Driving on the “wrong” side of the road

We rented a car today and toured around Phuket a bit. At home we drive on the right side of the road… Well in Thailand they drive on the left side ( or as I like to say… The wrong side).

That was just one of the challenges though. They also drive like lunatics. There are scooters and motorcycles darting out from every direction, often with young children happily lodged between the driver, the handle bars, and certain death if some “farang” zigs right when he is supposed to zag left. (Farang is the Thai word for white faced foreigner – that’s me😄). Luckily I kept my zigging and zagging to the left… And no one was hurt, although Gen’s nerves were understandably frayed by the end of it all.

In the end we visited some amazing beaches, and are ready to move on to our next destination tomorrow: Phi Phi island.

First stop was Karon beach. ( I have discovered the panaramic photo capability on my iPhone)

Very nice place but we had more stops to make so we didn’t linger too long.

Next stop was Nai Harn beach. In my opinion the most picturesque we have visited so far:

We arrived just in time for a 5 minute downpour, but sun came shortly after and the boys had a blast

Gen managed to calm herself a bit from the harrowing driving experience

We visited Patong for some snacks, but did not visit the beach or any of their famous ping pong parlours. This is a banana chocolate roti 

Who is that manly bearded man?

A view of the beach at Patong

We stopped to check out the view at Kalim beach.

These beaches are all along the western shore of phuket facing the Andaman sea on the Indian Ocean. They are all incredibly beautiful, and the water is very warm and crystal blue.

Tomorrow we have an early ferry to catch to the famous Phi Phi islands… More beaches!

The beach that really…,you get the point.

JAMIE.So this afternoon we wanted to go to the beach as you could see by the title,but it started raining SOOOOOOO hard that we went under a temple.After what seamed like was 2hours but was actually only 4 minutes it stoped raining and I was like FFFFIIIINNNNAAAALLLLYYYY,then we went on the beach and do you remember selfie well guess what we found another dog that was white I don’t want to be racist,anyway we named him doge,prenounced doje I’ll give you apictre of him or her
  Then about 1hour later me and cam built a suspicious structure of sand named BOH,prenounced bah.

Surin beach

 Another day, another beach. Today at a place called  Surin beach. The funny thing was that it was beautiful and sunny all morning. We took a cab to my favorite BBQ place and had a nice lunch, then  strolled leisurely to the beach in the hot sun. We arrived just in time for an awesome storm to roll in. The lifeguards ran out onto the beautiful white sand furiously blowing their whistles. The sky was black by this point, and the waves were crashing violently onto the beach. It was clear that staying there was not a good idea. So we scrambled for refuge under a temple that was raised up on cement  stilts, about 100 metres from the beach. We didn’t quit make it on time, and got soaked pretty good, but it was fun to watch the storm roll through. It all seemed to be pretty routine to the locals, so we didn’t feel any danger. In about 15 minutes the rain stopped, and we headed back to the beach to enjoy the rest of the afternoon under blue skies.

We even made a friend

The boys built sand castles and laughed out loud as the waves crashed in and washed them away. 
I am told that in high season this beach is very popular, but personally I preferred the beach we visited yesterday. The waves here were really strong, and you could really feel the rip tide pulling you out to sea after they crashed onto the shore. I would never take a risk here by going out to far. I am not exaggerating when I say that anything more than knee high felt like a risk. All it would take would be one wave to knock you down, and in 5 seconds the tide could carry you out far enough that you would be in trouble… And today was calm by this beach’s standards at this time of year. Thankfully the boys have a good appreciation of the power of these things and were super careful.

On the way back to the hotel we passed this tiny fishermans spot just in time to see them dump out their catch

Some different looking fish. They were using nets, and I guess they will sell whatever they happen to pull out on any given day.

Tomorrow we will rent a car and head south toward the tip of the island. It will be my first opportunity to drive UK style on the left side of the road. Should be interesting😳😬

Back for more BBQ chicken

we found this place the first night we arrived in Phuket… And I was immediately drawn by the smell of charcoal BBQ…

The chicken is some of the bay I’ve ever had… So we’re back for the third time in 4 days… Not sure what I was thinking on the day we skipped.

