Back again......as some of you may be aware our trip from Koh Samui to Phuket was a bit of a nightmare!! We bought our tickets from a travel agent and thought all would be kosha but things started to look dodgy from the moment we were picked up in a taxi instead of a bus. We had two fellow brits with us on same journey (they were heading back the UK) so we felt a bit more comfortable....but to cut a very long stroy short....after getting to mainland Thailand we were put on a bus which then dropped us off in Surat Thanni where we were picked up by a car and taken to a back street shop where we waited for 2 hours before bus to Phuket...we were told from ferry we would have direct bus so this obviously wasnt the case and we were to arrive in Phuket about 5.30pm......9pm we crawled into the bus station, the longest journey ever in a bus full of mosquitos and it was dark and we were starving hungry and tired...been travelling since 7am...so long day.

Eventually found a hostel, dirt cheap in Phuket town, then planned to head to a resort on coast in morning! when i tried opening my locks on bag I couldnt...the code wouldnt work....then i noticed i was missing a lock from my bottom compartment. Our bags were robbed on bag and we lost a few minor valuables..obviously all our passport/insurance/travel documents were on the bus with us but our big backpacks went underneath bus which after thingking about it, could be accessed as when we had bags off bus the guy was standing up in the compartment....to put it nicely b******S! (sorry mum) but we were so gutted because we have been so careful and a combination of being tired and hungry made me really upset, da was pretty annoyed too as his bag got the worst deal...although it didnt matter, they got his broken ipod, our half broken camera and our ipod speakers which we'd only just bought in samui!!! they took a few other small valuables but nothing we couldnt live without....its just the thought of being violated which hurt the most.......anyway insurance covers all that so no need to get down about it.....we were in Phuket, so we made sure we were going to have one hell of a good time!

After a good nights sleep we woke up to beautiful sunshine and headed to Karon Beach (2nd biggest resort after Patong).....and we were so not dissapointed! Got a great British ex pat guest house , only 3mins from beach and it was lush! Long stretch of beach, white sand, clear waters...perfect!! Not massively busy, lots of sun loungers but we didnt care, we sat close to the sea and just enjoyed the sunshine!!! As your all most probably aware, Phuket was badly effected by the Tsunami on Boxing Day '04...but any damaged that was caused is no longer apparent and the resort is bustling with shops/pubs and restuarants. There are a lot of Scandanavians here this time of year too which we didnt expect. A guy called Ole in our hostel in from Denmark and is travelling around the world in a yatch!!! He's been everywhere and is in Thailand for another few weeks till he heads to Indochina and Sri Lanka....his trip sounds amazing! but yeah he said Phuket is popular with the Scandanavians!! We did not know that! haha

Thats what we pretty much did for the 4 nights we stayed in Karon, at Pineapple GH....we spent two nights in a great double room and then moved into dorm for another two and met some fab people! It rained alot in the evenings so alot of the time we sat out the front of the guest house with 80pence big big bottles of beer and had fun. Met some guys from Belfast (who been out in Auz for 15months) and some guys and gals from all over America (who had been working in South Korea teaching English for last year) Everyone has amazing stories to tell and the atmosphere was great and we all had a good time.

Phuket was fab...more expensive than the mainland but who cares!!! We didnt really see anywhere else except for Karon as we tried to keep costs to minimum, but we did get to see Chaweng Police Station (we were in and out in 20 mins!) we hoped to get to The Gibbon Monkey Sanctuary about 10 miles north, but we just didnt have the funds....we have seen a few Gibbons on the streets with their owners trying to sell photos wioth them, its so sad to see, when we come back here we definately want to go and volunteer for a day. Its in a national park too so it would be very picturesque.

Yep we def would love to come back to Phuket, see a little more of the island....theres lots to do and see and the weather is hot hot! The sea was lush and we had a great time relaxing, definately made up for the travel inccident on the way down!

So we left Phuket on Monday 8th of Dec for Koh Phi Phi, an island south east of Phuket and also where the film 'the beach' was filmed.....thats another blog you'll have to wait for and the pictures are just amazing!