Phuket Beach Life

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We arrived to a wet and stormy Phuket on 7th October. The flight in was going really well until the captain announced that we would have to circle for a while due to the storms at the airport. In light of recent events this made everyone on board a little nervous but sure enough 20 minutes later we were on the ground safely in the rain.

We were both a bit gutted about the rain but boarded a taxi and headed off to our base for the next few days, Patong. To our surprise the weather cleared and the sun came out, in fact we were on the beach that afternoon!

The beach was where we spent a majority of the time for the first few days, soaking up the sun rays and hiring a jet ski. You might think this sounds ideal, but things were to change when Paul decided to have too much Thai Whisky mixed with the local beer, Chang, one night and was ill the following day.

The nightlife here is great compared to our nights out in Pattaya, a lot less sleazy with a good variety of bars. Though you still get people trying to sell you everything from wooden frogs to getting your photo taken with an iguana for tips. In his drunken state, Paul braved getting the iguana on his arm one night for a photo, I squeezed in the photo but kept well clear!!

Not to blame Paul entirely for losing a day in the sun, I caught cold from the air-conditioning and spent the same day coughing and sneezing!!

A quick word of warning;

Thai whisky is evil and comes in two main brands, Mekhong and Sangsom...Drink responsibly!

Chang beer is about 6.5% bottled, however on draught it is unregulated which means you could get a pint at 3% or a pint at 10% (I think all my pints were 10% ;-))

Those of you who know Vicki will be aware that she can be a bit picky with her food. One night we went out for some food, Vicki as per normal scans the menu for the least risky dish then continues to ask me if I think it will be ok (a regular event at meal time). This night Vicki settled on a chicken dish and we placed our orders with the barmaid who spoke broken english. All was going well until the barmaid returned only to ask Vicki if she would like her chicken well done, medium or rare! Vicki's face just froze! This was obviously a mix up and the barmaid understood once we explained that we like chicken 'just cooked properly'. The meals arrived and were fine but Vicki still examined every mouthful!

To escape the beach (we know what you're thinking, tough life!) we hired a scooter for a day and went off exploring other parts of Phuket including, Kata, Karon and Kamala. These places, as nice as the beaches are, were quite quiet so we were both pleased to be staying in Patong. The sum of the advice we were given on the roads was; none of the traffic lights are currently working so don't give way just merge...

All was going well until we got stopped by the Thai police. At this point we could not think what we had done wrong but apparently this was a routine stop to produce documents (the same police man didn't stop a single local person). Anyway to cut a long story short we were fined 300 BAHT for not carrying ID (about a fiver).

Tomorrow we are heading north back to the mainland and into Phang Nga rainforest region........

Vicki and Paul x

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