To Phuket and back

(Second of two parts)

Click here to read Part I

On May 18, Startalk is airing a special made-in-Phuket edition wherein host Rosanna Roces will reveal not only her body, but also her soul in an exclusive interview where she talks about some personal matters in her life that she has never disclosed to the public.

Mounting this episode was difficult and tiring, but fun. (It was one of my most fun trips – ever.) Last Thursday, I already wrote about how we – the host and crew of Startalk – prepared for this trip. Below are some of the highlights of our trip to Phuket in Thailand.

Last April 21, after waiting for Lolit Solis until the pilot had turned on the plane’s engine (we were hoping she’d be able to catch up), we were all forced to leave for Thailand without her. Lolit, instead of boarding the plane for Thailand, took the flight to Cebu instead. "Kasi pareho lang namang mainit du’n," she pointed out later.

No, Lolit wasn’t just being a lunatic that time. She was actually playing doting sister to a younger sibling, Evelyn, who is here on a visit from Saudi Arabia where she’s working. Evelyn wanted to go to Cebu and Lolit decided to accompany her to the Queen City of the South. So, goodbye, Lolit. Without her, our Phuket trip became less fun. But it was definitely more peaceful and quiet and more relaxing to our eardrums. (For pasalubong, we gathered all the hotel toiletries in the bathroom and dumped them all on her table last Saturday).

Before we got to Phuket, we had to make a three-hour stopover first in Bangkok. At the domestic airport, I was told by my executive producer Rommel Gacho to have lunch at the airport restaurant. I protested and told him I wasn’t hungry. But he only glared at me and gave me this do-as-I-say look, so the obedient host that I am, I went reluctantly to the restaurant, along with Rosanna and her husband, Tito Molina, and their kids, Grace and Onyok and GMA sales executive Rizza Garduque and son Brian and Chinky Espiritu, who holds the moneybag.

At the restaurant, the Thai waiter assigned to our table only knew two English words: Coke and Pepsi. Since, Tito turned over Onyok to me for babysitting (so that he and Rosanna could go to the duty-free shops), I took charge of ordering for the kid (he’s 11). He wasn’t hungry and all he wanted was ice cream sundae. The ice cream sundae never came and Onyok ended up eating somebody else’s order.

Riza Garduque asked for seafood rice, but it seemed like the kitchen staff still had to fish off the ingredients from the Indian Ocean, so the order came almost after an hour. Except for the company, the lunch was a bit of a disaster – no thanks to the non-English-speaking waiter.

The most unpleasant news of the day for me, however, was when I found out that everyone in the group had already exchanged their pesos to baht (the Thai currency) at the airport while I was there at the restaurant arguing over seafood rice that came late and ice cream sundae that never arrived. The day before our departure, you see, we were advised to bring just pesos which could be exchanged to baht. (That was perfect for me because I never bring dollars with me.) But when I found about how everyone already had baht, it was boarding time and I could no longer dash off to the money exchange at the airport. When we got to Phuket, I almost threw my luggage into the hotel pool when I was told that they don’t recognize pesos there.

But I still had fun in Phuket – especially during our first dinner there: Tom yum, squid and really fresh fish with tons of garlic. From then on, I really looked forward to our meals because with every breakfast, lunch and dinner, we were fed by our executive producer Rommel Gacho like we were pigs being led to the slaughter. (You know how they fatten up pigs for the fiesta in the provinces? That was how we ate in Phuket.)

At breakfast the next morning however, production unit manager Janine Piad encouraged us to eat a lot from the buffet table because that particular day was going to be very busy for all of us and no one had a clue as to what time we would have lunch. I didn’t follow her advice and regretted it up to the end. Being a non-breakfast eater, I only had papaya and half a piece of bread.

By 4:30 p.m., we were still on the road shooting along the way – without lunch. Inside my stomach, my esophagus was already typing a letter of complaint about not having been served lunch yet. At 5 p.m. we had to be at the beach and one of the things I had to do was carry Osang on my back on my then already very weak knees. She fell right off and rolled onto the sand.

After the beach shoot, we mercifully found the time to have an early dinner in the Patong commercial district and we practically wiped out the entire stock in the kitchen of the restaurant where we ate. Tom yum practically came out of my ears and I swear I won’t be eating this in the next three years.

From dinner, we walked the entire length of the commercial district and shot some scenes showing Rosanna and myself looking at the stalls selling curio items. Only she did tbe buying because I didn’t have any baht, remember?

When we stopped by a food stall selling fried insects and worms, Rosanna dangled a 1,000 baht in front of me. Eat any insect of my choice, she said, and she’ll give me 1,000 baht. For the first time in my relatively charmed life, I felt what it was like to be in a "kapit sa patalim" situation. I was going to do anything for 1,000 baht at that point. So I picked up a black slimy beetle – hairy legs and all – and bit into it. Crunchy. But boy-oh-boy, it really tasted bad. I should have chosen the worm instead.

But I was in seventh heaven that time. Finally, I had my precious baht and I could go on a shopping spree – and I did. I saw some nice shirts being sold in a stall right outside a restaurant that featured Thai boxing and bought a few pieces for 150 baht each or roughly P180. I was happy with my purchase and proudly showed it off to the others. But my happiness was short lived. Two days after we arrived from Phuket, I went to the Greenhills tiangge and saw the same shirts selling at three for P200 – or P66 each.