The journey from Ko Chang to Phuket was the first uneventful journey of our trip. Good mini bus good driver, friendly travelling companions, nice ferry crossing, nice flight. 12 hours travelling and we arrived at our destination; Patong beach, Phuket.

Against all advice we decided we wanted to see Phuket, we were expecting sleaze, we were expecting tat and we were expecting expensive and we got the lot, plus being ripped off and ending up shouting 'we're back packers, get us out of here!'

I'm not even going to go into much detail, we don't want to put you off your breakfast;just think dirty old men with young Thai girls [Its ok I kept Dave on a short leash] Go-go- dancers, lady boys, loud music, flashing lights, expensive food and drink, rip off hotels, etc, etc ., as the King of Siam would say, [remember the film?]

Our first night I woke up in a panic; our air conditioning unit was making a terrific noise. I jumped out of bed and turned it off but still the roar continued, I looked out of the window and it was rain, not just rain but lots of rain and wind!!!! The rain and wind continued the next day, albeit not so heavily, so wetook a sawngthaew taxi around the southern part of the island. We were fortunate to see a baby elephant which was born on 14th Feb and his name is Valentine ahhhh [see photos], We visited a lovely temple and some gorgeous beaches, many of which had been devastated in the tsunami and are now pretty much rebuilt. We enjoyed seeing the bright lights and 'goings on' on our nights out, particularly the Chinese lanterns being let off into the night sky, but, our couple of days and nights were enough and, we were glad to be 'on the road again', or so we initially thought when our mini bus picked us up an hour late and we were first on the bus with our pick of the seat but that's another story ......