Right now I'm writing this on my phone, in the hostel in Phuket. I'll post it with pictures tomorrow when I have access to a real computer. We landed in Phuket international airport and caught a mini bus to Phuket town, where we are staying in an Irish hostel... Weird, I know.
Anyways, as always with me I disliked the first day in a new place, but we did get to eat some fried rice and check out the night market, which was a lot of fun. After buying a lonely planet guide for Thailand, we discovered that there is not a lot of things to do in Phuket. That being said, we made plans to stay here for one day (today) and move on to ko phi phi for the next day.
Today we mostly spent wandering and complaining about the heat, but we did do something fun. We hired a tuk tuk to take us up a mountain to the big buddha and some of the best views of Phuket. While we were there, we wrote names on marble stones to be used in the re-construction of the buddha, and then we all got blessed by a monk, who wished us "happiness, long life, and goodluck." That was pretty cool looking back at it, though the bracelet he gave us fell off immediately, so I don't know if that cancels out the magical powers or what have you... :/
See the pictures I've included. Rachael and I went to the theatre tonight to see skyfall, however after being told that it was full, we decided to see the new twilight movie with Thai subtitles, I'm not going to comment on the movie, but it was 3 Canadian dollars, so I liked that a lot.
I decided to finally cut my dreads off, they were itchy and really bugging me. I had to shave my head, so RIP long blonde hair, and hello balding for a few weeks. Seriously, I've got a major Mike Mackett style haircut going on right now.***
I'm not too excited about the hostel, since we got the cheapest one, and it has the worst reviews, but as long as I get a mosquito net I am sure I can deal with it. The mosquitos here tend to not like me as much as they do everyone else, but I still get bit once in a while, and I'd like to avoid that.
After Ko Phi Phi, we're going to be going to another island, and then two more after that, eventually ending up in Ko Phangan for the full moon party. As of this point, I'm not too sold over on the idea of the full moon party, considering it's about 3000 drunk 20 year olds on a beach, binge drinking all night, getting drinks spiked, etc. Apparently there are police there, and they will arrest you for anything, and are just looking for a bribe to get out of it. A lot of things that I've heard about the police here mention a lot of them being corrupt, so I'm a little weary of that... We'll see how everything plays out though. If I do decide to go, I doubt there's going to be drinking, considering I haven't drank once on this trip so far, as opposed to everyone else's 10+ times; just not my thing anymore... Does this mean I'm getting old?
Okay, anyways, I'm going to have a cold shower (the best thing in the world here, the worst thing in the world in Canada), finish packing, and get some breakfast, so I'll see you all the next time I can update this.Peace!