We woke up at 4am to catch a ride to our next destination, Phuket, Thailand in what we thought was going to be a bus, but was actually a van. However big and comfortable this van was... It is still not comfortable to cram 14 people into it especially when some other backpackers and locals hygiene is subpar. For the most part the ride through the border into Thailand was fine. Our van got stopped once and the driver had to give a bribe, but apparently that is very common. Stopped at a few dodgy rest stops and didn't want to eat the food. The real fun happened when we got into Thailand.

About 2 hours after we got through the border of Thailand, we got dropped off at another tour company's office and told to wait for an hour until our other van that will take us to the Phuket station arrives. A few hours outside of Phuket, our new van Driver drops us off at another tour company and tells the 4 tourists ( Alyssa an I included ) to go inside. While everyone else waits outside. A very manly, and I mean manly lady boy greets us and starts drilling us on where we are staying and how we are getting there from Phuket station. And trying to charge us extra for the driver to drop us off at our hostels after. After attempting to be polite a few times, we forcefully said no. We hop back into our vans and were off to what we hope is the Phuket bus station. Sadly we were wrong. We get into the centre of town. And told to get out while the driver unloads our bags. And denies us entry back in. Conveniently there was a taxi driver waiting there for us and tried charging us 3 times as much to our hostels. After he got pissed off at me for bargaining ( mainly because I knew exactly how much it should cost ) he points us in the opposite direction of where the bus station is. Finally figuring out where we needed to actually go. We ended up asking a guest house for help, Luckily they decided to help us out and arranged a cab for us.

Our new guest house is just off the busy beach street of Karon beach. Tucked away in an ally in between a bank and a bar. Pineapple guest house, doesn't look like it would be clean from the outside, but surprisingly, beds were clean, hot water and a nice size double bed. For the price, we definitely couldn't complain. Steve, the owner, or boyfriend of the owner. Is a friendly British guy that was more than willing to help us out, to find the best restaurants, and to rent a scooter, which is by far the cheapest and easiest way to get around. $200baht ( $6 ) will get you a decent scooter for a day. $40baht / L ( $1.10 / L ) for 91 octane, which conveniently, most stores and even houses have bottles of gasoline, you can buy at any time of the day. Which is fantastic because gas stations are in frequent and close very early.

The next morning, the weather was cloudy, but still muggy, definitely not beach weather so we decided to rent a scooter for the next couple days and explore the island our first stop was to the top of Phuket hill, where a massive Buddha monument is in the works of being built. Whizzing in and out of traffic, through steep switchbacks we arrive at this massive sitting Buddha, perched on top the highest hill in Phuket. It was a impressive site to see. Standing around 135' tall and 75' across, Beautiful white polished Burmese marble tiles cover the entire Buddha. Tourists/visitors can "buy" a tile, inscribe their name on the back of it therefore their names will be permanently written on the Buddha

On our way back down the mountain, we decided to stop at one of the many "elephant ride" locations, mainly to see the cute little baby elephant they had been chained up out front. Alyssa ended up buying a basket of bananas to feed the poor elephants. It was a depressing site to see these massive animals chained up on such a short metal chain. I believe one was actually crying. ( maybe not but it looked like it )

(please note the change in authors: mike said that since I am such a better writer than he is I should write the rest of Phuket. Aka he got lazy and is so far behind he wanted me to catch him up)

After big Buddha and our experience feeding the elephants (which I tried very hard to allow every giant grey creature to have a banana), we got lost going home and ended up going the LONG way around to get back to our hostel. Basically instead of going right at the very cramped, confusing traffic circle, we went straight (please remember, we have to drive on the left side and mike has a person hanging on the back of the bike who has never before ridden on any kind of motorized contraption, so the last thing we were concerned about was which way to go at a circle since everything had seemed straight on the way there). When we got back to our place we showered off the sweat and dust, and I had a little time to prepare my papered tushy for another go on the bumpy bike to Patong beach. Patong is the more popular of the beaches in Phuket. That is generally where the parties happen and it also has the large Thai boxing ring and a large, half outdoor half indoor, shopping centre. Mike, of course, was craving sushi, so we went to the most expensive sushi place in thailand (probably not but holy it was pricey) and he ordered more than he could eat, managing to finish it and polish off a dairy queen (that's right, it was like his freakin birthday) ice cream cone a little bit later. We went shopping (my turn for the treats, or so I thought) and mike bought a new pair of sandals, and pair of quicksilver shorts(he was spoiled as a child, teen, and adult). I bought nothing. Then we headed back, in the dark, to our temporary home about 20 minutes away.

The next day it was not much better weather than the previous day. In fact, it was worse. But we decided, what the heck, let's go to the opposite side of the island and see what kind of trouble we can get into.. Ha! We made it to Phuket town unharmed but smelling the familiar scent of rain in the air. It had taken about 40 minutes to get there through a windy, up and down hill road. People here honk to let them know that they are passing you, but to the average person (or rather... Us) honking means that you are f*ing up! So that was definitely something that had to be gotten used to. Plus, it's really bad for the driver (mike) when the passenger on the back (me) keeps whipping my head around to see what was the matter. Anyways, back to the making it there unharmed... We decided to drive around and just look at the scenery of the town but the rain had finally caught up to us. So what does a good tourist do when it rains? We eat! I had my go to (as in my "I'm not sure if this place is sanitary but how can they screw up steamed rice and sautéed vegetables") meal, and mike had his go to...( "whatever you like best on the menu"). After that it seemed like we had a bit of a lower period of rain so we decided to start to head back to our place, stopping at the central market (another really big mall but this one has 4 stories with a movie theatre) to look around. Just before we pulled up it started pouring! Thinking that the rain couldn't keep up the torrential downpour for more than an hour, we decided to go to a movie (the avengers which was really good). Sure enough, it could still be raining that hard when we exited 3 hours later and had to drive home anyways because it didn't look like stopping and it was starting to get dark. After the first 3 minutes or so, (more like 3 seconds) we were completely soaked and it was pointless to try to keep dry but luckily it was still warm out so we were doing okay. Mike kept calling back to me asking if I was okay, and although I was silently praying to keep both our lives, I said that I was fine. Down the windy hill and back up the other side, we made it within 15 minutes of our hostel and got a flat tire... Ya. Luckily we were across from a random bike shop so mike pulled it in and out of the rain. They said it would be 800b ($25 ish) and mike said no way... Fill 'er up. (we were taking it back to the rental place that as soon as we were back to our place). So they filled it up (after a few adjustments which concluded that the tire had just popped off the rim) and we were off again.

After making it back to our place and mike taking back the motorbike, we picked up our tickets for the boat to kho phi phi and went off to bed, ready for another bumpy journey the next day.