Phuket… tres love

We left Bangkok on Saturday morning then quickly and easily caught a plane to Phuket. The Bangkok airport was arguably the easiest airport experience I’ve ever had. Not a ton of security and 50 dollars to get from Bangkok to Phuket on a one hour flight. Once we arrived we used our Lonely planet guide and tried to find a guest house. Our taxi driver didn’t speak a word of English and we could find the guest house we wanted. Eventually we ended up in Karon beach at a descent guest house for 450 baht a night.

Then Joe and I hit the beach around 3pm. The beaches are beautiful. The water is a jade green instead of the light blue like in the Caribbean. The sand is so fine it makes a strange squish sound when you walk on it. After this we headed to Patong beach which is the main tourist area of Phuket. The Tuk-tuk ride was 300 baht WTF. No taxis here.

Once at Patong we walked on Bangla road and basically we were treated like fresh meet. People grab you saying, Cheap strong drink!, You wan’t massage?’ Ping pong show? and Tuk Tuk. It was kind a weird experience but not bad. Joe and I had a couple of drinks and headed home.

The next day (today)…my favorite so far. We rented motorbikes!! They are the best thing ever! They are 200 baht a day are a lot of fun to drive. We met some New Zealand guys who said they were headed to a giant marble Buddha on the highest point in Phuket. We went with them and after getting a little lost we got there. The drive was straight up a large mountain with forest all around. Once there the Buddha was huge and the view was indescribable. You could see all of Phuket and the perfect beaches all around it. We went inside the Buddha which was scary baucause there was no light and the stairs were steep as hell. Not good idea. No tourists do this which we didn’t know. We left the Buddha, got some drinks at this cool bungalow, and headed back to Patong. About a 20 minute drive.

For lunch we had some much needed subway. We met four really cool Australians who seemed to love our American accents. After some time we decided to all head to the beach. They rented a motorbike and the 2 girls road on ours. The beach was the same as yesterdays because the one we wanted to go to was closed. Once there we jumped right in the water in the non-swimming area and had a scare. We were all laughing and talking we ended legitimately getting sucked out. Joe realized this before me and the three others and quietly headed back. He made it in and I was swimming as hard as I could to get back in and help the girls. After being out there for about 5 minutes I told everyone to relax and conserve energy. When a wave came we swam and when there wasn’t we didn’t . Everyone was freaking out yelling to Joe. I knew the lifeguards would come because I saw them starting to run towards us on the beach. Eventually with the wave strategy we were able to touch and get back in. Yeah sorry Mom and Dad about that story.

We left the beach after a little while after drove everyone back to Patpong and now are about to head to a diving place to see if we can get our Padi certs.

I love Phuket and miss you all!!