The journey down from Kanchaniburi to phuket was dreadful. 24hours overnight, changing buses whenever they fancied, waiting for the next bus to arrive for hours. It was painful. We ended up stopping and being told to get out about 2km outside Phuket town to stop at a travel agents? Whatever for?... Well it turns out the driver of the mini bus (which we were in now) wanted a bit of extra cash. So we just got out to go along with it, and we practically pushed us into the travel agents seats. When they found out we already had accommodation booked we were quickly gotten rid of. The driver took his chance and kindly offered to drop us off at our accommodation for 300baht!!!! We were outraged! We demanded to be taken to Phuket town as promised and had already paid for with our ticket, free of charge, after a little pursuation and Richard getting mad, we got into a different car to be taken. It seems everyone else toook the driver up on his 'generous' offer.

We knew we could get to Phuket town to Patong beach for cheaper by local bus. Just to be difficult the driver dropped us a few streets away from the bus stop, so we had to find our own way, and in a town we did not know with our baggage on, it seemed such a long way! After asking a different person every few steps, we finally got there, saw the buses and to our great great pleasure a bus to Patong was 20Baht each! What not 150 but 20!! theres quite a difference hey!

The bus already looked full so out baggage were strapped to the outside, just as we were. You see it all the time, people hanging on the backs of cars, and jeeps when they fail to fit 20 people inside, but here we are being a local gripping onto the back of the bus. At least wer had some metal railings to stand on.

After an agonising sleepless 24hours, we had finally arrived at our hotel. It seemed quite a way from the beach up a little hill, and were informed at reception that a tuk tuk ride down to the beach is 100baht each way! Wow, that seems quite alot, we hoped it wouldn't be too far to walk, which it wasn't, just a 20 stroll.

The hotel itself seemed a little dodgy, our room was lovely, we had a fridge, air-con, and a little balcony. But it had all these things listed on the leafet thats at reception, stating whats in the rooms, and hardly any of it was actually in our room. Only small things that did not really matter like a hairdryer, tea and coffee making facilities, etc. The jacuzzi was filled with green gunge, and the pool area was basically out of bounds to us as we weren't a white/Thai couple or was Richard a middle-aging man, and we didnt dare to think what went on in the sauna!

It's amazing just how many people you see are with thai girls, mainly older men, but you get plenty of young guys with them too. I was the only white girl in our hotel for the entire 10days we were there.

Patong itself is very built up, a lot like Benidorm we thought, with all the English bars, shops and touts, and a very very packed beach. Although it's not really our scene, we wanted this kinda thing for Christmas and New Year as there would be much more going on.

We didn't do too much in Patong except for eat and sunbath - always good. We took a trip one day to Karon Beach, where my parents stayed the previous year. Karon is much quieter, more of a family resort. We went there as in the Lonely Planet we saw there was a little park called dinopark, which is a 19hole minigolf course. It was a stange place as thats all it was, we thought that the minigolf would be an attraction inside this big entertainment park, but nope just a golfcourse. It was fun, we had a good time but it was over too soon for what we paid for. The models and sounds of the dinosaurs were quite amusing, Richard won, but only with one point, and i guess he has to win some things!

Patong put more effort into Christmas eve than it did on the day. Christmas eve ee went to this little Thai restaurant which claimed the day before that it was a free buffet barbeque, and all you had to pay for was drinks. We thought there had to be a catch as the drinks wern't even expensive, but no catch whatso-ever. We feast!

All the restaurants had big parties or shows going on along the sea front, it reall got us in the spirit, we even spotted a santa made from balloons that Richard made me stand by! We walked the streets and stumbled upon a Patpong of Patong. Go go bars filled the streets but instead of being hidden behind doors, they are wide open to the streets, poles ontop of tables and so on. Thai girls dressed in the tiniest little santa outfits they could find. It had a fun festive feeling in the air still but more of a seedy kind, for the old men and groups of lads.

Earlier on Christmas eve i snuck out 'to buy a drink'. "no no Richard i'l be fine by myself, honestly, you wait here!" I went to the shop and got Richard a few goodies for christmas morning, we agreed not to bother getting each other anything but i couldnt let him wake up to absolutly nothing. It was only silly little things like sweets and beer but i knew he would love it.

So Christmas morning i woke Richard up early holding a pillowcase full of the little things for him. He was suprised and i thought a little angry as we were supposed to not bother,. We headed for the beach and as it was Christmas thought we should treat ourselves to a subway lunch to eat on the beach. Everywhere around us people were enjoying themselves, wearing santa hats in bikins and trunks, and clinking champagne glasses. Was so strange.

We dressed up to go and treat ourselves to a nice meal after speaking to our families downstairs on the reception phone (our phone was still broken after 3 days of asking for it to be fixed). When i walked into the room Richard had a big bunch of flowers waiting on the bed for me. Made me smile from ear to ear, i didnt expect a thing.

The street was alot more quieter than the previous night, it was like it was all over already. We decided to go to a sweedish steakhouse which was so delicious, so nice that we infact ended up there again New years eve. I had a french steak with veg and creamy cheesey potatoes, with red wine gravey and Richard had a double portion of bbq Ribs, and made a mess of himself and the tablecloth. After this scumptious meal we decided to top it off with a macdonalds chocolate fudge sundae! YUMMY!! Subway - steak - mcdonalds - very Thai of us but hey it's Christmas and we were full to the brim of Thai food.

We do love Thai food, anytime of the day you can find yourself a meal. On the streets ins mainly barbequed lumps of pork and chicken, and the smell is just so good you can rarely pass a stand without buying a stick of meat for 5Baht.

Walking back up the street i noticed that there were glowing orange stars in the sky. I was convinced that they were starts and Richard just laughed and said "how can stars be bright orange??" then realised they were moving. Oppps im never going to live this down. We walked onto the beach where people were gathered around in groups and setting the orange stars odd into the sky. They were lanterns (Plastic bags with a flame underneath like a mini hot air balloon). They looked amazing in the sky. We thought it might be as it was Christmas day, but now we know that it sends your bad luck away keeping you with only good luck. Obviously done for the following day (boxing day) which is the 2year anniversary of the tsunami.

Strange being on the beach for the Tsunami anniversary. It was packed as ever. Theres no devestation or aknoledgement of it whatsoever really. Signs of the quickest evacuation route uphill but thats it really. I guess as Patong is the main tourist Beach in Phuket they cleaned up quickly to get the tourists back. We seen pictures of when the Tsunami hit the main street and theres rubble everywhere, Cars up onto of buildings ect. I didnt think that there would be a repeat but found it strange that today the beach was still its usual packed, lying ontop of oneanother self.

Later we found out there was an earthquake in Taiwan that sent a tsunami warning to the phillippines, but nothing came of it i think.

New years eve came around which we, as i mentioned before, ate in the sweedish steakhouse. Shared some wine and beer before heading to an Irish bar. They had a band on but it was very busy and also charged English prices on beers so we only had a couple before heading to the 7-11 for some beer to drink on the beach.
The beach was a little busier than Christmas night and the lanterns were being raised into the sky once filled with hot air.

I wonder if your bad luck dissappears if your lantrn gets stuck in a tree and starts setting the branches alight?

Firworks were being set off from all directions surrounding the beach and various groups of Thais were setting fireworks off from the beach. The boats joined in shooting their flares . It was great fun atmosphere and a great build up to midnight. Suddenly all the boats sounded their horns signalling it was midnight and all of a sudden there was a magnificent display of fireworks in every direction. A new year eve to remember along with the year to follow!