Visiting the Butterflies

Getting up close and personal with butterflies in Phuket

On our last day in Phuket before heading to the airport we checked out butterflies and other critters at the Phuket Butterfly Garden & Insect World. It's north of Phuket Town and in an off-the-beaten-path kind of location.

For an admission fee of 300BHT ($9.23) you can get up close and personal with many butterflies, while the insects are thankfully locked away in wired cages and boxes.

In the Breeding Room a butterfly decided to hang out on me!

Upon entering the complex we were greeted by staff who gave us a sugary drink and then a tiny plastic cup filled with a bit of banana soaked in sugar water in the hopes of luring butterflies to eat.

We wandered into the hot and humid open garden area where butterflies were flying among the greenery and orchids; our driver had told us now is not the season for viewing the flowers, but we saw enough here to make us happy.

It was difficult to photograph the butterflies at first, probably startled by another group of strangers wandering in their 'hood. But eventually we found a few lazy ones or perhaps more photogenic and didn't mind us coming up a bit closer to take pictures...

There were many butterflies with various colours and patterns

We had to follow the route which included visiting an area housing scorpions, reptiles and even cockroaches! I couldn't even bear to photograph them they were so frightening to look at, particularly the latter!!

The Pupae House is a cool enclosed space where you can see pupae hanging from wired box cages in various stages of development, with the smallest pupae a lime green colour, to the older ones a muted brown-gray. There was the odd butterfly trying to stretch its wings and flying around the small cage. Again we got to have a pretty good look at its underside!

Then we managed to get close to the butterflies sans cages in the breeding room, a small enclosed area with some orchids and a table like an altar with bananas on it. Again the butterflies here seemed nonplussed to have us there and we could take even closer pictures of them.

This creature decided to feast on some sweet bananas...

Here we could observe up close the intricacies of the patterns and colours on their wings, but it was a pity to see many of them have damaged wings, which is perhaps why they didn't fly around so much.

Nevertheless it was a wonderful experience to see them up close; staff were not even around to hurry us along and in fact the brochure encouraged visitors to stay as long as they wanted before closing time at 5pm and to take lots of pictures.

The brochure explains the Phuket Butterfly Garden breeds butterflies and then releases them annually in the hopes they will help to further pollinate flowers and fruit trees.

This butterfly sadly had a damaged wing

We wonder if the scheme really works considering the captive butterflies mostly feed on bananas already peeled for them! Nevertheless, we like the idea of the garden breeding the butterflies and hopefully educating more people about the importance of these creatures in our ecosystem.

phuketbutterfly.com

Picture of the Day: Localization

Ronald McDonald greeting visitors outside his restaurant!

Ah McDonald's... the bastion of American fast food. It was interesting to see so many western fast-food restaurants in Patong, Phuket, but then again should we be surprised? It's where most of the tourists go in Phuket, and they are mainly from Australia, Russia, Germany and the United States; not everyone has adventurous palates.

But the delicious fresh seafood cooked with lime, chilli and lemongrass creating subtle but complex flavours... how can anyone pass that up?!

By the same token young Thais want a piece of American pie -- but in the case of McDonald's in Thailand it's chicken ham pie for a savoury taste and corn or pineapple pie for dessert.

Or how about dipping your chicken McNuggets into a berry-flavoured mayonnaise...?!

Nevertheless we like how Ronald McDonald puts his hands together like all Thais when they greet visitors -- "Sawasdee" or "Welcome!"

Phuket Day 3: Leisurely Day

At the north end of Patong Beach are these large rocks covered in shells

Our day was filled with more sand and sun! By the time we got out of the hotel at 10am the sun was already bearing down but we trudged on, doing our daily walk on the beach.

An amazing sunset with a parachute dragged up into the air

This time we walked all the way to the north end of Patong beach where we found some rocks covered in shells and barnacles. Nearby is an idyllic looking outdoor cafe serving drinks and food. We had more mango (why can't we get mango this good in Hong Kong?!) and a lemonade before heading back to the hotel.

A few observations along our walk -- many people, mostly Russians, Australians and Germans visiting here are severely overweight, and several women had no qualms going topless to have as even a tan as possible. They probably would have gone in the nude if they could! Obese and topless are an unsightly combination, of which we saw many...

Whenever I'm on the beach I like to hunt for shells. I find it a good exercise to be on the look out for nice-looking shells and see what I can find. Today I found more larger shells than yesterday and even a small sand dollar!

Phuket Seafood looks fancy but the seafood is well priced

In the late afternoon I checked out the hotel pool which was much longer than the one I swim in back in Hong Kong which was nice. I did a few laps and the others in the pool must have thought I was strange as they were all huddled around the pool bar or playing with their kids... what's wrong with doing a mini workout?

Nevertheless it was worth burning off a few calories because we planned to check out a restaurant called Phuket Seafood that we had seen before and full of people. Again it looked like a Chinese-run establishment, with one or two staff speaking Mandarin and a tour group of mainlanders came in for dinner.

