Sunday, May 17, 2009

Our Trip To Phuket Town

Today we woke up with nothing planned. It was a free for all day. We strolled down to graze over breakfast. If you spend an hour slowly eating all you can, then you really don't need to eat for the rest of the day...its so hot you actually don't feel like eating but you drink lots of water!!

After much debate, we decided to have a wee adventure and take the rickety bus into Phuket Town. This travels from Kata - Karon - Phuket and costs 30bht each. Way better than paying 300bht for a tuk tuk. The bus....well actually a flat deck truck with two bench seats but its covered and dry. It slowly winds its way up over the hills and you do get to have a good look and soak in the sights. When we arrived into the town center, a couple of young guys jumped up onto the back of the bus and seemed to be scanning the people. They were giving cheeky waves and laughing with us all as we thought they were sneaking a free ride. Haha how wrong we were to be. As soon as we got off the bus, this young chap was up beside us with a map being oh so helpful. Telling us the best places to go and how far it was from this street. He then offered to take both of us to 3 markets for some shopping for only 40bht. We took him up on his offer and he raced off to get his mate who had a really nice flash car. We got in and went off to the first "market" ... It wasn't, it was a pearl and diamond factory that did have clearance prices etc. I did end up buying some cheap earrings and Shane brought a dragon statue. Then when we left the rain came down and it poured. So raced off to the next "shop"...this one looked very expensive and I was right. But in the thick of it all, I did find the most perfect ring to set mime off. So it was purchased right away. They then took us to Robinson shopping complex. This was a four story shopping center and it was here I got a vanilla smelling cow for my grand daughter. Then true to their word they showed back up an hour later to return us to the bus. Even though we didn't get to really see that much of Phuket Town, they were a great couple of guys and so we tipped them well.

While waiting for the bus, a taxi driver crossed the street to us an started begging that we allow him to take us back to Karon. He told us he had not worked all week and needed to feed his family bla bla bla. I am a lot harder to the sob stories than Shane but the next thing we have agreed and are heading over to his..ummm...Taxi?? It was a wreck of a car, no bumpers or suspension. He also had no gas and so went and put only 1 litre in it and was watching the fuel gauge like a hawk. He told us that he has 3 kids at college and they need shoes but since the low season there had been no work, so he often slept in his car to try and save money. By now I felt he was genuine...so we gave him an extra 50 bht. But the looks on the security guard when we rocked up in this cab was priceless!!!

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