Blog Day 99 Sat 13th August 2011

Today we are headed to Phuket. We have decided to stay on Kata beach as we've heard that it's one of the slightly quieter areas. Having just been in the thick of market stalls and tour offices, on Phi Phi, somewhere a little more relaxed sounded good to us. The boat ride itself took about 2 hours and was ridiculously cold, the air conditioning put the artic to shame. We put up with it for a while but when Trish started to turn blue we decided to leave our seats & go outside. The warmth was much appreciated but within minutes we were getting sunburn, just couldn't win!!

Once we got to Phuket pier we had a minibus included in the price of our ticket so we got dropped straight to our destination (Chabba! Hotel). The hotel itself was good, had a lovely pool & garden area and looked really clean from the outside. The inside of our room however seemed to be having an ant problem in the bathroom, staff blamed this on the weather!?! Still after a bit of bug spray all was well & good. We took a wander to the beachfront, which was much further away than we had expected. Having not mentally prepared ourselves for this walk within minutes we were starving and on the hunt for food! We walked the length of the beach with not a restaurant in sight, and it was only once we got to the town area that we were greeted with the familiar tones of 'mister you want some food?' We stumbled into the first cheap restaurant we found, it had a lunchtime half price menu. 2 cheeseburgers and Sprites later and we were making our way back to the hotel to relax for the evening.

Blog Day 100-101 Sun 14th-Mon 15th August 201

The next 2 days became a blur, we spent the time chilling out in the room & by the pool which was gorgeous. The sun was shining so we even got to top up our tans a little. We found a little restaurant just up the road from us one night that did a very nice Massaman curry and also a little café that did very nice coffee & Almond Croissants. Turns out Kata beach is a very quiet place, we kind of underestimated the quietness of the situation. 3 days here was more than enough so seeing as we have a few more days to kill we decide to book a few nights in Patong beach, which is meant to be at the other end of the spectrum altogether.

Blog Day 102 Tues 16th August 2011

Our taxi driver from Kata to Patong doesn't seem to have a clue where he is going, and after about half hour of pulling over and asking people where our hotel is we finally stumble across it, (Grand Ville Hotel). It's another hotel that is quite a way out of the main town. However we are soon to find out that this isn't such a bad thing. Once we are checked in and sorted we take one of the free shuttle buses down to the town………. which is mental! Shops, bars, massages, DVDs, and of course sodding tuk tuks! We have a wander around for a few hours but that is all we can handle. We are not too interested in all of the above so another chilled out evening follows.

Blog Day 103 Wed 17th August 2011

Rain, thunder & lightning = No sunbathing L

So instead lie in, food & Cinema - Planet of the apes J

Blog Day 104 Thurs 18th August 2011

Today we decided to head to Phuket town. Our guest house which is conveniently situated right next to the main bus station. The whole reason for coming here is to jump on a bus down to Hat Yai. This makes life nice and simple, just how we like it. Another cab driver that doesn't have a clue where he's going eventually manages to find our guest house. The area is typically Thai, very laid back and away from all the chaos of the beaches. A real sleepy town, full of old style buildings and street cafes. We are expecting our guesthouse to follow suit, and are pleasantly surprised to see that our room is one of the nicer ones that we have stayed in.

Our first job here is to get ourselves booked on the bus. This is a fairly painless task as a lovely Thai lady greets us at the bus terminal and does all the hard work for us. We get the option of cattle class on the top deck or VIP on the bottom deck. VIP it is naturally, as it only costs around 50p each more.

Next we make our way down the road to a little bakers we spied as we drove into town. A chicken curry roll and a coffee later and we are back out on the street again.

We had passed a few used book shops on the way to the bakers, and we are both in need of a change up of our reading material. For someone who has never really read and finished a book in his life Dan is flying through his books. He has however started a series halfway through, and is on the hunt for a decent starting point to go back to. He is reading the Alex Cross novels by James Patteson and they seem to be quite popular out here as almost every book shop, old and new stocks them. Trish is on the hunt for the Twilight saga which is also very popular. We don't have any trouble exchanging and getting new books and make our way back to the guest house to get some release from the heat.

An easy meal from 7eleven and a phone call from Mum and Dad (all the way from Hong Kong) rounds off a lazy evening.