Monday 2 June 2008

Day 4: Phuket Town dissapointment

Today being Friday and all I was keen to leave Patong follow my plans East to Phuket Town. I accidentally woke up way too early, made my way to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast, and paid way too much for it and ate far too little to make it worth-while. Besides that, I did have scrambled eggs and some toast and 2 glasses of milk which was awesome, exactly what I needed after a long day drinking Changs. I had packed up all of my gear and checked out of Thavorn Beach Hotel, and the 5 of us set off for Patong to get some lunch! I also bought this American chocolate bar called Reeces, it was a culmination of peanut butter brittle and chocolate; the perfect mix! That's one thing I'll be looking forwards to on my trip to California in July... in moderation of course.

Being someone who likes to stroll off on his own to discover new things, I did so and stumbled upon a neat little restaurant which had a good menu and good cheap prices. We sat there for lunch for about 40 minutes which was nice. I had another smoothie, this time a coconut one! It was so fresh and unbelievable. Shaun had a banana smoothie which was also insane.. I wish bananas would come in liquid form like this all the time :)

Straight after lunch we caught a tuk-tuk to Phuket Town, this took atleast 40 minutes I reckon, it was a cool drive; we went through normal Thai suburbs/huts and stuff, finally making it to the very busy and confusing Phuket Town. I felt really confident with being able to find my hostel, after all I did have the address and had bothered to find its where-abouts on Google Earth, despite that none of us could find the place whilst driving along the road it should've been on. The group expressed their concerns with wandering around with the possibility of having great difficulty with finding someone to take them back to Patong (once i find the hostel), and so I gave Phuket Town a miss.. and went back to Patong. It wasn't all bad, at least I got to stay with my friends for a few more nights!

Shaun, Laura and I had dinner at Thavorn Beach Hotel, I had possibly the best Thai Green Curry ever! The only thing I could complain about were the waiters.. although it's nice that they're super friendly, they just lingered around us waiting to have something to clean up. I felt as though someone was constantly watching me! Weird! Nevertheless the most expensive meal on the trip was so worth it. Since I didn't end up in the hostel in Phuket Town, and didn't have a room booked at Thavorn Beach.. I slept on some cushions on the floor in Shaun and Laura's room (thanks guys). The next morning the hotel staff noticed I was back at the hotel and began sussing out if I had stayed there illegally, but without knowing if I had stayed in Steph + Jasmin's room or Shaun + Laura's room.. they didn't make me pay for the night. I felt pretty lucky about that so took the safe option and booked a room for myself for the remainder of my time in Patong.

In hindsight, maybe I was being too adventurous for a first-time traveller with wanting to leave my group to stay in a different town, a town where I would've had much trouble communicating with the locals. Apart from this plan, there were others I didn't end up fulfilling.. but I'm alright with it as the experience of failing just made me a more conscious traveller.


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