Glimpse of Phuket

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Leaving Ko Samui on a tiny plane we headed for Phuket on a really short flight. Samui airport was very different with no actual buildings, just thatched wooden coverings which acted as passport control and the departure lounge! We got a long golf cart to the plane!
Arriving in Phuket we needed to get to Kata, where we were staying and so we went to get a taxi but a man told us they were really expensive and should get a minibus instead. This sounded like a good idea and another western couple had decided to do the same. This took a while to arrive and we left about half an hour after deciding to get it. The minibus took us to a little office where there were lots of people all waiting for us. They asked us where we were staying and how much they were charging us to stay there. They told us that for what we were paying they could get us somewhere better, but after we said we'd already paid they moved onto trying to get us to go on a tour and rent a car. Finally after a while they had everyone's addresses and got a few people signed up for day tours we left for our hotel.
A couple that had sorted their accommodation in the little office were dropped off first and the driver pointed up a really dark alley that seemingly led nowhere and left them to walk up there alone.
Our accommodation was the furthest away and we were the last people to be dropped off and after seeing most of the other couples being dropped near dark alleyways we were a bit wary. A good fifteen minutes drive by ourselves took us to our alley and we got out next to a Thai boxing ring and he pointed past it. We got into the 3rd Street Cafe (our guesthouse) and were warmly welcomed by "Kelly". It looked really nice from the start and we weren't disappointed. We dumped our stuff in our room and then went out for some food. As the town we'd driven through looked pretty quiet we decided not to take the camera out with us, which turned out to be a mistake. We were only there one night, and we found a Flinstone style restaurant, which was amazing and completely different to anything we'd seen before, the waiters all had tiger print uniforms like cavemen and all the tables looked like big rocks and were in amongst big trees and there was even a waterfall! But the best thing of all was when we were standing outside looking at the menu. A man was standing with a baby elephant on the pavement. It was really surreal and we were so annoyed we didn't have our camera!
We didn't really get to see much of Phuket because we'd changed our plans to stay on Ko Samui, which was a shame and if we could go back we'd stay in Patong where most of the stuff was happening. We did however have the chance to watch England get knocked out of the world cup though.
The next morning we needed to get to the airport to catch our flight to Kuala Lumpur and so we asked the people working if they could phone for a taxi. They did this and it took about forty minutes to come. It turned out to be because it wasn't a proper taxi but one of their friends, who then proceeded to drive really slowly. Before she even got to the guesthouse we knew we were going to miss the check-in and therefore our flight.
We got to the airport and sure enough we were twenty five minutes late for our check-in and the gate had closed. We had to get the next flight which cost us another 120 pounds and didn't leave till 19.20 which left us with about 7 hours to kill at the airport...

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Photos

The Thai boxing ring at the end of our street
In Kata, Phuket