Advertisement
Published: April 25th 2010
Edit Blog Post
April 2 - April 12 Sadly our time travelling is coming to an end and it is hard to believe we are in our final month. We fly home on May 1st and as excited as we are to catch up with family and friends it is going to be hard to adjust to normal life after 11 months of amazing experiences. But we still have this last month and plan to spend it getting as brown as possible on the Thai islands!
We spent a day travelling from Nha Trang up to Saigon where we caught a plane direct to Phuket for 10 days of topping up the tan. It was unbelievably hot in Phuket and we would be drenched in sweat just walking round the corner to the 7/11. I think we may have actually died without air con. We stayed at Boost Guesthouse which was ridiculously cheap at £9 a night and in a great location on Karon beach. The Karon beach area seemed quite quiet so we spent a few evenings walking along to Kata beach which had a plethora of restaurants including the fantastic Euro Café where we had the most amazing meal and
our first taste of wine in three months - it was like nectar from the Gods. Wine is really expensive in Asia so we’ve been on beer or buckets. There’s no way we would pay £25 for a bottle you could get in Tesco for a fiver.
Phuket doesn’t really feel like an island because it is so big but we took a boat trip out to Phi Phi which gave us a look at what the Thai islands are really about. The speedboat we went on was overcrowded and every time it smacked down on to the waves it felt like we were being slammed into a brick wall, not the best form of transport we‘ve been on.
It was so beautiful snorkelling in the crystal clear azure waters surrounded by towering limestone pillars. The beaches we docked at all had lovely fine sand and we went to Maya Bay which was the setting for the beach in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach. Unfortunately Leo wasn’t there but there were hundreds of other people and so many boats in the small bay so it was hard to get any decent pictures. If you’re looking for a
deserted Thai beach this certainly isn’t it! We also called in at Monkey beach where there are monkeys that are apparently dangerous yet tourists are still encouraged to buy bananas to feed them. After the baboon attack at Vic Falls we steered well clear of the monkeys and went for a swim instead.
Phi Phi seems like a ‘proper’ island and it would have been nice to spend more time there but accommodation seemed quite expensive and there was no way we were staying in a beach bungalow with no air con! I think we will definitely be back to the islands one day though as they are stunning.
The snorkelling was the best we have done too. It’s amazing how every time we go snorkelling it just gets better and better. There were so many fish it was unreal. They were swarming near the surface and we were swimming right among them. We also saw loads of cute fish and our first sea snake. That was really exciting. Sea snakes are much more attractive than land snakes and this one was black and white (or blue and silver, we have different opinions on this) and very graceful.
Of course sea snakes are highly venomous so we didn’t get too close.
Our stay coincided with the Grand National and we put some bets on online but could find nowhere to watch it. We ended up listening to it online at an internet café and got some strange looks when we started cheering our horses on. I had some money on the winner Don’t Push It and Simon ended up with two place wins so we did alright and celebrated with a trip to Patong with the Kiwi brother and sister who were staying at our guesthouse. Patong is the entertainment heart of Phuket and full of ping pong bars, clubs and flamboyant lady boys who pose for pictures with tourists. Thankfully the clubs have air con so we had a bit of a boogie in a place that kind of seemed like part of The Flintsones cartoon set.
We had a great time in Phuket just chilling out on the beach reading - I’ve finally got hold of an English copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo which is great. It felt like a holiday more than part of our travels as 10 days is
the longest we have stayed in one place. We found an amazing Italian restaurant in Kata that did pizza and drink for 150 baht (£3) so we would have that for breakfast at around midday and that would see us through the whole day. Bargain.
After a blissfully chilled 10 days and looking decidedly more bronzed we headed back on the overnight sleeper to Bangkok in time for the biggest excuse for a waterfight ever - Songkran!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.165s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 15; qc: 67; dbt: 0.0785s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb