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After sunbathing on the roof of the ferry from Phi Phi to Phuket we decided to stay one night in Phuket Town. We booked into a pretty cheap hotel which had wi-fi so we could catch up with the blog and have a nice surprise Skype call from Anne & Lucy.
We had heard that Phuket Town wasn’t much to write home about but we actually enjoyed our stay there. Sure, Phuket Town is not aesthetically pleasing on the eye, like any other typical Asian market town, but if you look underneath the exterior it is actually a bit of a rough diamond. After checking into our hotel we had a walk to the old town (it was hard to distinguish between old and new) and found lots of lovely coffee shops, art galleries and traditional Thai restaurants. We had lunch at a little vegetarian buffet place where you can eat as much as you want for 25 baht (about 50 pence). We also found a great second-hand bookshop called ‘South Winds Books’ and stocked up on reading material for the coming weeks. For the film buffs out there we also walked past the On-On Hotel, famous as it was
the hotel where Leonardo Di-Caprio’s character Richard stayed at beginning of the film ‘The Beach’ (Rooms are priced at £3 a night). Later that evening we headed out for street food and had Pad Thai, again for a very good price – food cooked on a moped at the side of a busy road really shouldn’t taste so good.
After a good night’s sleep we left the hotel to get the songthaew bus to the coastal town of Karon. The songthaew buses in Thailand are great and the cheapest way to travel. Songthaew literally means ‘two benches’ and that’s what it is, two benches in the back of a van. You just flag it down, jump on whilst it’s still moving and then pay the driver when you jump off. For the 40 minute journey for the two of us cost 60 baht (about a quid).
We stayed on Karon beach for two days, explored the area and walked to Kata (not much to say, resort type beach towns) but then whilst searching the internet found that we could stay at a lovely hotel on Patong beach for about 400 baht (8 pound) a night. The hotel was
by far the best we have stayed and we needed to use up some days so decided to stay for a week. The week consisted of sunbathing, sleeping and eating (I really don’t know how we managed it). One evening we did decide to venture out on the town for a few drinks. Patong is a very westernised town with lots of McDonalds, Go-Go bars and good old Irish pubs serving pints of Guinness and steak pie and mash! We enjoyed just sitting with a beer and people watching. Jane did try and drag me into a Ping-Pong show but I persuaded her that we should go get a different kind of kebab. On the other evenings in Patong we had some lovely street food and we also discovered Thai pancakes here, which are just superb.
At the end of our week we decided to catch a bus to Krabi and head to Railay.
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Lou Hunn
non-member comment
Wow -- what can I say!
All sounds so amazing. You both look really well-- smashing tan Jane you look fab. Look forward to the next installment (P.S nice hair Paul, suits you sir!).