Hello once again!!  It’s Day 3 of my 5D4N Isles of Southeast Asia Cruise on the Legend of the Seas organised by Omy and Royal Caribbean Cruise.  A big “THANK YOU!” to everyone out there who have been voting for me in the Omy Royal Caribbean Cruise Contest.  In this third installment of the 5-parts blog entry, I will be sharing with you my first time doing rock climbing and a traditional Thai massage with my travel partner, Cherie!  Sounds exciting?  Read on to find out!

Day 3: Rock Climbing, Thai Massage & Phuket City Tour

Arise and shine!  After a little too much booze the previous night, I woke up from my slumber feeling light headed.  I couldn’t tell if it was the hangover effect or me having seasick.  Hurriedly, I went to wash up and prepared myself for the activities today.

“Knock knock!”  Someone’s at the door.  My roommate, Yee Leong, answered the door and it was the friendly service attendant sending our breakfast orders into our stateroom.  Food!!  That was what I needed most.

I ordered the Western breakfast set with sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs and potato rosti.  My breakfast was complete with fruit platter and yogurt for a balance meal!

I just love my breakfast by the bed while enjoying the sun and sea through the porthole.  I need food to recharge myself for day ahead!  As much as I love my comfortable bed and breakfast, I got to get going for something exciting!

This was my very first time attempting rock climbing on top deck of the cruise.  There are three difficulties to scale but I’ve only completed the beginner and intermediate wall.  Maybe I’ll go on board The Legend of the Seas to conquer the toughest wall next time!

I have to climb all the way up to the top and ring the bell.  The wall is about 12 meters high and the feeling was is great as it is very windy!  I was so focused on climbing up till I didn’t have the thought of enjoying the scenery from up there.

At about 12 noon, the ship is approaching Phuket in about half an hour’s time.  The sky was clear blue hence the weather was blazing hot.  It was a typical sunny day over at Phuket.

As the cruise was too huge to anchor at at the beach, we have to take a small ferry from the cruise to Patong Bay where we will embark on Phuket Island.  It was a fantastic view of the cruise sailing in the open ocean!

The first stop of the tour, the tour guide brought us to visit Chalong Temple, which is also a very significant temple to the locals due to its long and rich history.  Today, it has turned into a tourist attraction where tour buses will bring groups of people to visit it almost everyday. 

I wasn’t too interested in the temple initially but after looking at it for a little while, I felt that I was drawn in by the architecture and the delicate gold carvings which makes its appearance very majestic.  Both of us entered the temple and we have to observe basic practices of respect eg. no headgears or foot ware and revealing clothes are allowed.

Cherie and I took a photo in front of the statue of Sleeping Buddha, which has a very beautiful interior with greens and flowers giving the whole place a calm and serene feel.

This is the view of the first floor from the stairs leading up to the second and third floor.  Even the walls and the pillars are finely crafted with gold.  The temple is very clean and every detail are very well taken care of.  With so many tourist coming in everyday, I’m sure it is no easy task to maintain this temple as good as new.

This is the stairs leading up to the top floor where the relics were kept.  It was an insightful trip to Chalong Temple to see how the temples in Thailand differ from those in Singapore.

See that big red fruit?  It’s the Cashew Nut Factory we were at!  I’ve been enjoying cashew nut for so many years in my life and this is the first time witnessing the entire process of how the delish cashew nuts come about.

A golden cashew fruit!! I wish I can bring that home but I guess it is too huge to even to carry it on board the cruise.  This tree is unique as there are a lot of cashew fruits on it’s for decoration purposes only.  How creative of the people here!

Our tour guide explained the process of how the fruits were harvested and the factory workers cracking open the hard shell of those fruits in order to extract the cashew nut from within.

It uses a simple machine and there are poison at the outer layer which is inedible.  Doesn’t it sound like the Japanese Fugu fish?

