3pm Sunday arvo, fair to say we're all quite hung over. We just woke up and James is still asleep, was a crazy night.

Last time i posted we were still in bangkok, we arrived in phuket and took the taxi to phatong no worries. We arrived at our hotel in the arvo so didn't do too much that day. It's a nice hotel, pricey so you'd expect it but we all have rooms with gates to the pool. I'm sure the girls will upload pics to facebook. Thursday we settled in, went for a swim and went to the main street for dinner and a bit of a shop. Haven't been to phuket before and it's a lot more intense than Bangkok. The market people are a lot more in ya face and there's guys absolutely everywhere trying to drag you in to ping pong shows. We didn't stay in town that night all that long, was a bit too full on and we were tired.
When we got back we had some quiet drinks by the pool and waited for James and Nicole to arrive. We weren't sure what time they came but knew it was about midnight. They came around 1am, was good to see some framiliar faces and hear how everyone is doing back home. Feels like we've been gone forever yet im sure the day we get back we'll wish we were here. Showed them around and stayed up for a bit of a chat and hit the hay around 2.

Friday we managed to get up for buffet breakfeast and laze around in the morning by the pool. We took a taxi to a go kart track nearby and ended up going on an atv tour (4 wheel motor bike). Gez and jo had their own bike whilst Libs was on the back on mine and Nicole on the back of James's. I thought it'd be fairly flat anf cruisy but s*** were we wrong. They weren't really tracks we were going up, they were more like rocky hills. Was awesome fun but really hairy in some places, especially going back down the mountain. Would be really easy to tip them over, especially having two people on the bike. We managed to all survive though and i think we're all glad we did it!

Our taxi driver hung around and he then took us to a shooting range. I shot guns last time i was here so didn't have a go but james n gez had a shoot of some handgun. Next to the shooting range was a wakeboarding cable thing. Picture a big lake with a cable that goes all the way around it and people wakeboarding by hanging on to the cable... Hard to explain but yeah we looked into that as it looks nuts but decided perhaps another day. Headed back to town for lunch n a shop (of course) and then headed back to the hotel. Hit the town that night, also quite a big night. Went to a few bars with live bands, they were pretty average but they were so enthusiastic it was really quite entertaining. After multiple drinks, shots, beer towers etc we made our way to a ping pong show as the guys who hadn't been to thailand before wanted to experience it. It was free entry but as soon as we got in they tried to make us buy drinks for 900 baht which is like $30 so we soon left and called it a night.

Saturday we went on a tour we had booked the day prior. It was only about $50 aussie and it included transport, elephant rides, white water rafting and a visit to a monkey cave and mad waterfall. Big day but mad fun.
First was the monkey cave, was pretty cool. Big ass temple with a ton of monkeys you could feed. Next we went on the elephant rides. I don't think any of us enjoyed it all that much. I think we all felt sorry for the elephants, especially because the owners had a hammer with a spike on the end to use on the elephant. None the less we can say we did it but don't think any of us will be doing it again in a hurry.

The taxi then drove us to the rafting place and they served us lunch. Was very average lunch, with cold stir fry and none of us really ate much but was good to at least eat something.

The rafting it self was absolutely crazy. I've done white water rafting in cairns before and i thought that was nuts. Pretty much the same except safety here is non existent. We did have helmets and life jackets but let me paint the picture for you. Probably about fifty rafts with 4-6 people on themin shallow rocky water, absolutely jam packed with rafts. Up above are these locks i guess you'd call them, that trap the water. Once everyone was waiting down below we were all wondering how we were going to go anywhere as the water was so shallow. Then we realised they must open the gates, which they did and the water comes rushing out and every raft gets sent crashing down the river. In about 30 seconds we went from being in shallow calm water to heavy flowing rapids crashing into other rafts and all over the place.
There were so many other rafts you'd end up hitting rocks and rapids whilst also getting smashed into by other rafts. Our instructor fell out at one point which was hilarious and i smashed my head on some rock (luckily i was wearing a helmet) as were were stuck on a rock and i didn't see another raft coming and it smashed into us. It was a 5km river so it went for a while, it was scary as but we all thourghly enjoyed it.
Afterwards they took us to a nearby waterfall for a swim which was pretty cool. Then it was a good 2 hour bus ride back to the hotel.
Hit the gym and had a swim before having tea at a seafood restaurant at the hotel. We had fresh fish, lobster and prawns, no one enjoyed it that much, it also wasn't that cheap. Yet i didn't mind it but wouldn't go back in a hurry. Everyone was pretty tired after a big day so we sat around for a bit before deciding if we're going go out it had to be last night as we leave tomorrow and need to be up to get to the airport.

So we went to 7-11 got some vodka and red bulls and started to perk up for the night ahead. I won't go into details as this blog is huge and i am starving and have a splitting headache but it was a huge night, im sure pics will be uploaded.

Shots shots shots

Today i'm not sure we'll do. Everyone is still recovering so i imagine it'll take a good few hours to come back to life and maybe do something within walking distance to the hotel. Maybe jet ski or just a walk along the beach. We shall see.