Phuket, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore


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Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Phuket
April 24th 2008
Published: May 7th 2008
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Hi all! Sorry for the delay for this blog but we have been quite busy!!! So to pick up from where we left off...
So we left Koh samui during the new year celebrations and prepared ourselfs by lining our bags with binliners!!! We got to Koh Samui airport which was nothing more than a hut, but had free refreshments so we were happy!!! We wern't in the airport long before we were ready to board the plane and were taken to our aircraft via a tram!!! We got on and prepared ourselves for the 45 minute flight to bangkok. When we arrived at bangkok (again!!!) we had about a 3 hour wait so we visited the food hall that we mentioned in the previous blog, had a look around some of the shops and booked our hostel in Singapore. This airport stop wasn't tat exciting so wont bore you all with it!!!! We went to the gate ready to board our connection flight to Phuket. We started quing for the plane hoping that we would not be wedged in next to some wierdo!!! We got to the plane (which was a jumbo) and was greated by the flight attendant checking our tickets, who told us where our seat were... "row 17, up the stairs"!!! We looked at eachother thinking that there was some mistake as we passed the comoners sitting in ECONOMY CLASS!!!!! We had been upgraded and had the biggest seats i think we had ever sat in!!! After fidling around with the electric seat controls, and taking photos we got a look from one of the flight crew so we thought that we best sit down and behave!!! Typically the flight was only about an hour so we did'nt have that much time to get used to 1st class, but we are keeping fingers crossed for our next flights!!! We landed in Phuket and waited around to collect our bags before going to find out how we were going to get to our hotel, after lookng around at taxi fares we were tiold that the metered taxi would probally be cheapest. So we booked a taxi from the taxi office and were tiold it'll be about 20 minute wait...an hour later our taxi arrived! While we had been wating we had flour rubbed on our faces and water squirted at us but nothing too bad!!! Driving from the airport to the hotel was quite an experience, watching people in the back of pick up trucks with a barrel of water dowsing everyone they passed, people at the side of the road with hoses soaking cars motorbikes...was really good to watch!
We arrived at our hotel where we were shown to our rather big room, the beds were the biggest that we had seen adn teh pool was firly big too!!! We sorted our stuff out in the room and went for some diner at one of the local restaurants, by the time we had finished dinner and after our day of traveling we were both really tired so we called it a night.
The next day we went to find a breakfast as teh one in the hotel was too expensive, we ended up i the restaurant that we ate in the previous night and had a buffet breakfast which was really nice. After that we went and sat by the pool for the rest of the day) something that we hadn't done as of yet really!)
We decided to go into Patong that night wich is the main tourist part in Phuket, we were staying just outside and had to get a bus frm the hotel to town. The bus which was more of a colourful truck with hard wooden benches in the back picked us up and took us to Patong, on the journey we past many evacuation route signs and shelter signs in case of an earthquake which could equal a Tsunami like the one that hit in 2004.
Patong strip was colourful, loud and busy, we got dropped off and wandered through the stall ridden streets in search of a restaurant for some food!!! We found a place called Tiger which was decked out to look like a forest, they had huge crabs outside on their seafood stand which enticed us in, the food was really nice and after this we wandered again along the strip looking in various shops and stalls. we bough a few odd bits and found a starbucks where we waited for the bus to take us back to the hotel. We got back and sorted out our things ready for us to check out in the morning, and watched Star movies which isnt all that exciting!
We got up and went for breakfast before checking out and making our way back to the airport where we would be flying to Kuala Kumpur (KL) checked all our bags in and wandered through immigration and into the waiting area where we managed to spend the last few thai baht we had on food!!! Once again this was a really short flight thik it was about an hour and half or somthing. When we landed we were offloaded and walked accross the runway (obviously health and safety officer had the day off!!!) to immigration where we qued for ages!!!!!!! We both made it through immigration, and wandered to collect our bags which by this point had already been taken off the belt ready for the next flight (thats how long we were waiting to get through immigration for) we found a ATM to get our 1st lot of Malaysian Ringits and booked a bus to the hotel. We got onto the bus and like we were back at school headed straight for the back seats were there was a young girl and boy sat at opposite ends of the row. When the bus started moving the girl called An-isa who was sitting next to Vicky started chatting away asking all sorts of questions about what we were doing, where we lived, school life etc. she was really sweet and turns out that the boy at the other end of the row of seats was her brother (hence them sitting apart!) and the seats in front was their mum. Her mum was a English teacher and taught them all their english wish was really good, afetr about an hour they got off the bus and we carried on for about 10 minute to our hotel. As we got into the centre of KL it was chucking it down, we've never seen rain like it adn the lightning look amazing! The bus eventually stopped and the driver shouted Citrus Hotel which meant it was our stop!!! we grabebd our bags, by this time the rain had slightly eased and wandered down the side street to our hotel When we got to the end of the street outside a restuarand Vicky took a little fall on a combination of oil and rain water, luckily her rucksack took the brunt of the fall. We got to the hotel and checked in, we were both impressed with the hotel, was really contemporaryly decorated and the room was huge, of course we had been placed on the executive floor!!! We soon found the internet room, which gave you free internet, tea, coffee, cold drinks and snacks, we were in our element!!! Aftert finding out that it was all free i said to the lady that works in the internet centre "ok thanks, we'll have 2 coffee's please" to which she replyed " oh it's self Service" I was most embarrised!!!!
