Phuket, Phi Phi, and back to Bangkok

G’day all,

Well we have finally arrived back to Bangkok after many long bus journeys and many days swimming, motorbike riding, kayaking, and partying –not to mention spending way more than we planned. After Koh Phangan we had a very long day of busses and ferries to get across to the west coast of Thailand to Phuket. In Phuket we spent 2 crazy nights in Patong beach dodging "lady boys" on a hourly basis and hanging out with our new friends Gordan and Lim from Korea/Canada, and Tim from Melbourne. In Patong we decided to rent another motorbike and check out some of the other beaches in Phuket and also see how the progress is going with the Tsunami clean up. It ended up being one wild ride and 5 times worse than Koh Phangan as the traffic is so crazy it would have to be classed as stupid. All you can really do is just ride in a straight line and hope nobody clips you as they wiz pass you at 80km down a standard street. Before taking our bike back we saw this 50 year old American man with this absolute beast of a lady boy who was so old and blokey it was a joke…but made a good laugh at the same time. We then checked out some Thai kick boxing or MyThai as they call it here. It was the cheapest of touristy things to do but it was very interesting and worth the money. Also fighting was a World Champion Aussie guy who cleaned up his Thai opposition in about 3 mins but was highly entertaining as we all supported him with the old Aussie Aussie Aussie theme when he came onto the ring. After another late night of sucking back 7-11 Chan beers we had an early 6am rise as we took the ferry out the Koh Phi Phi or Phi Phi Island. This is the most expensive part of Thailand but the beauty and atmosphere of the place is amazing. The streets are lined with little fruit shake and Thai pancake stalls along with many restaurants and bars. There are no cars on the island only taxi boats, bicycles, and metal trolley carts. This island was destroyed by the Tsunami of 2004 and there are still many parts being rebuilt but it’s buzzing and packed with tourists and it’s very hard to get cheap accommodation. On our first night we stayed in this little basic bamboo bungalow but then we moved to a much better room for the same price on our second night. After a big discussion how we are going to start budgeting better and lower the price of this trip we had a few drinks and ended up throwing 100 baht notes around like 5 cent pieces and had a massive expensive night. We did end up meeting these cool Welsh girls named Kate and Amanda their Irish mate Paddy or Steve who we hung out with for the next few days. We ended up kidnapping Kate and she is now in Bangkok with us and coming to Cambodia with us tomorrow morning. On our second day in Phi Phi we decided to be cheap and Kayak out to Phi Phi Lay where the beach was filmed instead of take a boat tour which cost 3 times the price. Little did we know our 3 hour return trip would take about 3 times longer than that and we arrived at sunset and ended up getting towed back to the main island at dark. It was a fun but tiring adventure but we laughed about it all the same and still had a good time. We just arrived into Bangkok from Phi Phi this morning after a crazy 13 hour bus trip of which kept mysteriously stopping every few hours to steal our belongings out of the carrier. Today I met up with my good Thai friend Lack and we had lunch together and it was very nice to see her again. As mentioned before we head off to Cambodia tomorrow so we are just gearing up for another 15 hour bus ride.
Update ya all in Cambodia,
Woodsy