We landed in Phuket at about 2pm and had been lazy enough to agree to the guest house airport pick-up service costing 800 baht which proved to be well worth the money as we discovered Karon Beach was a 45 minute drive south;

KARON BEACH
As our first stop in Thailand we had decided this would be our holiday within a holiday, a week of pure relaxation by the pool etc. but after arriving we were so impressed with the accomodation we decided to indulge ourselves and added an extra seven nights making Baan Suay our home for two weeks. We were shown to our own little cottage with ensuite, fridge, aircon, the works……. a far cry from the dumps we had been staying in over the past month, so I guess I can understand Joannas reasons for smashing the bathroom to pieces five short days into our stay, maybe she just wanted to feel like a backpacker again and have a horrible bathroom to visit, you should of seen her laughing about it when I returned to the debris…….. actually she was crying heavily following the “bad thing” she had done, slipping over and smashing the porcelain toilet. I cant laugh too much though…. I managed to break the sink two days later, I doubt we will be welcomed back to the Baan Suay anytime soon!

Karon Beach is about two Km away from the much busier Patong and we found it to be a very nice area for couples with plenty of lovely restaurants and bars to choose from and best of all the food was outrageously cheap! All in all a perfect place to chill out for a couple of weeks.

PATONG
After meeting a friend who conveniently lives at his dads hotel in Patong we spent four nights in the Wharfe Suite of the Yorkshire Hotel for the price of a hostel (thanks Dan), the hotel is amazing and we felt as though flashpacker was becoming a more appropriate word to sum us up…. It was so nice Jo couldn't bring herself to smash the place up this time. Danny then showed us one of his typucal evenings out on Bangla Road which involved many drinks, climbing up a pole and debating which ones were ladyboys before settling in Tiger bar and watching an amazing band play pretty much every Bob Marley song ever written, Jo was happy….. especially when she was handed the bongos…. I think they thought they had picked up a groupie!

On our last night before departure to Ko Yao Noi we jumped on the back of a bike taxi (three people on a 50cc scooter should not be allowed) and headed to a Korean BBQ, for 120 baht (just over 2 pounds) we had our very own BBQ in the middle of the table allowing us to cook our own meats and noodles from an all you can eat selection…….. the food was out of this world and the whole experience was great fun!

Next stop Ko Yao Noi…..