Chaing Mai --> Phuket --> Koh Tao (arrival)

Hi bloggo’s

Today we took a plane from Chaing Mai to Phuket via Bangkok. Was a pretty easy journey compared with some of the mighty expeditions we have undertaken already. We arrived in Phuket in the evening off the 23rd, it was pretty hot and humid and after a little traipsing about we found somewhere for a whopping 500 baht (cheapest we found, urgh)! Straight away I realized that Patong was not as nice as I remembered 4 years ago. It has become totally overrun with drunken yobs and old blokes looking for young Thai girls. We thought oh well, may as well make the most of it anyway.

The next two days we had already booked ourselves into a nice hotel just for the Christmas period. The hotel was really nice, with a reasonably hot shower (a bit disappointing :( ), nice clean sheets and other luxury’s that you forget about while traveling. After sorting our stuff out in the room we headed out to the beach for some relaxation, we didn’t find it, all we found was a headache. We got to the beach and found hundreds if not thousands of sun beds on the beach, completely full off sun bathing tourists, last time I visited there were no more than 40-50 sun beds with few people on the beach. So after a short swim in the sea and a little time trying to relax in the sun, we left and headed back to the hotel to have a swim in the hotel swimming pool (very nice). That evening we had the compulsory Christmas gala dinner, at first we thought it was a waste of money, but it turned out ok. We were sat with a really nice couple and the food was absolutely amazing, all sorts of seafood (for Simone obviously) and loads of treats and delights. Only problem was that the drink was really expensive and we couldn’t afford anything, so we just shared one water all night :). The entertainment was hilarious; it was a cabaret with singing lady boys, the hotel staff singing Christmas carols with the wrong words, funny dancing guys out of sync and all sorts of displays of supposedly Thai culture. At the end of the night we won 2nd prize in the prize draw, we were the ticket drawn out, they kept announcing the ticket number and people had either left or were too drunk to accept there prizes. The prize was 1000baht to spend at the hotel for food and drink, so the next evening we ate for free in the hotel, I had some nice brandy and Simone had a special desert.

The next day we rented out a motorbike and left Patong for Christmas day and went south to another beach with hardly anybody on it, with loads of nice snorkeling to be had. This beach really was peaceful and we had a great relaxing day, so I suppose it made up for the day before.
After probably the worst days of our trip we left Phuket to find some scuba diving in Koh Tao. We took 2 buses from Phuket to Suratthani. Here we found people trying to rip us off, but saw through it and got our money back, we ended up having to stay over for the evening in a not bad hotel for only 280baht. The next morning we took a 6.5 hour ferry to Koh Tao, pretty rough journey but well worth it.

We arrived in Koh Tao in the afternoon and found a very professional scuba diving outfit. The rest of this story is in the next blog!! Until then Peace out

D;)