Phuket

I arrived in Phuket on Tuesday afternoon from Krabi, and decided to base myself in Old Town as that's where the local bus station was, with all the bus routes to the main tourist destinations on Phuket originating from there. The long distance bus station was annoyingly in the middle of nowhere. Phuket is the largest island in Thailand and also the most visited by tourists. The island is a similar size to Singapore and is renowned for its beaches and wild nightlife.

On Wednesday morning I went out for the day to explore some of the beaches, catching the local bus down to Rawai Beach in the morning which was a nice beach with a backdrop of several islands. From there I walked down to Promthep Cape, the southern most point of the island. There were a lot of people up top at the viewpoint but no one seemed to be walking down to the actual cape which was actually a nice little walk. A short walk from the cape was Yanui Beach which was a very pretty beach, which I could also view from this viewpoint. I stopped at the next beach, Nai Harn Beach for a rest and swim.

From Nai Harn I headed up to this viewpoint which looked north over Kata Noi, Kata, and Karon Beaches. I soon dropped down to Kata Noi Beach where I stopped for lunch. There was this guy with a bushbaby though who put it on my back! From Kata Noi it was a short walk to Kata Beach where it began to get a lot more touristy. I headed up to the Big Buddha from Kata Beach though  which was a 45m statue sitting on top of this hill. It was a bit of a slog up because of the humidity but the views over Phuket and out over Phang Nga were amazing. The sun was in the worst place to get photos of the Buddha statue though, but it was still an impressive sight.

I dropped down to Karon Beach from the Big Buddha which was even busier than Kata Beach, and in terms of length massive! I stopped here for a swim and rest though as I needed it after climbing the hill. From Karon Beach I headed over to Patong Beach which is where all the nightlife and shopping and everything else in between was based. It was a absolutely heaving, with also two massive cruise ships in the bay. I arrived by sunset. I was pretty exhausted when I arrived though because I'd actually walked quite a long way, much of the day in direct sunlight, although I stayed in Patong for dinner as I wanted to take a walk down Bangla Street which is the main nightlife strip when it was dark. It was an absolutely crazy place!

Come morning I decided to have a far more relaxing day, so I headed over to Patong Beach again. In hindsight I probably should have stayed there as that's where everything seemed to happen, although I probably wouldn't have got much sleep! I relaxed down the beach until lunchtime, although when going to grab some lunch I got bombarded with water guns for probably my first of many times over the following days. Songkrans Festival runs from 13th to 15th April, which is the Thai New Year and whole country basically has a massive water fight. In Phuket however they celebrate it for the whole week. The real meaning behind the splashes is to symbolically wash off all misfortunes in the past year, thus welcoming the new year with a fresh start. I guess it was nice and refreshing, although I do probably need to buy a water gun now which were being sold on every street corner in Patong.

After having a walk round some of the shops and markets around Patong, I headed back to the Old Town. The bus however stopped at some traffic lights, and people were there waiting with buckets of water and water guns so everyone on board got soaked! Old Town was luckily a bit more of a safe zone, so I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring there. There were several old buildings with a predominantly Chinese influence, as well as a little bit of street art. The streets were full of different coloured buildings, many of which were little shops selling things like handicrafts and local food. It was nice to have a relaxing day, even if I do now need to keep alert for water guns for the rest of the week!

On Friday I decided to leave Phuket and head up to Bangkok for the weekend. There were several places I was tempted to stop at en route to break the journey, including Khao Sok National Park, Koh Samui, and Koh Tao which I visited on my previous trip to Thailand, but with my visa expiry approaching I had to be selective in the places I visited. I headed over to the bus station in the morning to sort out my ticket, and also put my backpack in storage before the Songkrans celebrations got into full flow. My bus wasn't scheduled to leave until later that afternoon so I had much of the day to myself in Phuket.

I decided to have a chilled out day, although it wasn't long before I got my first soaking of the day by a toddler and his hosepipe! I eventually reached the shopping mall where I seeked refuge and sat on the WiFi. When heading out to lunch I got several further soakings and my first covering of white powder. The streets were just lined with people with water guns, being fed by these paddling pools and barrels full of water! The bus ride was inevitably horrendous taking about 14 hours, although it wasn't the seats that were uncomfortable, it was the Arctic-esque air con. Luckily they supplied blankets but I didn't really get much sleep.