Stir-fried kale with crispy pork

Fresh seafood was laid out on ice and we got to choose what we wanted. We chose a fish and it was weighed and priced for us on the spot which made the whole process transparent. It came steamed with chillis and lime, though hardly as spicy as yesterday's lunch. The fish was again perfectly cooked which confirms Thais really know how to cook their fish.

We also ordered fried rice with crab meat -- though it didn't look anything like the picture in the menu that featured giant chunks of crab meat... however the kale with crispy pork was delicious -- stir-fried with deep-fried cubes of pork that added flavour to the dish.

Expecting it to cost over 1,000BHT ($31.25), we were surprised to find the bill came to 845BHT including a bottle of water and young coconut.

Fish steamed with garlic, chillis and lime

We tried to ask the waitress for a plastic bag to take the young coconut home, but she had no clue what we were talking about; in the end another waiter gave us the requested bag. The level of English varies widely here and it's a pity that some have no clue what you are saying, and yet don't have the common sense to ask another person to come and assist you...

There goes our second last day in Phuket and we've enjoyed the leisurely pace here, involving lots of naps, walks along the beach and fresh fruit!

Phuket Day 2: Fishes, Cashew Nuts and More Sand

Looking up at the fish at the Phuket Aquarium

Today we started off relatively early at 9.30am as a driver picked us up to go from the west side of Phuket to the southeast side to Cape Panwa where the Phuket Aquarium is. A group of school children happened to be there at the same time as us and overall it was a neat place to visit.

We saw all different kinds of sea life, from shrimp to clown fish, electric eels, giant groupers, sharks and even sea mushrooms.They were sectioned off in relatively small tanks which seemed sad for eels and large fish who didn't have much room to move around in.

Cute little shrimp, this one with long whiskers!

Nevertheless it was neat to see things we hadn't seen before or up close. There wasn't much explanation about what we were looking at, or where their natural habitat was. We'd never seen sea mushrooms before, so colourful and looking almost like flowers.

I'd been told by a friend that Cape Panwa was a nice area, but when I saw was a small beach area; however the aquarium was right by the military base which seemed like an interesting location for it.

At the entrance of the base and every other government building and school is a picture of the Thai King who is 85 years old. His son is 65 years old, which is an interesting comparison with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles...

One big fish among small fishes...

Afterwards we headed further south to Rawai Beach. The same friend recommended this place as a good one for a seafood meal and we did just that for lunch. There are many seaside restaurants and we went to one by the beach.

We ordered mussels steamed with lemongrass, chillis, and Thai basil, but we were disappointed to see that while the mussel shells were large, the meat itself was very small! Nevertheless the broth was delicious with white rice.

Another winner again was steamed fish with lots of garlic, chillis and lime. It arrived hot over a flame which further cooked the chillis in the broth to make it even spicier. The fish was perfectly cooked, meaty and had the hint of chillis. Loved the excess garlic!

However we were very disappointed with the dessert of mango with sticky rice. Don't get me wrong -- the mango was delicious as now is the perfect time for it, but the sticky rice was hard and seemed like it was left over from the day before or not cooked enough. It was also too saccharine sweet.

Meanwhile, our fish for lunch, steamed with chills

We did a bit of shopping as well. Phuket seems to be known for cashew nuts and honey, and every other city tour includes a visit to cashew nut and honey factories. We went to a cashew nut place run by Chinese (there were red banners with Chinese characters on it) and saw how cashew nuts came from a fruit that will become ripe next month.

The nuts are extracted from the fruit using a machine and then either processed plain or a number of different flavours -- wasabi, tom yum, chocolate, paprika, honey... needless to say we tried pretty much all of them before buying some. We also tried an apple juice mixed with cashew nut juice. Who knew? It has more of an apple flavour, but refreshing all the same.

Extracting cashew nuts from the yellow fruit

Phuket is also known for rubber and our driver told us that Thailand sells a lot of latex to China. One of the ways latex is used is to make thin mattresses and we checked out a showroom where we saw lots of mainlanders lying on beds testing out these mattresses. Many bought bolsters.

We weren't quite impressed with them and they were quite expensive as well at 20,000BHT ($625).

Finally we made it back to our hotel and after a nap we did another walk along the beach at sunset. There seemed to be much more garbage washed up on the shore today compared to yesterday -- beer bottles in particular -- but no one seemed to mind. We didn't see any garbage cans for people to throw trash in...

These cashew fruits will be ripe next month onwards

It was neat seeing small kids playing on the beach, busy making sandcastles for the first time or thrilled to play in the water.

There were parachute sailings for 1,200BHT and we watched a few mainlanders try this ride that lasted only a few minutes. They were strapped into a vest followed by a thin life jacket.

A mainlander trying his hand at parachute sailing

After they were attached to the parachute they were pulled by a speedboat with another guy hanging onto the passenger to help anchor them. Must have really interesting views up there, though you sometimes have to wonder how safe those things are...