The Journey to Phuket

After seeing the Grand Palace we stopped off at a travel agents to see about getting to the island of Phuket, far in the South. I had thought we'd get a train and a connecting bus but this was very expensive. Flying was a possibility but this was even more pricey, so we decided to get a very cheap 'VIP' bus for 450 bhat (about 8 quid). After booking it I thought I must be mad as I get really travel sick and I'd just booked a 15 hour bus ride - the longest bus ride I've ever been on! We also only had 30 mins to catch the bus so we bought some food and got our stuff. Amazingly, the bus ride started well. We did about 5 hours and stopped for some food, then another 4 hours and were dropped off at a random cafe to wait for another bus.

Unfortunately the other bus took 2 hours and only took us down the road to another bus station which was closed as it was only about 7am. At 9am the bus station opened and the scamming started again.... The woman at the bus station said that the bus wouldn't be there til 12.30 but luckily we could pay another 700 bhat for a minibus for the final leg. Grudgingly we said we'd wait. About 5 minutes later she came out and said that the first bus was cancelled and we'd actually be waiting til 3.30pm for the next bus. It was probably a lie but we were too pissed off to argue about it, so we bartered her down to 500 bhat and took the minibus the rest of the way.

Anyway, we got to Phuket and found a nice hotel with air con for a mere 200 bhat (about 3 quid) per night. Annoyingly the two guys I travelled with had had stuff taken from their bags on the journey. I always keep the important stuff on me so I was alright but it was annoying that something like that would happen. We looked around Phuket for a bit. It wasn't an amazingly beautiful place, and was full of old white men with young Thai girls (another thing Thailand is famous for), which was a bit disturbing. Anyway, we chilled on the beach and had a good meal before playing some pool to round off a tiring two days!