The Tique Patong Hotel Phuket

Back in Bangkok we checked into our usual haunt (the Merry V guesthouse) before heading to the Chattachuck market. A short river trip and sky train ride later and we saw the market sprawling out infront of us. It has got to be the largest market I have ever seen! There are apparently over 10,000 stalls….it is insane! Once you are weaving your way through the stalls its shear size is overwhelming….it is just endless….we saw only a small fraction of the place in ...

... tourist and famous for the bird nests used in bird nest soups and as we passed you could see the bamboo scaffold and ladder used to scale the some 70 metres to reach the prized nests that can reach 100,000baht per kg and is said to provide US$500 million in export trade in Thailand.



The scenery on approach was stunning, the colour of the water aqua, emerald and blue wow. We changed boats in Tonsai Bay and headed off around to Long Beach and the Holiday Inn, we met Nancy and ...

... if we found a deserted and secluded beach, we'd find the same quality of snorkeling or scenery that we had witnessed already in the Maldives and Malaysia. So, we stuck to our hotel and found some food, resting up for the coming night. We took a little nap and overslept the first night. We had planned to get up at 2300 and go out partying until dawn. We actually awoke at 0120 and scrambled to get down to the main strip. We were worried everything would be ...

... was fun and we made some money which was great and hopefully put some condoms on some men ;) There was also some deeelicious food stalls selling chicken rice, som tam - my new and deadly addiction, mango and sticky rice, delicious fresh fruit drinks of blended pineapple and watermelon and various other treats. Something got lost in translation when I ordered my som tam. "May Phet" I said; meaning "not spicy." And upon my first bite of the delicious papaya peanut salad, my ...

... to say, next day I didn;t get out of bed untill 5.30pm! I was a bit annoyed with myself but I'm sure it's not the last time it's going to happen! So with the day pretty much written off I prepared to move to Koh Phi Phit the next day and got an early night to recharge the batteries. Summary of Phuket - Lovely island but Patong was far too money grabbing and seedy. If I were to go back I would stay at one of the other beaches. Still, an experience all the same.

... lad. So yes, even the most dedicated student will lose interest some stage. I found my motivation again by taking a few days off and eating **** to punish myself the next day. And finding someone who can push you and look forward to training with. Still haven't had a VIP session with the trainers, but it's hard to hand over 500baht for an hour. And *******n market crash, the AUD and USD is buying **** all baht here. Grrrrr

... of Chinese lunar calendar. Thought of sharing this post to give some idea to the soon-to-travel-to ...

... waves so Andrew hired a surf board and took to the water. That evening he had come up in a rash and wasn't feeling the best, so we decided to stay in Phuket a couple of extra days. That's really it for Phuket - although I'm still convinced that Andrew just said he wasn't feeling well so that we could stay in our nice blue lagoon resort!!!

... It's hard to imagine that 2000 people perished on this island in the Tsunami of 2004. Everything has been rebuilt and the only indication that this tragedy happened are the Tsunami escape route signs, lights and sirens telling people what to do and where to go if it happens again. These warnings are certainly a consequence of this awful and harrowing incident.

... even entered the cave!)...and afterwords, our big boat "parked" maybe half-a-mile from the shore, and everybody had some "free time" ... some people stayed on the boat, others - including us - went for more canoeing...our canoe ride with no help from the guide was not quite smooth at first, but we quickly gained control of the canoe and headed to the shore...the shore was rocky and completely secluded (nobody lives on these little ...