After getting the nut out from the fruit, there’s another process to peel off the other layer of skin.  For us to enjoy a cashew nut, it comes with a tedious process. 

These are freshly peeled cashew nuts before roasting.  It is edible but there’s not much taste except for a slight nutty flavour. They do sell these natural cashew nuts for those who love the original flavour.

If you’re like me who love the cashew nuts which are roasted in a variety of flavours, this is the section to check out!  There are flavours such as honey, sesame, garlic, butter as well as unique ones like chilli, wasabi and chocolate which are very addictive!  We got to taste all the unique flavours of cashew nuts as the staffs were friendly and able to speak to us in Mandarin.

You must be thinking, cashew nuts can be made into drink too?!  Yes! The juice of the fruit is mixed with a little soda and it helps quenches thirst extremely well on a hot day in Phuket.

At 20 baht per cup, it’s a great treat for an awesome drink like this.  How I wish I could bring this drink into Singapore and sell, it will be such a great money spinning opportunity. *day dreams*

Next, we were brought to a very upmarket, tourist attraction shopping area.  They sell a range of items from their local products to jeweleries.  I wasn’t too keen to shop in such places as you know, they are out “head hunting”. 

After all the eating and shopping, we were brought up to the highest point of Phuket known as the Khao Rang Breeze.  It this place has a beautiful view across the city and a very classy restaurant here.

The restaurant looks so cosy in the day with the warm sunlight shining in.  I’m sure this will be one of the most romantic places to have a dinner date.  This place somehow feels like the Mount Faber we have here.

This was a priceless view from the slope leading to the tallest point in Phuket but we are only halfway there.  I won’t want to go up there and be fried by the radio waves as there are a lot of radio towers for the local radio stations up there.

So, this is the highest we went but the view up here was good overlooking the entire Phuket City.  Well, except for the naughty monkeys, which will be swinging around the trees, I had to keep my cashew nuts closely to me! =P,

After some walking around, the final stop of the day was… the Thai Traditional Massage!!  I’ve ever heard of how good is it but I’ve never really tried it before.  It was my first time going for such a neck and back cracking massage.

This is the private room I had while Cherie was next beside mine.  When I was changing into the loose clothing, I heard some screams from a few rooms away.  That was shocking as I thought that someone was badly fractured.  But that didn’t stop me from proceeding on with the massage.  I am so excited instead and lie down there waiting to be twisted and pull all over.

After the Thai Traditional Massage, it was dinner time at the Metropole.  It was a buffet style dinner in a casual restaurant setting.

After walking past several food warmers looking at the dishes, this little “noodle” stall caught my eye and my appetite.  The smell of the aromatic soup broth was so good and I could not wait to have a bowl of it.

Come to me, you delicious bowl of mouth water, mind blowing thing!  I couldn’t help but to take in the smell of the broth while taking photos of it.  The rice cakes are served with fried bean curd, egg, fatty pork slices and corrugated chicken blood cubes.  This is really a rare find and it’s not often found in Singapore.  The broth was tasty as there are lots of herbs such as lemongrass, garlic and spring onion used to give it a lovely fragrance.

This may not be the traditional Red Ruby but I just wanted to try my hands making it myself from the DIY dessert station.  It is definitely great to something cool to chill on a pretty hot day.

Finally, after our dinner, Mr Sun is retiring to his dreamland after a scorching hot day.  We were brought back to Patong Bay where we will board our ferry back to the cruise.

After a day spent in Phuket, it’s time for us to go back on board after thanking our friendly and caring tour guide taking good care of us.  This day was definitely one of the most memorable times I had during this 5D4N cruise on the Legend of the Seas! 

Do stay with me for 2 more parts to come to find out about my adventure on the Royal Caribbean cruise!

Do check out the media photos and videos on Omy website!

*This is a contest entry for Omy - My 5D4N Royal Caribbean Cruise Adventure.

**Do visit my Omy blog and vote for me!