Hello, and greatings from Phuket.

So what have i been up to for the last week? Short andswer is not a great deal. But i guess here are the highlights.

We left Phi phi which was exceptionally beaufiful and headed for Phuket. I thought it would be best to stay in phuket town as its a lot cheaper than staying in all of the touristy areas. The hostol we are staying in "the backpacker hostel" (quite well named one might say) but its actually really nice...well nice compared to the garden shed we were in at Phi phi. This room has its own bathroom, with flushing toilet!!! i got all excited when i saw it, a toilet that flushes without the use of a bucket, or a toilet that isn't just a slightly raised whole in the floor. heaven.

Phuket town...its a big mixture between a town that looks like it has been in some kind of small war, and beautiful seno-portuguese buildings, its bizzar but in its own special way very beautiful. I have been taking it easy since being in Phuket, I arrived on the sunday and headed for the Sunday market, which was great if your a 5ft 4 thai person and you dont keep hitting your head on the little canvas roofing bits dotted aroun. I mean i'm not even that tall so you can imagine how short they were. The market was great, so many people trying to sell so much of the same useless cheap crap, but also there were plenty of thai people around too which was nice to visit somewhere that felt authentically thai instead of touristy.

On the monday we rented a scooter again (sorry mum), which was good because it meant we were able to travel out of phuket town and explore more of the island. Although in Phuket they drive like crazy people. No one looks where theyre going, the pull out left right and centre with little reguard for their own safety. That and you notice more and more that there are hundreds of small preteen children cruising the streets on bikes they can barely see over the handle bars. I did however eat some very questionable street food, it was some kind of small spherically shaped meat on a stick, that im sure was chicken or beef or perhaps both, or some kind of substance, but other people were eating it too so it cant be all bad.

We travelled to the nearest big beach Patong beach, which really is bad version of paridise. Its like blackpool in the height of summer, endless deckchairs and a small fat man running around trying to get you to sit on them. I was also shocked at the sheer volume of australians that were about, they were everywhere like a plague. But it is a warm up to the next part of my trip i guess. Everywhere you go in thailand you can buy knock off dvds, which on the whole have been quite expensive but in putong they are cheap! We were looking at a stall of dvd's and the owner said, ahh movies you follow me, we stepped inside a seemingly indescript suit shop, at that point he put his hand inside a rack of ties and out of nowhere a door appeared and a secret room full of pirate dvds lining the walls on the inside. It was incredible, and at the same time exceptionally strange. Needless to say as i now have a dvd player in my room, i might have bought a few dvds.

After a little of my soul had been degraded by the thai-australian sleeze of patong we headed down the coast past a place called kamala to a tiny little private beach, where the waves were rough and the sands were bright white. it was beautiful, i got to endulge my childish side and attempt some body surfing, which predominantly involved me swallowing unhealthy amounts of sea water. Fun never the less.

After a day of chilling out on the beach, we spent a day exploring the various facits of Phuket town, wandering through the side streets and enjoying all the pleasent smells that linger everywhere (which remind me off a curious mixture of rotten meat, human excriment and sweat...delightful). Today we found lots of beautiful little shrines and museum. Yesterday, i wasnt feeling to well, nothing to do with the miscallanious street food im sure, and the last thing i coulod face was greesy thai food, thats either really salty or really spicy, there seems to be no happy median. So after wandering around for a while we settled on a thai-italian fusuion restaurant (odd you might think) but it was amazing, just what my belly needed...WESTERN FOOD! You might think that im a little bit of a philestine for dabling in italian food but when you've been eating low grade meat and suspect looking dishes for nearly a month you might go a little crazy too. But don't worry i'm back on the thai stuff now, and my regime of beer and exceptionally hot chillie dishes to disuade the mosies from eating me alive. Thus far suprisingly affective.

As its the 13 of may 2552 (which seems a little strange as when i left it was only 2009, for a country so far in the future i can only assume in 500 years in england we are also going to have a complete lack care for health and safety, an interesting thought) anyway... we fly to singapore on the 17th of may, 2552, so I am feeling that i may decide to see if i can find a few cheap nights on a beach on the south coast soon. If anyone knows any cheap places to stay in singapore let me know because it seems really expensive.