So we're now down in Phuket which is really package touristy and everything is about twice the price it was on koh san rd, so I think we'll only stay a couple of days. The journey down here yesterday was going well when at 6.30pm we got on a massive airconditioned bus where the seats reclined and they played a couple of films before we all went to sleep. Then at 6am we were rudely awoken and told to change buses onto a little minibus where we had about an hours journey to surrat thani. Where we got off with our luggage at a shack pretending to be a travel agents and a food shop. We didnt buy anything and just got told to wait there till another bus came for us. We thought it was going to be another big luxury bus: But no another ,minibus which picked us up qnd took us to another travel shack. When we arrived here we were wondering what was going on but we thought we were just meeting up with other people going to phuket who had been on different big buses. We then got taken into the tourist office and told if we wanted to go to patong beach on phuket we would pay another 200baht and if we wanted to just wait for a bus to phuket town it would be an hour and a hlaf more wait but there was nothing in phuket town and it would cost us more to get to the beaches ourselves from there. So we felt we were being pushed into this deal but couldnt do much about it. We got chatting to another irish couple who felt exactly the same as us but we all paid it and then got on this grotty minibus with a few others including a dirty old man (i think he was from norway) who had started drinking his chang beer at about 8am and stunk. thankfully we didnt sit next to him but the boy who did soon regretted it as he fell asleep (the old man this is) and split his beer all over himself and started putting his legs up onto the this lads lap while he was sleeping it was vile!!! and he smelt the bus out. So the 4 hour journey then to phuket was not fun!!

Once we got into phuket they actually took us to phuket town and yet another travel agents who wanted us to sign up to accomodation with them. Luckily the irish girl (Tracy) had looked into some accomodation although not booked it so she knew where it was the name of it and the price so instead of getting railroaded by the travel agents we all said we were staying there - which they werent best pleased about! Anyway they took us to the hotel, where they tried to get us to pay 800baht per night but we said we'd seen on the internet that it was 550baht - in the end they agreed and so we stayed there. Its a little way from the beach up a big hill but theres a free shuttle bus that runs every hour so its fine. The accomodation thats nearer the beach is slightly more so i think we'll stay up there as we're only going to stay a few nights here anyway. Its quite a bit cooler down here than Bangkok and on our way down here we went through a few rain storms (my bag on the top of the bus got soaked through!) and so the beach isnt really at its best at the moment as its a bit overcast. Hopefully we'll be out on the beach this afternoon if it brightens up. Its OK here and everything has been rebuilt since the tsunami but like i said its very package touristy so i think we'll be moving onto more backpackery places soon where hopefully it'll fit our budget more too :)

Anyway bye for now I probably wont update till we're in new place

xxxxxxx