Phuket!

When my alarm went off at 4 this morning I didn't want it to be true. We got ready, grabbed our bags and checked out. The red taxi bus was waiting for us, which was a relief. We arrived at the airport in no time at all. First we stood in line for Air Asia ticket counter, only to find out it was the international check-in, not the domestic one. So we went to domestic check-in and realized our flight was at 6:20 and not 6AM so we could have slept for TWENTY MORE MINUTES. Ah well, all is fine. The security took Oh Mee's dry shampoo because it was over 100ml and she was pretty bummed about that. We finally boarded our plane and were off to Phuket. It was nice because we got to see the sunrise on the flight. I ended up falling asleep and slept for most of the 2 hour flight.

We got off the plane and had to take a little shuttle bus to the terminal. Then we went out to figure out how to get from the airport to our hotel. We ended up taking a van with some other people-it was about 200Bhat, but was kind of a bum deal because they had us stop at a tour office and tried to sell us packaged tours. There was a lot of traffic as well and it took over an hour to get to our place.

We arrived at Sugar Marina Hotel-Surf and checked in. Our room was still being cleaned but they said we could leave our bags at the office. We were getting ready to leave our stuff and head out to explore when the front desk told me our room was ready! So we went upstairs and got to settle in. The room was so cool! I loved the decorating inside.

Our cool room!

After getting ready, we headed to check out the beach and look for lunch first. We saw some carts and settled on fried rice and pad thai for lunch. The man cooking the food on a wok out of a cart set on his motorbike was pretty impressive. After we ate, Oh Mee and I both agreed a tip was in order for the man. Then we went to sit on the beach for a little bit. Oh Mee doesn't like the sun and after a little bit her patch of shade was running out. I noticed she seemed ready to go, so I told her we could pack up and head on to the next thing though I could have stayed longer. I loved being in the sun and warm. The water was a beautiful blue-green and the sand was white. There were many people on the beach-it was interesting to hear all of the languages being spoken, and there is a large Russian prominence there.

Kata Beach

We returned to the hotel only for me to realize that I had lost the room key somehow. I had to pay a small fee to get a new one and then we cleaned up before searching for dinner. First we walked around the area looking at different restaurants and in some of the shops. There wasn't a whole lot to see. We picked a Thai place and the food came so quickly we were a bit concerned. Oh Mee thought her food tasted a bit funny and we both commented that it would be ironic if we got food poisoning from a "nice" restaurant rather than from street food cooked on a motorbike (SPOILER: We didn't get sick at all). The worst part was the view-when we sat down we saw on the little side street there was a man with a baby elephant doing the street begging. It was so sad to see the elephant especially after what we had learned at the park. They said that elephants feel a lot through their feet so with all the pounding and vibrations of cars, motorbikes and tuk tuks, it's sensory overload for the elephants. I wanted to tell all the people not to give any money and not take any pictures with the baby. We had picked this restaurant because they had the beloved mango sticky rice, but decided since the food wasn't all that great we wouldn't give any more money or try not good tasting dessert. Instead we walked across the street to another place that also had had mango rice on the menu. It was pretty good.

Mmm...mango sticky rice!