Mercure Patong Phuket

Picked up at 8am by a mini van to do the boat trip to Phang Nga Islands. Travelled for about an hour to the north of the island where our boat left for A Por Pier. Battled car sickness in the car & glad I had some snacks in my bag to fight it off. There was about 20 people on board including 2 muslim couples on their honeymoon from Egypt & Kuwait. Kept wondering if they ...

... found a little bar run by a Thai lady who lived in Switzerland for 15 years so her English is good, along with her Swiss boyfriend who is helping out. We might have finally found a bar to adopt - Sara's Shake Bar. Russ went off to check out some of the other places to stay that we had looked at on the internet, but we think we did alright with the Patong Tower. It is more expensive than many places, but cheaper than a lot of the hotels, and being ...

... would be a great place for a shorter trip (2 weeks is too long) or if you are simply looking for a great place to lay in the sun and eat cheap food and drinks. I really love their local beers with Tiger being my favorite by far. You can get it at the fake 7 11 for $1USD :) very nice!! I hope that I am able to find the Thai beers in the states when I return to share with my friends. The weather over the past few days has been great hot and sunny much different ...

... crevice between the elephant's ears and head), I allowed one hand to release its grip from the bar and grab a hold of my camera. The sites were outstanding! The trees and vines intertwined in so many ways I thought I could make out silhouettes of elephants in them. Or did they shape them that way? No, really, the growth of the plants and trees were in their natural state - untouched and unharmed from any form of modernization ...

... the beach ( well you could see the sea...anyway) Karon is less touristy than Patong ( where most holiday makers and clubbers go) and the beaches are beautiful although it did advise not swim in the sea at Karon during the wet season ( now). We didnt do a great deal here as on the second day here i suffered from severe heat exhaustion. It was a ...

... Elvis". He is HI-larious. Elvis is Thai, or even Chinese I think, and can hardly speak English. But that doesn't stop the show. He sings "Jerrous Lock" and "Work like an Arngel" and moves just like Elvis. He comes and shakes hands with Henry who sits there like a potato. Mei-Mei however is very gracious in the presence of The King. He whips the crowd up by saying before each song "Are you leddy to lorck and loll?". However the show is stolen from ...

... his course by doing two 18m dives at sea seeing many fishes along the way, including the odd Nemo! We both enjoyed the final day together by swimming in the crystal blue waters and Claire even managed to squeeze in a pedicure. We had a huge thunderstorm on the last night where the whole sky was continuosly lit up and it was like someone pouring a bucket of water over you. Is this going to follow us to Singapore we wonder........?

... open water and there before us was the most stunning scenery of towering peaks and islands in all manner of blue/grey hues depending on their distance from us. This is Phang Nga Bay and the extreme shaped rock formations towering out of the sea are called karst islands. We reached a floating house/platform near an island and transfered into rubber canoes. Two to a boat plus we had our own paddler, I shared the kayak with a Canadian girl who ...

... saw a 4 foot long iguana (no kidding!), I found a beautiful shell... Katie & I ventured further into the island and came across a little secluded alcove that was in keeping with the quiet and peaceful theme. As Wolfgang had predicted, the beach and the cove were completely deserted. "Normally," he told us in his thick Austrian accented voice (which often sounds EXACTLY like Arnold Schwarzenegger), "there would be so many boats in the Bay that you could walk across them to reach the shore ...