Thailand a Western Fix

Old Phuket Town 

We are on the island of Phuket ... it is hot, hot, hot we are not complaining though. The last time we were in Thailand was in the early '90s and only to Bangkok. Arriving here has been a bit of a culture shock for us. We have been travelling through third world countries now for nearly 4 months. When we arrived here we were really surprised at how Western it is, how quiet the streets are, how few people there are, no tooting cars and how clean and green everything is. We have seen a couple of rather large rats, they looked a lot healthier than any rat we saw in India. There are only cars on the roads and the dogs seem to be looked after. Whenever a taxi driver calls out to us asking if we need a ride I go tense getting ready to be hassled. I guess India was tougher than we realised.

Every country and culture is so unique and interesting, their food, their landscapes and their lifestyles. We generally find that we take a few days to get used to a new country and currency. The Thai people seem to be easy, like the Nepalese. We are not hassled by vendors and if we are approached and we say no we are left alone. Which is a relief. I have found it quite restful here. I remember meeting a young man on the Annapurna who had spent about 4 months in India and he mentioned how stressful India is. I did not realise it while we were there but now we are in Thailand I get what he means.

I thought I would post a few photos of our first few days in Thailand ... we are of island hopping and I am not sure how accessible we will be to internet/wireless. 

This is what we left behind in Delhi ... the fog was really, really thick and Pete was convinced that our plane was not going to leave on time. It left about 30 minutes late.

We spent quite a bit of time wandering the streets of Old Phuket. We loved it. It is being done up as a tourist spot and is very trendy. There are some beautiful old buildings in this part that were built by, or influenced by the Portuguese. I love the colours and design of this lampshade.

We did the tourist thing and rented a scooter for a day and had a great time riding round parts of Phuket Island. Like a lot of Asian countries there are heaps of scooters on the road. Those of you who have visited this part of the world will be familiar with scooters lined up in large numbers at the lights waiting for them to change and then they charge of altogether, well that was us! The roads were particularly quiet because of New Years holiday. 

We found this little beauty parked on the side of the road. We are a VW family. We had a VW Kombi when our children were in their teens. I loved it. The side door would come off regularly and it was freezing cold in the winter. I remember lucy saying one winters day as we were driving in our very cool Kombi, 'I don't know of any other family that needs to wear a hat and gloves inside their car!' Anyone who has owned a VW will know that their weak point is their heaters ... but there is so much coolness about them to make up for the loss of heat. My Grandad owned an orange VW beetle with a small back window, when I was a young girl. I remember sitting in the gap behind the back seat, under the small window and would love to look at the stars at night. We have seen very late model cars here that are very well looked after. It would appear that fast cars and bikes are popular. While wandering round Patong we saw a late model Nissan March with false eyelashes over the front lights.

A sample of some of the old buildings in Old Phuket Town.

Still Old Phuket town ... looks like Count Dracula's residence.

Pancake stand ... these are cooked over hot coals. They are yummy! They do all sorts of fillings, we tried Nutella and banana.

This gangster van was turning in front of us and we thought this could be a good replacement van for Tom & Jonelle ... what do you think?

The back of the museum in Old Phuket ... I love the way the doors open up to the interior of the house.

We rode up here to see the Giant Buddha along with every other tourist in Phuket. This is for you Mack.

lucy loves Pad Thai and this was a particularly good one with a watermelon slushy on the side.

We caught an air conditioned bus to Patong for a couple of nights ... air conditioning are the fans on the ceiling of the bus. 

Mike said we would be sending boxes of the things we have bought back home. Here is another box of things we posted to Jakarta, to Pita and Tasi's.

lucy and Mike told us to get smoothies from a street vendor. Here is mango ... I like watermelon better.

While walking along a lane we came across this ... naughty is nice! Thailand is known for its sex industry and here in Patong it is really obvious. We have seen a lot of women who look like men and men dressed as women. There seem to be a lot of older western men with young Thai women walking the streets of Patong.

Have you ever ... not sure if this is a bar or a hotel or both?

Pete has broken his vegetarian fast ... BK got the better of him!