Phuket

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We took the night bus to Phuket from Bangkok so that we could save time during the day and sleep through the journey. However it's hard to sleep when the bus driver stops every couple of hours and wakes you all up by putting the lights on because there is no toilet on the bus and Die Hard is playing, dubbed in Thai, on the screen in front of you. We should have done what the Thai man next to us did and set up a bed in the aisle using a mat and a blanket. We should count the amount of times we've said 'that would never happen in England'! At one of the police stops when a policeman got on the bus we both put our seatbelts on (just in case) but then looked down at the Thai man sleeping in the aisle and realised we really neednt have bothered! We couldnt even get off the bus for taxi drivers hassling us to get in there taxi so we joined forces with 2 other travellers who convinced us that Kata beach was the place to go full of other backpackers...

However, I dont think Kata was quite the paradise that we were expecting. It was really busy, full of tourists and gogo bars and women constantly shouting massaaaaage from the streets as you passed. For a couple of days the guys that we had met, Art and Michele, hired out scooters so we went exploring some of the island with them and managed to find some nice, quieter beaches. It was here that we decided to test out how waterproof Helens fake casio watch was that she bought for less than 2 pounds in Bangkok. Turns out it's a lot more waterproof than Ferns real casio which broke after a couple of daysof wearing it in the sea! We also went up to the big buddha which sits at the top of the hill near to our resort. We got into boiled eggs in Phuket too. Sounds odd but for some reason, one day ordering breakfast Fern thought she'd ordered fried eggs on toast and Helen, not paying attention said, i'll have the same. When the breakfast came out turns out Fern had asked for boiled egg instead of fried. Two shelled hard boiled eggs later and now that's our fav breakfast! We also discovered that the 7eleven makes toasties, see it has everything you ever need, so we were a bit addicted to those for a while.

We played a lot of cards, learnt some new card games as we only knew 1 and had our first try of the local whiskey, Sangsom. One night Michele we ended up eating with a group of Italians that Michele knew from back home.We thought we were just goingto his friends restaurant that we tried to findfor a bout half an hour but turns out that we wereactually eating with them which was pretty cool. After weeks of Thai cuisine we spoiled ourselves at the Italian it was soooooooo good. To pay the boys back for taking us out on the bikes we decided to get a Sangsom bucket at a reggae bar we found on the beach but after one decided it was too expensive so a better idea would be to go to the 7 eleven and buy some sangsom and mixers ourselves. If you've not been to Thailand, a bucket is basically made up of a little bottle of spirit, some Thai red bull and a mixer. We started with just one little bottle of Sangsom but throughout the night went back down to the 7 eleven and bought 2 more. I dont know if it's the red bull over here or the whiskey but as Helen describes it, it was loopy juice. We decided it would be a great idea to stay up that night to go for a swim at the beach at sunrise and took along with us a Swedish guy who was staying at out hotel and the Thai girl that he had brought back. After a few hours sleep we were back out on the bikes for a day at the beach. Even being a passenger on the back of a scooter is not great when you are hungover!

After arriving at Kata we really didnt want to stay there for more than one night but we had such a good time with the boys that every day we woke up we just decided to stay another night. After about 4 nights though we wanted to move on and decided to head towards Krabi. We had to say goodbye to Michele as he was heading back home but Art decided to join us in Krabi. We got on a taxi/bus to Phuket town and what should have been about a 20 minute journey took about an hour and a half! Leaving us with 15 to walk across town to the bus station. We said that knowing Thai times the buses are always late leaving but this one day the bus was actually on time. Luckily Art was ahead of us and managed to stop the bus as it was driving down the street and make it wait for us! 3 and a half hours later we were in Krabi...

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