Afetr we had checked our e-mails etc the rain had stopped so we decided wander to the Patronas Towers, we found the train station and found our way to the towers. As we came out of the underground station we looked up to see the towers... they are amazing!!! The lights looked so good through the stormy sky. After walking around the front of the towers taking masses of photos we went inside, which to Vickys amazment was a shopping mall. To be honest even i was impressed by the amount of shops (and they were decent shops)that lined the 6 story high mall. Think bluewater, times it by 10 and add at least a few decent shops and your getrting closser to what it was like!!! We had a look around and after having a brief look around we got the train back to the hotel as we were unsure of the last one back. I did however no that my time at the mall was not over!!! We got back to the hotel...and got the lift to our Executive Floor and watched a bit of T.V before falling asleep.
We got up and went straight back to the patronas towers to book ourselfs on the Patronas Towers Bridge tour, we got there and qued for our slot which was about 10:45 i think. we wanderd around the mall briefly and went it was time we went baack to do the tour. The 1st part of the tour is a quick 3D introduction film telling you about the towers how they were built and what they are used for. After this we were split up into groups and got into a huge lift that took us to the bridge. The View was pretty good but if we are honest we were slightly dissapointed that the bridge in only about half way up the towers but it was definately worth seeing. Afetr seeing the view from the bridge, We went back into the mall where vicky managed to spend a little bit on money a just a few of the shops! Afeter this brief tour of the mall we wandwered over to the KL tower which we were planning on going up the next day. The walk was not that far but as the weather was bloody hot today it wasn't that enjoyable, anyhow we got there and found out the times etc for the next day. By this time the sky had turned black and it smelt like it was going to chuck it down (if you know what i mean!) so we walked pretty quickly back to the hotel just in time for the heavens to open, it rained so hard i think it was actually cats and dogs falling out the sky!!! We made a visit to our executive internet suite and checked our very important mail and face book accounts before showering and making our back out to the central market which was a bit disapointing!!! It was more like a car boot than a market as most of the stalls and shops were selling a load of old toot. After a quick tour of the market we saw the bright lights of china town just accross the road which we had to go and see. This was pretty cool, stalls, stalls, stalls, mostly selling clothes, and bags, everyone calling you to have a look at what they were selling and trying to make you buy something that you wouldnt even wear!!! after teasing a few of teh stall owners by bartering for things that niether of us intended to buy we walked back to the train station and got back to the hotel ready for bed after our long day of trecking! Teh next morning we went down for our buffet style breakfast which was pretty impressive and packed our bags a little bit ready for our departure the next day. We sorted ourselfs out and made our way back to the Kl tower where we went to the observation deck...the views were really cool and you could see for miles, this was higher than the patronas bridge that we had gone up the day before. We also went on a nature walk through the only part of natural rainfoest left in KL. Yeh a rainforest bang in the middle of a massive city! our guide really new his stuff and showed us native plants, spiders, trees etc. He had said that we may even see some monkeys which life in the forest. we did our walk and didin't see any of the monkeys which i wanted to see untill we got back to the car park where there were loads of them being fed by people. We got given some peanuts and started to feed the monkeys, they hold onto your hand and eact the nuts, was really cool!!! We ended up getting a cab back to the hotel as it just started raing and we knew that the rain here takes no prisoners!!! Got back to the hotel and had dinner there, before sorting the rest of our stuff out ready for our really early flight the next morning.
