Thailand#1-Phuket

So I'm back from my vacation in Thailand. Its hard to come back to the cold (not to mention going back to work). We had a fabulous time. It was better than I thought it would be. I expected many problems, people bothering us and even the possibility of being robbed or worse. I guess we had just heard a lot of bad stories and were braced for the same. We were shocked at how different our experience was. We had NO problems whatsoever. No one bothered us (other than the regular "hello, where you from? where you going? thai massage...cheap price" that is constantly being called out). Things were actually easy for us. Everything was organized. The hotels were great. Most people spoke English far better than even our students. (They are forced to if they want to be successful in their businesses-tourism is their main industry)

Mandie, Mark and I arrived in Bangkok late Friday night. This is their brand new, beautiful Suvarnabhumi Airport. I wish I could have got a photo of the whole thing. It looks like a giant spaceship.



The next day we left for Phuket, the southern tail of Thailand. Everyone there was really relaxed and very friendly. Most people travelled by scooters or motocycles. Mark rented one for 150 baht a day ($4.50).

The view from the hotel:



During the day we relaxed and people watched on the beach. We were a little bit surprised by the number of speedos and topless people of ALL ages. At night we shopped, ate fantiastic food and walked around taking everything in.


The food was unbelieveably cheap. You could get a huge plate of meat, veggies and rice or noodles for like 3 bucks-and that was in the touristy areas! Shakes with all sorts of different fruit were a staple in our diets. There are food vendors on every street corner selling all sorts of interesting things. You can get anything on a stick-papayas, crepes, squid, even HUGE chicken legs.


We spent 2 days on Karon Beach, which is a lesser known spot, which ment way fewer tourists there. We spent a few hours at Patong beach on our way back from Koh Phi Phi, which was way too crazy for our liking.

I guess if they're going to have MacDonalds everywhere it should be somewhat ethnic...