November 19th

We had a bit of a lie in, then headed straight for the beach, and it was amazing. The sand was white and the sea was crystal clear, it was nearly as nice as Rest Bay.....nearly. We spent most of the day splashing about in the sea or chilling on the beach. It was pretty busy there, but not too bad, although there were an awful lot of Scandinavians there!

On the way back from the beach, we noticed a shop that was selling dvds. On the rack there was a film that we had seen advertised on tv, that was coming out in the cinemas in a few days time. It looked pretty funny, so we thought we'd try it out, and add it to our already fairly large pirate dvd collection. This shop however turned out to be the dodgiest shop in the world. The guy asked if we wanted to have a look at any other dvds, and as we had nothing else to do, we thought why not. He took us down an alleyway, and opened up a secret door in a wall, and headed in to a room with no other doors or windows and was filled, from the floor to the roof with pirate dvds. It was actually quite impressive, even though it was highly illegal.

That evening we had dinner at the hotel and stayed in to watch the dvd we'd bought........pretty rock and roll, no?

November 20th

This was another day we spent mainly at the beach. Not much more to say than that. In the evening we took a taxi to Patong. This is the main bit that tourists tend to visit, however it's a little crazy. We got dropped off near a big shopping mall, and headed through to the main bar street. This is the main strip which is filled with bars, strip clubs, ping pong shows, McDonalds, Starbucks etc. Theres even more semi-naked thai girls dancing about in front of the bars, and a very generous helping of lady-boys too. We walked down to the beach end taking it all in, all the while getting accosted by shop/stall owners looking to sell us something. We passed a Burger King where they were selling a quad burger....Yes, thats right, a QUAD burger. It looked epic. I think that's something of note. Anyway, while we were walking back down the street, a huge group of lady boys had gathered in the centre of the street with loads of people taking their photographs. Laura thought we needed to get our photo with them, so she went to stand by them first while I took the photo. Now it was my turn. I was a bit freaked out but thought I couldnt come to Thailand and not get a photo with a ladyboy, so duly stepped up. I regretted this decision as I was gropped by one of them while we were posing. Not cool. Feeling dirty and violated we headed off for a drink so I could try and forget what had just happened. Down the road we found a pretty cool bar with cheap beer and pool table so ended up staying there for a few drinks. There were a couple of expats in there who were telling us the places to go and what to do while we are in Thailand and Malaysia.

With only about an hour left before our taxi came to pick us up, we went for another walk down the main strip, where we were dragged into a place called Hollywood Place. It was like a huge building where the whole of the ground floor had been split into about 30 seperate bars, all with yet more scantily clad thai women dancing on them. We settled at one of the bars, and got the cocktails in, while we played some connect 4. Suckered in by the buy one get one free offer we got a second round in, this time we were given the cocktail shakers to shake ourselves.....lazy bar staff! An American couple sat next to us got us involved with in a game they were playing with the bar staff. It was called jackpot, I cant really remember the rules, but it was a good laugh. We were now late for the taxi, so had to leg it across town (stopping in McDonalds for a happy meal because I was hungry!). Luckily our taxi man hadn't left without us, so it was all good. After another few beers back at the hotel, we went to bed!

November 21st
We were up early today as we'd booked a boat to take us to Ao Nang, a port town in the Krabi Province. We were due to be picked up at 10:30, so by 11 we were a little annoyed. We got the reception staff to call the tour operator who said they were outside our hotel. Clearly they weren't. They'd obviously got the wrong hotel, so after reconfirming our hotel, they said they'd be there soon. Another 30 minutes went by. Another phone call made, this time they said they were sending a car to pick us up to make sure we caught the only ferry of the day. 30 minutes later, this hadn't turned up. Phoned again, this time knowing we'd missed the ferry, I gave them a fair bit of abuse down the phone so they said we'd get a full refund and a car would be coming in 30 minutes to drive us to Ao Nang instead. Ok, we'd settle for that now.
An hour later, there was still nothing. Now we were really p****d. I left Laura with the lugguage at the hotel and ran down to the tour operators stall in the town. The guy there was on the phone and said that the car is outside your hotel right now, go back and get it quickly. So I ran back (in this heat, its more of a big deal than it sounds!) to find no car outside the hotel and Laura still sitting there having heard nothing at all. 10 minutes went by, then we both went down to kick off with this guy. I dont think he knew what was going on. We were both giving him a lot of abuse (and quite rightly I maintain.....the hotel is about 5 minutes down the road....how anyone can be so retarded I dont know!). We said we were staying in his little shop until someone came to pick us up. Then came the matter of the refund. He said we couldnt get a refund as other transport had been sorted bla bla bla, we both kicked off again. To cut a long story short, we got half the money back and a minibus came to pick us up and take us to Ao Nang, even though we were 4 hours later we'd hoped!
After getting to Ao Nang, we found a cheap guesthouse and went for a quick wander through the town where we decided to treat ourselves to an all you can eat buffet......mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! We then went looking for somewhere to show the Wales Argentina game, but couldnt find anywhere. In the end we found an Irish bar that was showing the England NZ game, so settled for that instead.