THAILAND - Phuket

The flight from Vietnam to Thailand was a breeze, thank god I only had a short layover in Bangkok and was swiftly taken away to Phuket, an island down in the south coast. This is where I stayed only two nights until my friend Monica came to join me. In Phuket, the h is silent, there was not much to do in this old town but it was nice to walk around and see the locals go about there busy days of haggling. I pretty much walked around the entire city just to pass the day, and within the day I got to see two schools that were very different from each other. One was an international school which I sat down and watched the kids play during lunch all sorts of games in the courtyard which was really pleasant. The second school I came across was a monk school, kids from all ages dressed in the traditional wear studying hard and walking the halls calmly. The music and smell of incense filled the streets. I tried to find a little park that had a monkey sanctuary and local market that I saw on the city map, but I soon figured out the cartoon-like map was not to scale... so after 2 hours walking in one direction I assumed that the park was probably more like 5 miles out of town. So I turned back to head to the hostel and within doing so I ran into a Central Park where all the locals were having lunch in picnics and street vendor carts having a wide array of food choices. Loved this. Kids laughing and playing soccer as moms chatted amoungst themsevles. As soon as I landed in Thailand I realized things here cost more than in Vietnam, so I had to rethink my spending habits. This meant I had to go grocery shopping and try to make sandwiches for meals and not eat out all the time. After my day of exploration I took a 2 hour nap in the air conditioned hostel, which was so nice considering it was 90 degrees outside and full blown humidity. Later that night I went downstairs to wait for Monica to arrive around 1 in the morning from the US. While I was waiting I played with the hoste cat which was the FATTEST CAT EVER. Literally so juicy and fun to play with... not to mention sassy. And during my time in the lobby the 2 girls working the front desk were laughing and having a great time, well at least one was working. The other girl had a party dress on and was drinking from a bottle of red label, which she offered me some and I may have taken up the offer... just to pass the time of course. As the night got late I told the front desk girl she could go home and I could wait to let Monica in and she thanked me so much, it was cute. Finally Monica showed up and I let her in and we ended up staying up till almost 3 just catching up. But we had to get some rest for out journey to Phi Phi Islands the next day.