’t forget our way to Fat Mama’s. No Jeaw today, we are greeted by Dee. She has a big warm smile and promptly takes our order. Chang for me, breezer for Vicky. Dee tells us that Jeaw closed up at 2am this morning from last night and went to a party until 5am. Lucky for him he starts at 2pm today. The beer is ice cold and goes down quickly...again. More puzzles and friendly chatting make the drinks fly by quickly. We opt out for lunch as the FantaSea show includes a big meal apparently. It is getting crazy hot out at this time so we decide to head back to the hotel and hit up the pool, as it has a great shady corner with spa vents.

There is a pool bar we discover that has barstools in the water. Effing awesome. We swim for a bit and decide we are in fact hungry. The bar is offering an appetizer plate so I take it, Vicky wants a chicken burger. She must have felt like some home food. More Chang beer for me while Vicky has a strawberry daiquiri. (It might be “bitch piss” but it was sweet and cold)

I was impressed with the appetizer plate. Skewer prawns, grilled market style, spring rolls, dim sum, and fish cake things. Great sauces too. As we finish our meals and drinks our waiter Jump, (lol great name!), collects our plates and delivers two ice cold peppermint oil towels and a bowl of popcorn. Nomnomnom nothing says beer by the pool like salty popcorn.

Now that we have eaten I slip off the stool into the water. I can hear my Mum telling me not to swim straight after eating or I will drown...or get a cramp or something that would cause me to drown. It doesn’t happen but the beer in my belly certainly helped me float!

By now we are ready to get showered, changed and off to Phuket FantaSea.

Phuket FantaSea is...well Phuket Fantasea. It is like Disneyland and Dreamworld had sexual relations somewhere in a dark seedy Thai strip club while Siegfried and Roy jacked off in the background. The resulting offspring is one part carnival shopping village side show alley, one part giant buffet restaurant, one part animal park and one part Las Vegas style magical cabaret extravaganza... holy shit!

Mix these four and you get...

Phuket FantaSea! 

We arrive at the gates which are like a giant funnel to the ticket booth. Our tickets were pre-paid so we show our booking details and promptly receive a ticket and a sticker to wear.

I see a pond full of Koi. Thousands of them. I could have stood there for hours had Vicky and I been alone but the hordes of tourists kept coming. The neat thing was everyone else was paying for the fish food so we could watch the fish go nuts.

Koi, wonderful Koi

Confused as to where to go we head up with the flow of people, see some metal detectors and figure that must be where we go through. Either that or we are going to be dipped or shorn!

The park area it’s self isn’t massive but it is built up fairly high to fill in more stuff. I would say 80% of the “side show” alley is made up of shops, 10% games and the rest made up of toilets and an ala carte restaurant. Then the park breaks up into the tiger kingdom, a huge restaurant and the main show entertainment centre plus an area to ride elephants.

Vicky and I set off to take some happy snaps of the park and see what is around, as it is 6pm and the show doesn’t start until 9pm. Buffet has officially started but we have a few hours to kill first. The buildings are hilarious. Some are gaudy white and mirror tile affairs and others are themed to the side show or souvenirs you can buy.

White mirror shop. Full of expensive stuff

Shiny disco elephants!

The main entertainment centre is built like an old Thai style castle, as if it had been discovered somewhere in the far northern jungle. They did an awesome job to make a knock-off 700 year old ruin out of cement and fibreglass. Seriously! If you had blind folded me and told me you were driving me to an ancient Thai temple where they worshiped elephants I would have believed you...had I not turned around and saw the giant gold restaurant!

Totally authentic old palace...except for the Swedish girl in the green slip...lol

More of that later. We go and check out the tiger kingdom. At the entrance we are lured with the promise of white tigers. Vicky is hooked and is off so I follow. There is a huge sign that indicates flash photography is forbidden as it upsets the animals. Good, it is in enough languages that no-one should misunderstand the picture of a camera flashing with a line through it.

No camera "flash" lol

There are a few animals in each window. Most of the habitats look pretty good. The snake one is funny as you are looking through a window beside you for a snake and the last thing you know is above you the roof is perspex with a big snake having a snooze. Don’t ask me about the pelicans. Just don’t. I wanted to break them out L

Frogs! I think...are they rocks?

Snake! Plus one on the roof.

Black lights crap me up. Where is the white man-kini when you need it?

We muddle our way through some funky black lighting and finally after all the wandering we come to the white tigers.

Vicky spots a tiger and gets excited!

