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Tourist trap
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Friday we walked to the other side of the island where the locals live so we could catch the cheaper boat to the mainland instead of the pricy ferry. Wee had to get on a songthaw (kind of a pick-up truck with sideways benches in the back and a roof over) which took an hour to get to the town of Trat but it was OK since we were sat with locals and they started sharing their grapefruit with us.
In Trat we quickly grabbed breakfast (the usual fried meet, veg and rice you get in local Asian restaurants) and were lucky enough to spot a bus heading to Phuket so we jumped on and 'enjoyed' bad karaoke videos for the following 4 hours. In Phuket town we were instantly hounded by tuk tusk offering to take us to Kata beach where Kate lives for a whopping 500 baht which is 10 times the usual rate for the distance. We wandered off in search of a bus Kate had mentioned (found a bakery along the way although we made the mistake of buying fish flavoured everything) and by some miracle we found it and it cost 25 baht!
It was good to see Kate and she kindly let us stay in her place, told us about a cheap local noodle bar and even gave us the keys to her moped! My Aussie mate Jack was in the next tourist ghetto of Patong so we went off in search of him but couldn't track him down and went to Baskin Robbins for expensive ice-cream instead! Patong was pretty dodgy with lots of go-go bars and the only Thais you see are dancing on bars or trying to coax men into playing pool with them. Certainly not my kind of place I'd want to spend my yearly holiday at but a lot of people were there so it can't be too bad. We played pool back in Kata but were surprised that everything seemed to shut quite early.
Saturday morning we practiced some Thai phrases and numbers Kate had given us and set off to the local market. Lo and behold we now managed to get cheaper mangos now we asked in Thai! Found a nice local restaurant for lunch (don't remember the name but it was on the main backroad between Kata and Patong on the right on the crest of a hill) and finally managed to get hold of Jack who insisted we join him to celebrate Australia day.
Since we'd both lived in Australia we thought it was only right we helped Jack celebrate so Ollie went to fetch him on the scooter and we all went to Kata beach for some drinks, followed by food and moiré drinks followed by a few games of pool, purchases of more drink from 7-11 followed by a game of Circle of Death back at Kate's place (with Kate since we managed to wake her up on our return home). It can't have been more than 30 minutes later when the whole bottle of whisky was empty, Jack was having us in stitches doing his animal medley and Jerry Springer impressions and Ollie was throwing up.
The following day, myself and Kate felt great where as the boys were a poor sight. Impressively Ollie got up and made us all French toast which we had with mango, banana and ice-cream - yum yum! I think Ollie was still drunk though as he'd been doing some strange Italian gangster impressions then suddenly passed out on Kate's bed along with Jack propped up in a chair so myself and Kate decided to ditch them and went off for a swim at a fancy resort up the hill from her house. I've no idea what it was called but it looked more than I could afford on my budget and the pool was lovely. Obviously everyone in the pool thought we were guests but I think the staff knew her as a regular. That afternoon Jack felt well enough to head back to his hostel and myself and Ollie moved into a friend of Kate's flat (Guy) since she was leaving to go home for a few weeks.
Yesterday I went to the nice pool again with Ollie and we had a great game of volleyball, frisbee and a silly challenge to see how many inflatable balls we could keep under ourselves (Ollie won with 4 and I was useless). An American guy joined in our games and I had hours of fun jumping around in the pool but then we had to go which was a bit embarrassing as they then realised we weren't actually staying there!
Today I went for a run along the beach and pottered around Kata. When I got back to Guy's flat I was met by a very scary looking Thai lady who demanded to come into the flat although I wasn't sure why. I assumed she owned all the flats or was the caretaker and she was very rude to me, calling me a 'dirty farang' since I'd left all my clean washing strewn all over the bed. It's weird that the streets look a dump but people, seem to be bothered about the slightest bit of mess in a flat.....
This evening I ran into the Swede Maria in an internet café. I'd met her in Kuala Lumpur of all places and I knew she lived here but Phuket is a big place after all! I met up with an English guy for dinner (Peter) who is a member of couchsurfing and he told me that he's studying Mui Thai (Thai boxing) here at some kind of local camp for 6 weeks and then would like to try and work here full time. His job involves web design so he is still employed in the UK and can still get paid but living in Thailand is much cheaper - wish I had a job like that!
Tomorrow we're thinking of leaving Phuket and heading to Kao Lak in search of a cheap dive trip to the Similan Islands
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