Last Day in Phuket - with a twist

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Saturday 27 February
We rise lazily as we ended up in a Blues Live music bar round the corner from our hotel, enjoying their sounds, we stayed later than we probably should. Well, we reckoned it was also our last evening to have a lively one, as tonight and tomorrow evenings both preempt travelling days. Our plan is to travel westwards from Old Phuket Town, along the coast towards Rawai Beach, then return to Chalong Bay, enjoy early dinner before returning for to Phuket early evening/early night. Things started extremely well. Our receptionist, when asked, pointed us in the direction of 'local bus', which was only a few hundred metres away, cutting through the night fresh market that we'd visited previously. Luck was on our side as the 'chicken bus' was almost fully loaded and heading to Rawai - result! An interesting hour later, with many locals getting on and off along the way, we press the buzzer, roughly where we thought we should leave, paid the driver bht60 (£1.15) total, and here we are. In the early days of tourism, before the new highway was constructed between Phuket town and Patong (there is a pretty dramatic hill that separates these towns), Rawai was THE tourist destination. It is fairly quiet these days, with a few long tail boats, touting to take folks across to neighbouring islands like Phi Phi, Jame Bon Island (typed exactly as seen on the advertising boards, we swear), as examples. Today, however we plan to stay on dry land and take ourselves around a cape to a little known spot in a small bay called Nai Ham Beach. On our tourist map, Paula calculates we should take around half an hour at a steady stroll, bearing in mind that it is now midday and getting hotter by the minute. We have ample water and lots of adventurous spirit, so what could possible go wrong? This route, on the map (which we notice in tiny writing at the bottom, says NOT to scale, but does not unduly worry us at this moment in time, fools that we are). The road winds upwards, then winds upwards some more, then..... You can see where we're going with this description....... After about 50 minutes, we don't feel near to anywhere, when a three-way junction appears - which way? Signs in Thai only. We are a bit hot and bothered, so when a young male Thai appears on his scooter, toting a large bag of rubbish, Paula dashes over, waving our map madly, forcing him to stop. His understanding of English is quite good and a lot better than ours of Thai, so we ask how much further to Nai Ham? He looks quite perplexed and gently explains that we have at least another 30 minutes of walking to complete. He asks us to wait while he drops his rubbish at the roadside bin, then comes back and suggests he should give us a lift.......... We laughed nervously, but seriously, what other options did we have bearing in mind that not a single car/taxi Tuk Tuk had passed us in all this time and he was the only person we had met so far? These thoughts flashed in a nano-second before we accepted: 1. It is a tiny scooter2. He is a tiny man3. Leo is over six foot, weighs (a healthy weight for a tall man)4. Paula is tall for a female ( and is also a healthy weight for a tall woman)5. Paula and Leo hate scooters and both possess little sense of balance (you would know this if you've ever seen us dance together)6. Neither want to end up in a Thai Hospital with leg/arm and head wounds Easy decision. So who would sit where? Leo bravely sits behind our rider while Paula wriggles on behind. Leo has foot rests for his flip-flop clad feet, Paula sticks her lower legs outwards and behind her, desperately hoping not to lose a shoe. The driver asked if we'd ridden by scooter before and told us to relax ( as if)Paula has flashbacks of Leo balancing to board the long bamboo punts, a few weeks ago up in Chiang Mai, and shuts her eyes to block out the journey, humming songs inside her head until the ordeal over. We were co-joined for around ten minutes, but it seemed an hour, torturous! Up hill, down and around hairpin bends, never ending. When we spotted a small tourist beach ahead, and realising that ...... was still one hill away, we gestured to our kind rescuer, that 'here is fine'. and happily, if shaking, dismounted. We were ashamedly grateful to this kind young man who would not accept an offer of payment, he saved us from what would have been an extremely unpleasant and difficult walk. A couple of cold sodas and a short recovery was required before we could consider taking up loungers on the pretty little beach, followed by refreshing swims. On closer inspection of our map, we discover a short flat route back to Rawai, and take it, seeing at once that is a well traversed one, with many vehicles etc. A short 20 minutes later were back in Rawai, choosing a civilised taxi to Chalang, which should have taken 15 minutes, but actually took an hour due to massive traffic jam along the main highway, meaning by the time we were seated at a bayside restaurant, it was after 5pm and we were starving hungry, having eaten nothing since two slices of toast and marmalade at 10am. We woofed down tempura tiger prawns with chicken fried rice and shared a cold Chang! Our final trip back to town was thankfully and completely uneventful, hallelujah!

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