Temples and Tastings Highlight First Trip to Thailand

Day 59, 2025 Grand World Voyage

Tuesday, March 4, 2025; Phuket, Thailand.

I’ve always felt a special affinity for Thailand, even though I had never been there before today. It’s because I’ve always had Siamese cats, starting with our family’s Charley and Andrew of my teenage years. About the time I turned 30, I decided I was enough of an adult to care for a cat, and Sam came into my life. I still miss him. He was followed by Cooper and Callie, a brother and sister who spent their last year with my dear friend Daisy when I ran off to sea.

(And see how cleaver I am, to weave my cats into this story as an excuse to include photographs of them. What a trip down memory lane.)

But back to Thailand – yes Siamese cats did come from there (known as Siam until 1939), according to the all-knowing Wikipedia. Today, as I visited Thailand for the first time, I didn’t see a single cat, Siamese or otherwise. I did see beautiful temples, visit crowded markets and relax by the water for a wonderful lunch.

Most of Thailand is on the Gulf of Thailand, which also touches on Cambodia and Vietnam. But our port of Phuket is an island to the southwest, on the Andaman Sea. Tourism has replaced tin and rubber production as the major industry, and the many beaches draw sun-seekers from around the world. Movies such as 2000’s The Beach have made some nearby beaches immensely popular.

I passed on visiting beaches and opted for my travel agency’s 7-hour Best of Phuket tour. We started with a visit to a Chinese shrine.

A feature of the tour was a walk through the historical heart of Phuket Old Town and the nearby temple of Wat Mongkol Nimit. I admit that I ducked into a Starbucks (I think my first of this cruise) for a cold drink and stop at the toilet.

Our lunch proved to be a highlight – seaside dining in the shade of tall trees by the Chalong Pier. We feasted on family-style dining of stir-friend pork belly and chicken with cashews, with the star being betel leaf frutters (not fritters). The betel leafs are soaked in a mixture of flour and curry paste and then deep friend with fresh prawns. In another dish, banana leaves encased steamed fish in curry paste, and a curry seafood soup that should have carried a spice warning for me. Of course, it was all washed down with a local Chang beer.

Next, it was on to the large Buddhist temple complex of Wat Chalong, where a fragment of a bone of the Buddha is kept. In one area it appeared that a monk was preparing for a ceremony. Nearby visitors purchased firecrackers, which when set off in a bunker sent loud roars through the crowds.

I had not brought my sketching materials, knowing that the tour would move too fast for drawing. As it turned out, everything was so ornate that I knew I would need to rely on photographs to capture the sights.

We ended the day with a stop at a rum distillery, with half a dozen tastings. I am not a fan of rum, so I passed on those tastings, waiting for the promised gin that we tasted at the end. I had never heard that Thailand was known for rum, and am guessing it isn’t. But I think many on our bus appreciated the nap the tasting induced for the ride back to the pier.

We couldn’t let Fat Tuesday pass by tonight without a Mardi Gras party. I had worn three single strands of the beads for the day, but switched to a fascinator of purple, green and gold feathers along with more beads for dinner. Our chefs prepared numerous King Cakes – rings of cinnamon roll-style bread with purple, green and gold icing. I’m pretty sure none had the traditional plastic baby found in king cakes from New Orleans. The ship provided masks for all.

Did I think to take a single photo? No. But fortunately my friend Crissy did and generously shared them.