Tropica Bungalows Patong

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We went down a little & then jumped overboard to do some snorkeling. Water temp again divine & saw hundreds of small bright green fish with a black strip. You actually jumped into the water that was full of them. Saw big clams, coral, another beautiful big purple fish with bright orange lips & a green stripe. When I had enough of snorkeling I floated around in my life jacket

Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand hilaryramsey

... touristy, and a bit life Magaluf (so Stephen would probably like it). The next day, me and Tom enjoyed a Thai massage to work off our hangovers, and then chilled out and went out again the second night, although not quite as aggressively! Highlight - The bar games. Lowlight - Too many prostitutes That brings me up to today, where we are heading to Ko Phi Phi where the Beach was filmed, to chill out for a couple of nights.

... now - we have such a knack for living next to them! Could be worse with bigger machines but at times it is bad enough. It is fascinating sitting on Bangla or Soi Sansabai and watching the white men walking along clutching the hand of their "beloved" Thai girl. We sat next to a girl in one bar who had been introduced by an Aussie banker as being her fiancé. When he went to play the hammer game she received a text from some other guy wanting to kiss her!

... s always a welcome treat. On Monday, nothing new here: pool, beach, nap, eat. We have become rather boring. We are so sick of the food here. We did have Thai food that night because we are burned out on Subway, Burger King and McDonalds. We did walk around for a bit after dinner and we bought the Jackpot dice game. I also bought a wrap for the beach, mainly because I can't keep wearing my sun dresses as cover ups - I need to save those ...

... loungers or in the sea. It is sooo hot but the sea is really refreshing so packed with people. We got chatting to a fair few people, and met Mitch from South Africa. He seems really nice so hopefully we'll see him again before we leave. On Monday night there was a pool competition in the hostel bar and they were a player short so Ed took the spare place. It was a good night with lots of drunk pool playing, mainly by the opposite team who lost ...

... people were very friendly and the local food was great. It made for a welcome change after being in KL and more than likely having a few helpings of dog. But on the whole Phuket wasn't what we expected and was a bit of a let down. The coast felt very package holiday. The Scandinavians equivalent of Benidorm or Kavos to the British. Boozy bars by the beach and not much else.

... have a great nap! At a travel and tours booth outside the massage place I book tickets for Mum and me to see the Simon Phuket Cabaret on Friday night. Another job off my list. Rob and I went last time we were in Phuket and it was so cheesey and a hoot. Mum will definitely love it and we book VIP seats which include transport to and from Simon for THB600 each ($20). Back to the Hotel for a quick swim before dinner. I've planned for us to eat at the ...

... and the hong was massive. The quiet and stillness of the water was unbelieveable and we saw some very strange wildlife as well. After a morning of kayaking and caving we went to this little village that is built on stilts called Koh Panyi. Though on the way there we passed James Bond Island, but to be honest it's just a rock in the middle of the sea so we didn't bother stopping and paying the 440 baht just to look at it from a ...

... go by in front of you, again an amazing dive. Finally we head back to take our final exam, which we both passed. Bev got 1 mark knocked off my paper as our instructor had marked it wrong, I got 92% instead of the 94% he originally gave me, Bev still beat me on her 96% Feeling pleased with ourselves we go out celebrating with our dive instructors and everyone from our course till the early hours. Our alarm goes off at 6am the following morning ...

... we are going tomorrow is warmer.) In our group were two other guys from the U.K., and our instructor is from the U.K. too. We were taught skills such as breathing through our regulators (quite important!), how to clear our masks of water, how to achieve "neutral buoyancy" - floating underwater, breathing with another person's regulator, hand signals for communicating underwater, and taking off and putting on our weight belts and bcd ...