After lunch, we are headed to a new beach: Surin Beach. Supposedly bigger waves, but there is less wind today, so they should be manageable. The sun is shining also, so should be awesome.

We’ll post some pictures after lunch. It just arrived… So good

Quiet day

We walked yo our new hotel this morning, saw these nice flowers along the way.

It was only a 10 minute walk, but we were afraid to get caught in a downpour, so we had our rain covers on:

 we checked into the new hotel. It is an interesting place. Has a nice pool, but Jamie continues to have reactions to the chlorine. Poor little guy, he wears this swimming shirt to protect himself against the sun, and today he came to us and said “daddy, my nipples are bleeding.”… Sure enough he had blood stains running down the front of his swimming shirt. He was not in pain. We put some bandaids on them and he was as good as new. I think we will stick to swimming in the ocean though. Other than that, it’s been a quiet day, we are back at the same lunch place as yesterday. Gen is having a soup and reading

The boys are playing in the sand

We are getting a great deal on the room so I think we might stay here awhile. The owner of the hotel has offered us a free room for the boys to share, so We have two rooms at his place for about $30 per night:

This the view from the room 

That’s our room on the left and the boys on the right. There are some interesting characters about the place. Each with is own tall tale to tell. Should make for a fun night at the hotel bar this evening

Are you not entertained??

Oh… The beach, a place where it’s hot, The waves are real smooth, and nothing could harm you, too bad the beach we were at was windy with small sand storms, the waves were bigger than Ron and there were eels and blowfish in the middle of the beach sand floor but it was still paradise. It’s Cam again and I’m telling you my POV of the beach we went to today. It started at coming out of the part of the beach that if you were to stay there and got pushed to the back of it, you would see yourself in the hospital with a bunch of broken bones from the rocks at the back of the beach. Anyway, we started going into the Water and when I say the waves were big, the waves were really big. I nearly stepped on a blowfish that was next to a big piece of bark. It was really something and definetely wanting to see more beaches.

Lunch at Bang Tao Beach

 We are spending the day at the beach today. This place is incredible. It is monsoon season so there are lots of clouds, but no rain so far today. It will come. Lots of waves too, the surfers are having a good time. It’s fun to watch them.

We are have been hanging out at this restaurant on the beach. Here is the view

That’s Cameron and Jamie building sand castles in the background.

We had company while we ate 

There are roosters all around the place. Not sure if they are for fighting as the Australian guy we talked to claimed, or just tomorrow’s lunch.

Either way, the lunch was very good.

Not sure if this is the spot in Phuket, but we are super happy. We found another hotel that we will move to tomorrow… We might be here a while.

 

Bang Tao

So we are in a place called Bang Tao beach.We were all really tired after an early morning flight, so we rested  for a bit after arriving at the hotel this afternoon. Gen and I went for a walk on the beach afterward, and while it was an overcast day, the beach was quite impressive anyways:

 We found this really cool bar/restaurant owned by a Canadian with lots of Canadian hockey memorabilia, so decided to hang out there this evening with some Australians we met. Jo, the owner, came here after the tsunami to volunteer and help rebuild He fell in love with a local, and never left. they rebuilt her restaurant, and it is now a real slice of Canada in the middle of Phuket:

Dennis, you would be impressed. The owner runs a ball hockey league down here and has a nice collection of Easton sticks that they use:

Also a cool soviet hat that I wanted to keep but would not be very practical down here

Tomorrow we will spend the day at the beach. Hope we will see the sun, but it is a bit of a long shot this time of year around here. Clouds and rain I can handle though… When you think of what these people went through in 2004, it’s hard to complain about a little rain

Checked into the hotel

we’ve checked into the hotel in Surin beach: Baan Chayna

The rain has begun though… We are on the way to the beach to take a look anyways. Will post some pictures once we get there

Welcome to Phuket

we’ve arrived in Phuket. We can see the ocean from the airport… Should be on the beach by this afternoon.