First morning in Phuket; we have breakfast included in our hotel which is nice because we can save some penny's that way!
We were near to the time it was finishing so instead of catching the buffet they made us a breakfast up, I asked for the American and Scott had the thai breakfast, only we were brought two american breakfasts and then when we told the receptionist she translated to the staff and they ended up bringing not just one thai breakfast but two. The receptionist was laughing and apologising, the staff are Burmese so don't always catch what she is saying to them. Scott felt cheeky leaving the food so he are an American breakfast and two thai breakfasts! Haha. That's him done until tea time!
We hired a moped from the hotel, it was a really snazzy one but the seat was ridiculously wide and really hurt your groin trying to put your leg over it!! You felt the burn when you stretched your legs let me tell you!

We had researched some beaches and just decided to take the main road south that went around the coastline; although we couldn't get out of Patong for ages because there are one way systems here and you can't seem to go up a side street to turn back on yourself so you have to do the full length of Patong to be able to turn around and allow us to get on the road that we wanted to be on! Nightmare.
The main roads are really well maintained and fairly quiet, quite surprised at how mountainess Phuket was, I did not expect mountains! I don't know why!? The scenery was lovely though, the coastal road gave some great views, we stopped at a view point that over looked a few beaches up the southern west coast. The water is spectacular, it's clear blue and the sun makes the water all sparkly!

The main resort beaches seem to have a main road in between the beach and the restaurants and hotels but there are smaller beaches in coves that either have hardly anyone on them or have the resorts on them with private beaches; the smaller ones are the better ones I think!

It took about two hours to get on to the other side of the island after we had stopped and had some photo opportunities and gauped at the lovely beaches; we decided to go up the 'big Buddha' on top of one of the mountains, it overlooked Phuket's east side and a few beaches on the west. It was absolutely massive, I had to be dressed in a wrap around skirt and given a scarf to put over my shoulders, the outfit was well snazzy haha! Not. The colours and patterns did not match! The Buddha wasn't finished inside and the surrounding area was still a building site so it spoilt your opportunities of getting a good photo of the scenery because you had concrete and metal rods poking everywhere.

After a stroll around the Buddha we headed back down the steep hill, there were a lot of baby elephants chained up with tourists having their photos then with them, I'm sure the babies get treated worse than the adults because they're smaller so you can put them in smaller pens and make their chain so much smaller. It's awful! Phuket is one of the worst places we have seen for elephant camps and people riding them, they're treated like circus animals and their health is really poor. We think we are vets now we have learnt a little about it in Cambodia! Hehe.

We stopped off at one of the small beaches we went passed earlier, it was a sort of cove but on the side of the road, it was lovely and the water was really warm! The only trouble was that the wind had slightly picked up but when your wet from the sea and the fine sand was blowing everywhere you soon became a sand monster! And I hate sand. We managed to stick it out for about and hour (which is good going for me when I'm covered in sand!) after that we headed back and went to the pool to de sand and freshen up from the salt water! It's not a bad view from our hotel, you can see the sea and the sunset, I like nosing at people carrying out their every day lives, mind in their own business.

Our hotel is on the side of the beach that collected the most water in Patong during the tsunami. The tsunami hit the west coast of the island, in our area there are a lot of new buildings mainly high rise I guess 'just incase' it happens again. There is a man made river in front of some of the new hotels, and big holes dotted in the pavement slabs so that if it did happen again they are able to drain the water a little better. We looked it up on the Internet and it does show where the water congregated; you can see some damage and there are a lot of pieces of land empty with no buildings, the one piece of land opposite out hotel has a night market on it with gazebos and a stage so we are guessing it was put there after the tsunami, maybe buildings got knocked down there?
There were only 7000 people that does in Phuket, yeah it's a lot but not a huge amount as the overall death rate was 250,000 people. Apparently Patong was up and running again 3 months after the tragedy! I think Scott is a little worried about it happening again, although we are on floor 7 so he said he will sleep easier knowing that the water won't be able to reach us up there! Haha!

We were meeting Ellie tonight, really excited as it's been 5 months since I last saw her! We were running late though! We came down from the pool at 5.30pm and next thing we knew it was 7pm! That's what watching you tube clips does, makes time fly too quickly! I even got Scott to go outside and check if it was dark outside and that our phones weren't tricking us (we don't have a window in our room, it was a little cheaper to have one without! Such cheap skates)
We have never got ready so quickly before and stormed down to the Irish bar where she said they were, it was lovely seeing them all! We chatted for ages and had a few drinks before we went and got some grub, Ellie likes her spice but she hasn't learnt that you never ask for your food spicy in Thailand! It will make you cry! Her mouth was on fire eating her prawn dish!
After dinner we went onto walking street, it was hilarious! They were all gobsmacked and looked a little worried. They had never seen this side of Thailand before! Ping pong shows and girls or lady boys dancing in next to nothing on the bars, the lady boys dressed in drag trying to drag people into the bars and shows. Ah the look on Ellie's face was so funny, you could tell she was thinking 'where the hell am I!? This isn't Thailand!'
It is a little crazy there I admit! We went into a bar got a beer, Sal and Geoff retreated back to their hotel early. We stayed out passed 12am having drinks and chatting, it was a good night but we knew we weren't going to feel the perkiest tomorrow!
We all bought wrist hands that said 'wolf pack' on them! Haha. We must have been drunk!!