Phuket! Welcome to the Land of a Thousand Smiles

Our last day in Malaysia we headed to the airport!  We caught a bus, (1 hour), got to the airport 3 1/2 hours early as we were told this was an incredibly busy airport and we needed to be there SUPER early.  It took us all of 15 minutes to get tickets, check in baggage, and go through security.  Once through there was nearly no food and nothing to do for several hours!  Ooops.  Should have spent more time on the outside.  But luckily I had some American money on me, since we were out of Ringgits and apparently nowhere takes visa!  But we got some chocolate cake, iced chocolate, a chocolate muffin, and an eclair!  Definitely feeling the chocolate!  Then we hopped on the plane flew 1 1/2 hours to Phuket!  I was so excited to be back in Thailand!  After a fairly long wait to customs we grabbed our bags and hopped into a mini van to take us to Patong, the beach village we were staying at. Another 1 1/2 drive, with a quick detour at a travel agent where they try to sell you tours.  Although once they saw we were staying at a hostel they didn't try very hard!!! We are on a budget after all!!  We finally got to our hostel at about 7 30 pm, this was after leaving at 11:30 am!  Long day of travel but totally worth it!  We stayed at an amazing hostel called Bodega, which was given the award Best Hostel in Thailand!  And it was certainly amazing!  The next couple days involved food, fun, and sun!  We really spent lots of time hanging out so not too many pictures but here are some of the cool things we did!

Welcome to Thailand!

Fishy Foot Spa

Getting Our Feet Cleaned!

Small note about the fishy spa, it tickled! I kept giggling and laughing and the Thai women watching were not impressed!  They thought it was ridiculous that Joel and I couldn't keep our feet still!  But it was hard especially when they go in between your toes!

One of the amazing dinners, curry ($1.60) and Pad Thai ($2. 30)

So Many Wires Above Ground!

Thai Boxing, Thai Boxing Everywhere!

Pad Thai Again (Love this Dish!)

Some sort of Veggie, Rice, Chicken Concoction

My Amazing Manicure...I Also Got a Pedicure (20 bucks for BOTH!)

Rice, Egg, and amazing Garlic Chicken!

HUGE PRAWNS!

And we Tried Oyster....Did NOT Like this, But Joel Did!

After all that fun in the sun and food we did spend some time on the famous street in Patong where all the lady boys and dancing girls were.  We had several cocktails and met lots of new friends.  All in all Patong was amazing, although I am not sure about the whole Sex Trade there as it is very in your face and I felt slightly uncomfortable with it.

  

Singapore Sling (Yes We Has this in Thailand and NOT Singapore....It was DELICIOUS!)

Our last day in Phuket we headed on a day trip to Koh Phi Phi (pronounced P P).  We hopped in our speedboat for the day with about 40 people and headed out to the first stop which is Maya Bay.  This is where "The Beach" was filmed.

Anchoring in Maya Bay

We Made It!

Pretty Cool Stuff

SO MANY PEOPLE!

The one thing about Maya Bay is that I am sure it was beautiful, but there were so many people I could hardly enjoy it.  We pretty much sat in the shade for about 30 min and by the time we left we could barely move there were so many people, kind of a shame.  But apparently this is the norm for this beach cause it is so famous.  Nice beach, but overall not impressed. TOO many people. 

Our next stop was monkey bay.  Here we got off and some people fed the monkeys.  I did not, I do not trust monkeys.

Monkey Eating the Banana

Baby Monkey and Mama

Our Guide Gave the Monkey Some Coke....This Can Not be Good For Him...

Sign Says Do NOT Feed Wildlife, Apparently Our Guides did Not Care

After Monkey Bay we snorkeled for a bit.  Really nice to get in the water after all that time in the sun.  We saw lots of fish, sea urchins, and lots of really cool things.  The best part was one fish was eating the coral and you could actually hear him chewing on it! Pretty awesome!  Then we headed for lunch, a buffet.  Pretty yummy!  And then to the beach

Getting Some Sun on the Boat

Our Tropical Island Paradise 

We stayed on the island for a while, slept, swam, snorkeled and overall enjoyed the sun.  By the time we left it was getting very busy again, but luckily we had gotten then before the crowds.  It was pretty nice!  Then we headed back to Phuket for our final night!  And tomorrow we are going to Koh Phangan on the other side of Thailand!