The butterflies, the ride and the walk
(21.2.2013)
The agenda for Thursday was simple –
butterflies. And then some additional sight-seeing on foot.
One would think that such thing as the
Phuket Butterfly – Garden and Insect World (let's call it
Butterflies from now on) would be well known among the local taxi
drivers. Once again, I was fairly mistaken. Luckily, I had a map of
Phuket town (both the center and the whole town) so I was at least
able to show the drivers where I want to go. The other thing I was
mistaken about was the price. When all the webpages said that there's
a fixed rate 50bath within the town, they were wrong. I managed to
get the price from 100bath to 80bath and that was that. Somehow, only
walking from the guesthouse to the bus stop required refusing about
twenty taxi drivers and I wasn't sure I would have the energy to do
that the whole way to the Butterflies, as I originally intended to
walk. Well, ok, there really original idea was to take a local bus,
but the nice lady at the info told me to take a taxi, despite the
fact that on the WEBPAGE it said there's a bus going nearby the
Butterflies. Somehow, I really didn't feel like arguing that day.
So I ended up hopping on a moped (there's a first time for everything), the young driver was even nice enough to provide me with a helmet, which naturally didn't stay in place given my hair being pulled up but never mind, I survived.
At the Butterflies, we were welcomed by two lovely Thai ladies, and by lovely I mean strawberry-vanilla-icecream sweet, and by ladies I mean actual ladies ;) The welcome drink was much appreciated and much needed. The young driver offered to wait for me there as there were no taxis waiting there, but I nicely refused as we might be waiting pretty long. Also, I did intend to walk at least the way back, it naturally was NOT that far. At least for me, 4km is not far. But this is Thailand, they don't walk anywhere.
So I ended up hopping on a moped (there's a first time for everything), the young driver was even nice enough to provide me with a helmet, which naturally didn't stay in place given my hair being pulled up but never mind, I survived.
At the Butterflies, we were welcomed by two lovely Thai ladies, and by lovely I mean strawberry-vanilla-icecream sweet, and by ladies I mean actual ladies ;) The welcome drink was much appreciated and much needed. The young driver offered to wait for me there as there were no taxis waiting there, but I nicely refused as we might be waiting pretty long. Also, I did intend to walk at least the way back, it naturally was NOT that far. At least for me, 4km is not far. But this is Thailand, they don't walk anywhere.
Anyway, back to the Butterflies! I
enjoyed the drink (ice white tea with honey, yum!), purchased the
ticket for 300bath, got some food for the butterflies for later on in
the garden and stepped in.
The first part was basically a biology
class focused on insects and all kinds of creepy-crawly things from
the very beginning of the existence of life on Earth. I very much
appreciated the solid presence of evolution(ism) everywhere around me
and enjoyed the biology class, reading pretty much everything they
had to say. Naturally, all the text was in Thai and English so I
spent a LOT of time there. There were a few terrariums with notes
„Don't tap on the glass.“ on them and scoprios and tarantual in
them. By the look at them, I was completely sure they're not alive,
but the small holes in the glass and later information claimed they
were alive. Looked strange, nevertheless.
After the 'class room', there was the garden. I was surprised is wasn't as humid and hot as I expected. Honestly, the conditions outside were much worse. But based on the information, the butterflies don't exactly enjoy extreme temperatures either, so that was why.
After the 'class room', there was the garden. I was surprised is wasn't as humid and hot as I expected. Honestly, the conditions outside were much worse. But based on the information, the butterflies don't exactly enjoy extreme temperatures either, so that was why.
Long story short, I could spend there
the whole day, just watching the butterflies and being amazed and
amused. Also, one observation – you know you're sweating like hell
when the butterflies start licking you instead of the banana mash you
brought them. At one point, there was five or six butterflies sitting
on me and I could just laugh. I felt like Snowhite with butterflies
instead of birds and forest critters :D
The exhibition continued with breeding
rooms, a room where the cocoons are hanging and a room with the
caterpillars.
The last part was a museum of silk.
There was also a pond with some rather
unfriendly fish and a section with bee hives. Based on the
instructions and warnings, I skipped the bees as they may not exactly
like some colors of my clothes and I didn't want to find out how much
they wouldn't like it.
At the café I had my first proper iced
thai tea and fell in love right away. Also, sparkling water was a
nice change after all the still drinking water. I relaxed for a while
at the A/C-ed room and then headed out. As I mentioned earlier, I
really wanted to walk back, but the two lovely ladies wouldn't let
me. They didn't literally stop me physically, but I didn't want to
find out. So after discussing with one taxi driver where is it I
actually want to go („Oh, you can't walk that, it's very high.“)
they phoned some other guy who would take me there. After while of
waiting, this old grandpa on his grandapa-like moped arrived.
Alright! He asked for 100bath and as I really didn't feel like
bargaining, I took it. When we got to the top of the hill, I had to
admit two things – 100bath was a fair price (there were moments
when I thought the moped won't make it and we'll start going
backwards down the hill) and the ladies were right, it IS very high
hill. So once again I was eventually glad how it all turned out. The
view was quite something.
But aside from that one view, there
wasn't much to do there (for me, at least) so I started the descent.
For most of the time, I was convinced I was the only retard around
walking, but after while, I met a few other retarded tourists walking
both up and down the hill so I didn't worry about it anymore.
Luckily, I easily managed to 'navigate'
(myself) with only the small map I got at the guesthouse, so the way
through the old town center went without getting lost. But without
the map, I would be still roaming somewhere there trying to find my
way 'home'. That was the first proper face-to-face meeting with asian
culture and my mind was quite blown.
I was planning to také photos of those
many temples I saw along my way, but I skipped that part of the plan,
as all the temples were (logically), hidden among many houses and I
didn't exactly liked that. Also, once again, I wasn't dressed
properly to be let in.
I made my way to the familiar part of
the town, enjoyed an early dinner at the recommended restaurant
(carefully avoided most of the chilli) and went back to the
guesthouse as the next I had the whole day trip to the Phang Nga Bay
ahead.
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