The fun and hangovers of Thailand were done. It was time to start heading out of Thailand… the first job was to get to Phuket.

So, 9am I jump onto the back of a pickup truck and make my way to the pier. There I reluctantly buy a through ticket all the way to Phuket (I’m always a bit sceptical of them as sometimes its better to set the journey up yourself, and that way you know you won’t be left on your arse in the back end of nowhere out of pocket).

After trying to eat my favorite breakfast of Fruit, Muesli and Yoghurt, but having to reject it as the yoghurt was probably cream cheese or had gone off… I jumped on the ferry and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up I remembered that I had lent a drybag to Jay and Rachel and forgotten to get it back.

Anyway, loaded onto a coach and got to Surat Thani. Once there I had 15 minutes to catch the connecting coach. In those 15 minutes the weather turned from quiet nice to the heaviest rain I have seen in South East Asia!!! When it came time to run to the bus, even just a dash to the door resulted in squidgy sandals and a much darker t-shirt.

Once aboard, I promptly realised the driver was a full on nutter and was driving as if he was in Speed. Swinging round the corners and slamming the brakes on if it pleased him. In addition, this bus has the tyres inflated to one million bar and clearly had just a row of them at the back simply to explode occasionally. We could be driving down a straight flat road and it would still be bumpy!

8pm and I finally get into Phuket Town (The normal place to go is Patong if your a farang, but I wanted to steer clear of the sex tourism and the seedy stuff, so I went to the city). I got off the bus, dodged the taxi touts and checked into the first hotel I recognised from the LP, The Thouron Hotel (or something like that). For 550THB/£11 I got a full on proper hotel room with Aircon and Sat TV! I needed it!

Just went and found some good Red Beef Curry for tea then parked in a bar where I got talking to what might have been the 60 year old version of myself travelling back in time 😛

The next day it was airport bus, a wait in the airport and a mayday text to Shane to get me a guesthouse address that I could put on the landing card for Hong Kong… then it was on Dragon Air (a great airline by the way) and civilisation once again!!!

Thailand was awesome! I will be back, especially to Ko Tao!

Plus there is still Ko Phi Phi to do!