Phuket

We left Phi Phi on the early express boat bound for Phuket.  We could see that the weather was pretty bad out at sea and around 30 mins into the crossing the rains started.  The boat bounced over each wave after that!  Bang on time at 10.30am we arrived into a rain swept Phuket Harbour.  We decided to stay in Phuket Town rather than go to any beach resort and booked a 50 baht bus ride whilst we were on the boat.

The bus dropped us off at the local TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) office where we enquired about any good priced accomodation.  We were recommended to try the Crystal Inn which was around 15min walk away and had rooms for 499 baht per night which was pretty good value.  At this point the rain was still lashing down so we made a bit of a dash for it (as much as you can with a 20kilo back on your back).  We eventually gave into the rain and found a little coffee shop about 10mins down the road to see out the storm.   After 30 mins it became evident that the rain was in for the day so Lee took off on his own to do a recce of the hotel when I minded the bags at the coffee shop.  The hotel was suitably inpressive so we booked in for 2 days.

We have to say that we found Phuket really disappointing.  Thats probably because we stayed in the town rather than Patong Beach for example.  It was really commercialised and after some of the places we have been it was just a bit bland and boring - sorry everyone who loves this place, we probably didn't see the good bits!

We used our time here to stock up on toiletries at Boots, and wondered around Marks and Spencers, Body Shop and all the usual places you find back at home.  We even saw a sign for Tescos!  All a bit too commercialised for us at the end of the day.

After two days decided to quit when we were ahead and booked the bus back to Ao Nang in Krabi.