Preface

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful island named Phuket in a far, far away kingdom. Legend says that in this place, with glorious sunshine bathing everything in crystal clear, the haze between the heaven and the earth has become thinner, and when the waves lapped against the shore in an ancient rhythm, time would stand still, even the most restless creature nearby could finally find peace at heart.

It’s the place of my dream and I’ve planed this journey just for too long. Finally, on a starry, starry night, we, a group of six, took a flight to this wonder land.

Starry, Starry Night

Like every other journey, happy moments came with a price. Soon we found out that it’s called red-eye flight for a reason. No matter how exhausted we felt, we could find a suitable position to tuck-in, which meant that the sleeping was no longer possible. Even little pig, who could actually doze off in any place, managed two-hour sleep at top on the flight. Lack of sleep always makes him cranky---no exception for this time. “I don’t wanna fly any more! I wanna get off!”he whined. I tried to find something to distract him, so I pointed out of the window and said: “Look!”

For a moment, I lost words to describe what we were looking at. Starlights filled the sky---from this height, the stars looked so different---bigger, brighter and so luring that almost had a holy touch.

“Are these stars?”Little pig asked hesitated, unsure of what he’d observed. “Yes, they are.”I hold my breath and unswered quietly. Starry, starry night, like that homonymous song, held soothing power even for a four year old baby. Little Pig calmed down and two hours later we finally landed safety on the Phuket.

Tips at Customs

“Are we still in China?” little pig asked when we walked down the passageway.

“No, do you see any Chinese characters?”I smiled at his question. The signs hanging over our head were written in both Thailand and English, indicating that we finally arrived.

The officer charged us 10 yuan per person for absolutely nothing when going through the customs. “Is that even legal?” I asked Zhou, who had been to Thailand several times. “Certainly not! I really wanna refused to pay, see what they could do with us.” Zhou said indignantly, “Never mind. Considering it as tips.”I said. I was too happy to let such a minor to ruin my day.

First Glimpse of Phuket

Ctrip’s pick-up bus already waited outside when we walked out of the airport. We immediately headed to Diamond Resort, the hotel we booked half a month ago. Honestly, under the cover of midnight, my first glimpse of Phuket was…sort of disappointing. I had expected to see a busy, gorgeous beach town, however, the narrow, rather a bit crappy road we passed by gave me an illusion that we were driving along some distant country road.

Unexpected Accidents

Accidents happened during a journey. I knew that but I’d never prepared for this one.

We finally arrived at Diamond Resort. After going through all the check-in process, the receptionst with a rather too bright smile informed us that for some unexpect reason, this hotel was already fully occupied and we had to move to another hotel. Although this guy focues on upgrading and emphaized that the hotel they arranged for us was a new one---I had a very bad feeling about this. He applogized for all the inconveniences and send us two bottles of red wines as gifts. What could we do with red wines? We paid fully price for three stays at Diamond Resort---a hotel I compared and compared, finally creened out from more than a hundred hotels there. And now out of sudden, without any pre-warning we were forced to move to some unknown hotel? But whatelse choice we had under such condition? Little pig already fell into deep sleep, and we were all tired, badly needed for some decent sleep.

Tropical Garden Hotel, Diamond arranged for us, was a few minutes ride away. As soon as we arrived, I knew so-called upgrading was nothing but a ridiculous bluff. The room we got was perhaps up to three-star hotel standard, not bad on the whole, but certainly far from what we’ve paid for. We decided to make it do for just one night. But if Diamond manager thought because we are Chinese and we are known for our tolerances, he could send us away with two bottle wines, he really should think it again.

To be continued...