Phuket, let's go to Thailand!

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Apologies for the title - I just couldn't help myself

When we woke up on our last day in Hanoi we were full of colds. The flight to Kuala Lumpur was late at night. We then had to wait overnight in McDonalds (there was nothing else there) before catching our flight to Phuket the next morning. By the time we arrived we felt more than rough. Knowing nothing about Phuket, I think fate guided us to request the taxi driver to take us to Mai Khao Beach (pronounced My Cow) and for the driver to take us to Mai Khao Beach Bungalows. It was the best place ever! We stayed for 2 weeks, by far the longest stay of our trip.

Mai Khao had 4 bungalows set just back from an endless golden beach with seemingly no-one else on it. This is nothing short of a miracle on the Thai capital of tourism that is Phuket. The bungalows were all full when we arrived, we nearly went looking elsewhere but someone was checking out and we stuck around. Too tired to keep looking. Thank God we did, the room was ready for us in no time and we slept for 20 hours. After 2 days all the other residents had left and for the rest of the holiday we had the place to ourselves! The place had a restaurant, otherwize there would have been nowhere to eat! The owners cooked 3 meals for us every day. And snacks in between. And drinks inbetween the snacks. They did a great red currry. And there was Chang beer for Mike. It was all very reasonably priced too, and we didn't have to pay until we checked out; it all went on the tab.

Mai Khao Beach Bungalows had everything we could have hoped for in a beach place. There were hammocks in the trees, swings made from logs hanging off the trees, a library of books, an array of deckchairs and sun umbrellas we could position where we liked on the beach. There was a shower under a big tree for rinsing the salt off. At night they lit a bonfire on the beach for us and left us to keep it going, which Mike loved. Our hut was big with a bathroom and even had a washing line outside and a little tap to wash your feet under. They'd thought of everything. We spent a long time doing nothing but reading and swimming. The sunsets were stunning and different every day.

On 3 occasions we rented a moped for the bargain price of 50 Baht (less than a quid) and drove around the massive roads of Phuket. They kinda reminded me of Florida or the roads in Australia to the Gold Coast. Biggest roads we'd tackled. We visited the main resort of Patong, which was just hideous. It was packed with fat burnt half-naked louty westerners crowding into McDonalds. The beach was no better than ours and was crowded with sun loungers 3 deep. We were seriously glad we didn't end up there. Shocking expensive too. Why you would go half way round the world for that is beyond me. We also went to Phuket Town which was ok and to a Gibbon Sanctuary!

The main trip we made was on a livaboard diving boat for a 2 days 1 night to the Similan Islands. They're 70km off the coast and are reputed to have some of the best diving in the world. They didn't dissapoint. There is no sediment off the islands so the water is shockingly clear. It looked like a swimming pool. Visability was about 30 metres. And the marine life was immense. It's so cool cruising around under the water witnessing this whole other world going on taking little notice of you. We spent the 2 days doing our PADI Advanced Open Water course. This entailed doing 5 dives and not much else. One was a deep (30m) dive and one was a night dive. The deep dive was to a wreck of a tune fishing boat. There were big batfish there who seemed to find us fascinating and followed us around staring at us. We saw stingrays and scary moray eels amongst much else. On the night dive I saw a sleeping Parrot Fish, but the most fun was just the lights from the boat, the shadows and sillhouettes.

5 dives in 2 days is seriopusly exhausting, plus I kept getting seasick. Amazing as it was, I don't think I'd do a livaboard again, it's a bit full on! We spent our last 2 days in Asia chilling back at Mai Khao before flying to Singapore and on to Brisbane!

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Comments

[CatBrook]

oh-wop-wow
sounds like you lucked out with my cow, stuuuuuuning sunsets and I'm extremely jealous you went diving in the Similan Islands.... it sounds like amazing!

[Jen]

Duuuude, you are so brown! Mike is so haaaaairy!