We landed in singapor about 11am and easily made our way through the airport, stopping on the way to take advantage of the free internet which they offer. We collected our bags and found our way to the train station where we bought our rail card and got onto the emaculate train. You are not allowed to eat or drink in the stations or on the trains whish is why they are so clean, no grafitti, nothing. We found our hostel called Sleepy Sams, which was really nice. the people seemed lovely really helpful. our beds wern't quite ready so we dumped our bags and walked around the city to get our bearings. Found raffles and of course the shopping malls!!! About 4 hours later we wandered back to the hostel where we were shown to our dorm. it looked pretty nice and it was really relaxing. When we had finished settling in we went to Clarke Quay for dinner, it was dark and when we arrived the bars and restuarants looked really nice along the rivers edge. We found an Indian restuarant were we had dinner, which was a small fortune, but the food was really nice! After dinner we walked along the river front to see the reverse bungy, which was made up of 2 seats and 2 bungy cords!!! we watched a few people go and it looked pretty scary! Of course we both had just eaten so we couldn't have gone on!!! We then found a HOOTERS, HOOTERS, HOOTERS!!! it was just like it was in Big Daddy!!! Where we had a couple drinks and went back to the hostel.
The next day we went to the Carrefour, a bug supermarket in one of the...Shopping Malls! All the time when we were in thailand we kept seeing this fruit which was called jack fruit, we never got the chance to taste it there but in the shop they were preparing it so we asked to taste it. It smelt discusting and we both nearly threw up the moment we tasted it. I cant describe what it tasted like but ever since that moment everytime we smell it we look at eachother in discust!!!
We got back to the Hostel and booked a night safari at Singapore Zoo for that evening. We made our way there a couple hours later, and when we got there, there was a fire show on the stage. The guys were in traditional dress and the show was really good. We then went and got on our Girraffe discisesd tram that was going to take us on the safari. At night the aniamals act totaly different as many of them are nocturnal.We started the safari and were shown various animals from deer to lions, we then were able to get off at one of the trails weere you walk through the flying squirrals and bats enclosures...the bats were massive and we had a couple of close encounters!!! After about half hour we got back on the tram which tooks us around the elephants and the rest of the animals, before the safari was over. We got off and went to get our place in the que for the Animal show. This was a really good show and the host was a little Indian lady who was hillarious. she was one of the keepers at the zoo and was really good at getting the crowed going. We had a good laugh watching the otters pick up rubbish and but it in bins, tigers climb the tress, and a huge python come out from under the seats in the arena!!! This was a really good show and well worth seeing! We got the bus back to the train station and got back to Bugis which was the stop near our hostel.
Today we went to see the Merlion which it the Singaporean sybol type thing! It's half lion and half fish and had a jet of water from its mouth, its located on one of the rivers and looks quite good. We took some photos and walked around the city for a bit, pasing the Cricket club and theatres, I thought that this part of singapore looked very much like parts of London, but it was just alot cleaner here! We wandered through raffles place and found a one of the food markets where we had a authentic curry for about 5 dollars it was so good! Later that night we went back to Clarke Quay where we did the reverse bungy, we gathered a large crowd when we got on and looked at eachother asking ourselfs what we were about to do. Strapped in we didn't have much option but to sit it out...it was really good fun and we both cringed as we watched the film that they take of you when they let the bungy go. All excitment over we went back to the hostel.
Sentosa Island... We made our way to sentosa, and to vicky's delight the mono-rail station was in yet another huge shopping mall! We got accross to sentosa and saw a bigger Merlion figure, walked to underwater world where we had planned to have fish reflexology. This was so wierd!!!We were asked to wash our feet and then shown to two pools of water, one with small fish and one with bigger fish we were aked which one we wanted to go in and decided the big ones!!! We got to the edge of the pool and the fish swarmed over to us, we hovered our feet over the edge for ages before plucking up the currage to put them in! Well..the fish start nibbling the dead skin on your feet and legs, it tickled and was a little uncomfortable for a few minutes but after that you seem to get used to it!!! Afetr 20 minutes we were told to dry our feet and sit down where we would have reflexology on or feet by two old blokes, i'm sure the one i had was trying toh urt me as much as he could!!! After the feet we had a shoulder massage which was really nice! After this we made our way back to the main part of sentosa where we went on the Carlsberg tower, it's a revolving observation tower. The view was good and they had a comentry about sentosa which was good. We had noticed a luge run which we did when we got off the tower, this was so much fun that we did it twice!!! It was like we were big kids, but we enjoyed it!!! After a few hours on sentosa we went back to the mainland (or should i say shopping centre) where i was made to give advice on whether the gold or the white bag was nicer...she bought both!!!!!!! The Next couple of days we spent shopping, orchard street was actually quite impressive and and vicky was relentless!! I bought a new camera which i was really chuffed with and that was it!!! Vicky on the other hand... managed to sent a 10kilo box home!!! Well thats about it for Asia and untill Oz, we hope that everyone is well, not missing us too much and really jealous, especially with the new photos!!!
Loadsa Love
G & V
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
P.S The delay for the blog is my (Guys) fault, sorry guys!!!

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