There are three of them. And remember, no flash photography. Obviously the family from Hong Kong can’t read what was clearly Mandarin writing, (I think they do Cantonese in Hong Kong...), or they don’t know what a big red circle with a big red line means. This brings about a funny point. In Macau and Hong Kong whenever we went to a show that clearly said no flash photography it felt like a competition to see who could set their flash off the most. Really fucking annoying. Not for me, for the animals! The tigers were nice, hard to photograph due to low light and no flash, lol, but I still had the urge to break them loose...so they could eat the little Greek girl banging on the glass while her Dad took photos next to the sign and picture that indicated do not cross/do not tap on glass.

The one ok shot without too much shake.

Next stop The Golden Kinnaree Buffet restaurant.

Kinnaree are half-bird half-woman of legendary beauty and grace. You will notice a few of them getting around, (not really they are sculptures...), Thailand. Very pretty looking with feathers and big perky boobs. The most famous kinnaree in Thai history if Manora. A Chaing Mai monk in around 1450 wrote a big book full of stories called “Pannas Jataka”. Manora appeared as a heroine in one of the stories. So yeah, famous to Thai people.

The Golden Kinnaree...

This is an all business, in and out with a big happy smile place. It seats 4000 hungry guests. Some do dinner and show like we did. Others skip the buffet and just attend the show. Some even just pay for the buffet they put on. All you can eat food from everywhere. Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, western. It was all there. Unfortunately because of the huge amount of people like up to 4000 it was hard to get a fresh dish or the good stuff. A bit like the prawn curry at the bowlo on Sunday. If I could suggest one thing on your visit to Phuket FantaSea it would be to skip the buffet and do the show. Either eat at the first restaurant there or eat before you go. It isn’t that great. You might get lucky and be seated next to some warm friendly people or, you might get seated with a couple that didn’t look up from their food or say a word to each other. In fact trying to make eye contact to smile at them was kind of fun for a while. Grub sorted now we wait for the show.

We wait outside of the giant elephant theatre thing.

To be precise, it is the Palace of the Elephants. A 3000 seat theatre, the outside constructed like a Sukothai-era stone palace. An interesting fact is there are 999 elephant statues all around the palace. Interesting, 999 must be auspicious or something. Why on 1000? Anyway, we have a chance to check out the elephants walking around and giving rides. The mahouts and elephants are very talented. (Mahouts are the trainer/owner/rider of the elephants, we will meet some later on in Phuket so I’ll save the back story for then!)

Randoms riding elephants...we will wait for the safari to ride ours

Not one single incident and there were some fucking morons around. Running in front of the elephants, grabbing an ear without permission...you get the idea. These guys were good not to kill anyone!

Into the theatre we go. 3000 people lined up in no particular order. Just lines and ropes funnelling us in from all sides to a camera drop off area. Ingenious idea. This way no one will take photos or videos during the show and piss off everyone else doing the right thing. The ropes and lines now form into gates so we head for ours. A few staff help us to our seat and in no time at all the theatre is packed. The last thing we saw before the show started was a young couple with a baby that looked about 6 weeks old, (it was tiny. Like newborn size and was asleep thankfully. I know people still want to do stuff after children but shit, let them grow up so they can enjoy it first!)

The show was pretty awesome. It included acrobatics, dancing, stunts and a magic section. The story behind the show is that of Kamala, to my knowledge it is just a story for the show, complete myth and it was impossible to follow. It was a good thing the performers were great so I didn’t have to focus on the story. I’ll try to re-tell the story for you here.

It is about a young prince destined to rule a kingdom with his faithful elephant Iyara. The kingdom was full of wealth, prosperity and happiness. The problem was that the essence of the true Thai people was lost as they succumbed to greed and selfish desires and darkness fell upon the land. (Interesting theme for the story considering we are all in a giant theatre in a park designed to rely on its patrons greed and material needs...lol) So the guardian spirits of the land cursed the Prince and his faithful elephant turning them to stone until the Thai people could learn to be good and live in harmony with the land again.

And so the story revolves around the people of the land and another prince trying to sort out the evil to bring prosperity back to his people. I wish we could have taken photos to show you the amazing costumes and dancing. Oh well you will just have to go yourself!

The show came to a close with a great fight scene, the whole cast got into the action smashing up the place. And the pyrotechnics were awesome. I shat my pants 4 times, every time they shot off a canon I literally jumped out of my seat. Sucked in to the new born couple in the FRONT ROW next to the canon! No sympathy lol. I am not anti-baby I am anti-newborn at big expensive cabaret shows.

Some pre-show dancing. They were pretty good it was very much like Thai dance.
The little guy in the golf cart was pretty happy too, even if he was a racial stereotype...

The palace at night. Very Tomb Raider like

We transfer back to the hotel in a pink shuttle bus and it is almost midnight so we flake out in the air conditioning. Tomorrow is another big day, Phi Phi Island tour for a full day in the sun.

I’m off - Chris