Into the second week within Phuket, the weather had definitely turned to rainy season so it was a good job that we had done all of our beach visits that first week. Ponchos at the ready we tried to think of activities to do that wouldn't get us completely drenched. As we hadn't been to the snake show yet we decided that would be fun and set off on the moped. We watched the man handle the Pythons, Jumping snakes and then the Cobras. He demonstrated how to kiss the snakes without being bitten, (although he had some of a finger missing so must have got unlucky at some point) and he also showed us the venom in it's fangs before we was allowed to stroke the Cobras body. Always fun to watch and no matter how many times you see a King Cobra you always get mesmerised by it, due to the huge length of its body and how deadly it looks!
We continued the week by taking another trip to Patong. Walking around this town it really does seem like a Thai Blackpool, however with a prettier beach. This is the town to go if you want to see the tackier side of Thailand. You can watch lady boy shows, Thai boxing matches and the very famous Ping Pong show (I think this show consists of firing these balls from certain bodily places!). It is definitely a place to go if you was on a stag party or wanted a good drinking weekend. However due to the weather we headed indoors to the huge Jungceylon shopping mall! A lovely big mall to wander around selling lots of different things and some beautiful hand made crafts! A particularly cool stall had huge Alien vs Predator creatures all made from metal; They were very Impressive! Wandering around the mall for a couple of hours (with Jonathan feeling the need to purchase a skipping rope this time) we headed back to the hotel.
The following day it rained the whole day. Walking about for a few hours we headed back to the room to watch a DVD and the rest of the week continued in a similar pattern. With a few small breaks in the weather we ventured for a game of dinosaur mini golf; A Great game of crazy golf set around a caveman looking themed course with big plastic dinosaurs peering out at you from the bushes.
We also decided to splash out and once again visit the Fantasea show. We went to this show the first time five years ago and was mesmerised by it then. For £35 a ticket it includes a huge buffet dinner and the show, which we thought would once again make a great night out. It didn't let us down and as we watched the amazing dancing, the acrobats and the animals on the stage it definitely left you open mouthed for the whole performance. Unfortunately they take your cameras off you before entering the big Elephant temple theatre so I have no photos of the performance. It puts anything you see in England to shame with the fantasy set designs and costumes and the amount of imagination used throughout the show. We watched people flying through the air singing and dancing to Thai Legends, and acrobats glowing in the dark as they bounce off the ceiling. They use a variety of animals on their huge stage including flocks of roosters, herds of goats, Ox's and Ponies. They perform magic tricks with a fully grown tiger... whereas a person is placed inside a cage and then they cover the cage with a blanket and as they take the cover off it is left with a live tiger inside it instead! The main performance highlights are definitely the elephants. 15 huge elephants, that are extremely beautiful, tramp on stage holding each others tail with their trunks and perform tricks and dance to the music. This performance shows how clever elephants actually are and it really makes you wonder how on earth they train them to do what they do. It truly was amazing and probably the best performance we have ever watched. We finished the show and headed to the buffet dinner. A huge hall laid with probably 200 tables and a large variety of food to choose from, you definitely don't go hungry. After filling our boots with salad, beef and pepper sauce and then chocolate cake we headed outside to browse the themed shops. Each shop is highly ornate and themed to a different subject. One of my favourite looking shops is a huge white building with big disco ball looking elephants decorating the outside of it. Within this shop it sells some beautiful Jewellery and ornaments, of which you could easily leave with lighter pockets. My other favourite is a Tiger themed shop. You first of all walk though a series of passages with windows; each window shows a room with a different theme and animal inside. There is a python room filled with snakes in a jungle looking environment, a confectionary sweet room filled with hamsters running about, and then last of all a temple palace themed room with two beautiful huge White tigers in it. Leading from the tiger room you are left in a shop which sells tiger related souvenirs! (this is where I bought my very loved pair of tiger slippers five years ago!). An amazing night at the Fantasea and a great end to our time in Phuket.
The last day in Phuket finally arrived and as the weather had cleared a little we decided to spend the day on the beach. Hiring a surf board Jonathan had a go at conquering the waves! First trying this a number of years ago within Costa Rica he was keen to give it another go! However after two hours and ending with chapped nipples and a belly full of sea water he decided it was another sport to tick off the list and retire early at! Finishing off our night watching the Lions win at Rugby, we set off back to the hotel in preparation for our early get up for our trip to Koh Samui.
Awakening at 5:30am we eventually arrived by bus and then by boat within Koh Samui 12 hours later. Opening our rucksacks I noticed that my obsessive compulsive disorder at packing had been entirely muddled up by someone. Thinking back to months before when planning this trip I remembered reading about how people hide in the underneath luggage compartments of the buses and steal things out of your rucksack! Of course this is what had happened because my skiing socks don't unbury themselves on there own! Rooting through my rucksack to see what was missing I eventually opened my make up bag to find that my tweezers and my favourite £20 Mac eyeshadow was missing! Completely devastated as it had at least another 2 years of use in it and as it was a limited edition colour it cannot be replaced (also Jonathan would never allow me to buy another eyeshadow that's 20 quid :-( ) one of my only luxuries left was gone so I set in for sulking for the night. I eventually fell asleep only to be awoken by Jonathan at 1am chucking everything out of his rucksack realising the his fishing reel had been taken! It was now his turn to sulk, and he couldn't find his nailclippers also! Obviously the smaller objects must have fallen out while our bags was being ransacked, unless as my dad pointed out that we was possibly robbed by a lady boy! Not a great start to our time in Koh Samui and as we are getting to the end of our long bus Journeys it is a shame that they also had to end on a sour note! Anyway let's hope Koh Samui lives upto everything we have read about! Cheerio Hayls and Jonathan x