Asia Diary - Day 12 - Phuket

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Had a nice slow start and then went back to Shopping Paradise where I finally bought a bag for 1800BHT (down from 2800BHT) and two pairs of shorts for 450BHT. “That’s all I’ve got! Take it or leave it!”
That made the rest of the shopping hassle free, as saying you have no money is quite a turn off to them.
Went back to the bar to have some cocktails and pizza before heading off to elephant riding.
The trip to elephants went through Kata and Karon which was different, but similar. Got much closer to the big Buddha, but couldn’t get a good shot of it from the road. Went through a construction site which had some significant stormwater (?) infrastructure being built and a pump that was sifting the water. Don;t know what it’s for. A mine? A new subdivision? Some hydro scheme?
Elephant riding was awesome. They are such amazing creatures. So big and gentle and their skin feels like leather. Their hair is even thicker than Nads! Half way along, our mahout gets off and asks me to get on the front of the elephant. I can feel his brain! I get my knees locked in behind his ears and feel extremely stable. We wander along the track and our mahout takes photos of us. He also warns me not to tell the base camp as they don’t like him doing this apparently. As a result, I give him 200BHT bribe. We then get to feed the elephants a basket of bananas for 50BHT. I get covered in elephant snot. I also finished off my cheapo beer while on the elephant.
The trip home is uneventful, but more comfortable because there are less people on the bus and we place ourselves in front of the air vents.
We go out for tea at a nice Indian/Thai restaurant called Alaha Din on the beach road and most people get a mix dinner, Everybody except Nads get’s either Tiger or Singha beer, but we didn’t realise that they are long necks, so a bit more than people were expecting.

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