Phuket

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Phuket
The last few days in Phuket have been a lot of fun and a lot of sun. The first morning we got in, got settled into our very nice hostel that is cleaner, quieter and cheaper than in Bangkok (no bed bugs!!). We then hit the beach for the rest of the day and worked on our tans and took it easy. One thing I have found interesting is that there are many Swedish people travelling here (lots of Swedish restaurants and signs with Swedish) as well as Russian (had a few Thai's mistake me for Russian). We actually ate at a very popular restaurant called 2 Chefs across from our hostel that was created by two Swedish guys who studied culinary school in Northern Sweden! Yesterday was a busy day. I kept telling Mere I wanted to go for a run along the ocean so I went around 8:30 am before the sun had really risen and it was only about 25 degrees out. Turned out to be a bad time to go as there was a really high tide so I was running in really deep loose sand the whole time. Moral of the story? Screw it I am on vacay. Anyways, we started our day by hiring a tuk tuk driver to take us up to the highest point of Phuket island to see the Big Buddha. It is over 45 m high and 25 m wide at the base and was apparently a "must-see" for Phuket. On the way up we passed a couple elephant riding sites but decided not to indulge as we have plans for doing that later in our trip. Following our visit to Big Buddha (and another awful sarong that we had to wear as it is a religious site) our tuk tuk driver took us to Patong beach. Patong beach is basically the tourist center and one of the busiest beaches on this part of the island. There was tons more shops and restaurants than on Karon beach, however we are happy to stay at Karon beach as its quieter and less commotion at the end of the day. Patong reminded me more of a resort island like in Mexico. Anyways while at Patong we layed on the beach and swam in the ocean, and even tried rides in parachutes, which was interesting given heights freak me out. We then found a restaurant that had hookah so we enjoyed some apple mint shisha for a while before heading to the Phuket Simon Cabaret. This was basically a musical, Thai style, which honestly was basically really flashy costumes and lip syncing (bad bad lip syncing) but we wanted to see it as the cast was lady boys! We were amazed at how much some (not all) of them looked like women. All in all it was a fun time even though the ladyboys suckered us out of cash after the show to take pictures with them. Today we are just taking it easy on Karon Beach and having a "lazy day". Tomorrow we leave for Langkawi, Malaysia for the next part of our trip!

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