When we left Ko Phi Phi we were pretty much ready to leave. It was good to have some liveliness but an island full of Westerners wasn't really what we came travelling for. Having said that Phuket isn't too dissimilar. We've become a bit tired of packing, unpacking, looking for accommodation every few days. It is exhausting. We wanted to go to a town called Krabi but decided to save our energy and money and just stay in Phuket longer.

The ferry across was a lot nicer than the one going out. The boat was newer and bigger and we even got given watermelon during the journey. Phuket is technically an island but it's such a big island and connected to the mainland by bridge that it feels like being on the mainland again. We took a minibus across the island to where we were staying, a beach town called Patong. This is the biggest and most popular beach resort in Phuket and we only stayed here because we found cheap accommodation.

When we arrived at our hotel straight away I thought there had been a mistake with the booking. It was a proper actual hotel! The room was huge with the biggest bed I've ever seen, a hot power shower and even a fridge and TV! This is without doubt the nicest place we are going to stay in the whole time we are travelling. It even had a swimming pool. We paid £11.50 a night for the room! I spent the 5 nights we were there thinking they were going to realise their mistake and give us another bill or move us to a crap room. They even cleaned the room every day, something which hasn't happened since we got to Thailand.

The town was not so posh though. It was really very seedy in fact. Everywhere you go there are old western men walking around with young Thai prostitute girls. The bars all have poles dancers (and not even good pole dancers) and wherever you go you get people asking you if you want to see a "ping pong" show. For those that don't know what that is, I won't explain it but let's just say it's not table tennis! So it's not exactly a place you'd want to take your family on holiday (although oddly enough there were some kids around). To be fair I had heard that it might be like this but since we have flights booked from Phuket airport we had to come here anyway.

We took it all in our stride and anyway we were quite happy just relaxing in our amazing hotel. It was the first time we have seen any TV in a month and we managed to find an episode of Jeremy Kyle - result! We went to the very crowded beach and Bryan managed to get some pretty bad sunburn. There was a shopping centre we went to on rainy days. It was quite overpriced for shopping but they had a reasonably priced food court where we had one of our best meals in Thailand - deep fried chicken and chilli fried rice. Doesn't sound amazing but it's cooked freshly in front of you and really was tasty.

It rained everyday in Phuket and I'm not talking about English "let's moan about the weather but get on with it" rain, it was the type of rain where you get soaked through after 5 seconds of standing in it. One evening we waited for the rain to slow down before going out for dinner so it was quite late before we went out. I wanted to eat at a place that had really good reviews so we spent ages trying to find it. We got there just in time for the second downpour but when we went into the restaurant they said the kitchen was closed! Bloody typical. We settled for the nearest place that was open. It poured down the whole time we were eating and didn't stop even when it was time to leave. Fortunately, just as we were about to brave it, a couple who had been eating next to us came back and handed us two plastic ponchos they had just bought. That was brilliant because the long walk home was made even longer by the fact that our road had completely flooded so we had to walk the long way round. So there you go at least you don't have to be too jealous of us out here because we get crappy weather too!

So Phuket wasn't a great finishing point to our tour around Thailand (although I was sad to leave our hotel!) but I think we are ready to leave Thailand. A month is more than long enough to get a taster of all the different areas of Thailand. I'll certainly be coming back to the islands on holiday at some point in the future.

Highlights of Thailand: the food is great (I was hoping to lose weight whilst travelling but that certainly hasn't happened), the people are friendly and gentle, beautiful places especially the beaches, everything's cheap.

Not so great: tsunamis, frogs, mosquitos, hole in the ground toilets, random sewage smells when walking along the street, getting hassled constantly to buy stuff because you're a tourist!