Arrived here two days ago and neither of us got particulary fond of this city. We're all the time getting told to be careful and to walk outside without completely covering clothes is not to think about- in roughly 30 degrees it's just painful to be wearing long sleeves and pants.
Luckily we're leaving tonight! Bye bye Asia, we had a great time.
This time we went budget and stayed in Phuket town, a way cheaper alternative than any of the main beaches in Phuket. The plan was to still spend one or two days at the beach anyway, just a short bus ride away. Well, that didn't happen. We both got a cold and didn't feel like spending hours in the sun. Instead we stayed in, read our books and only left the hotel room for food/snacks and haircut.
On Monday we met up with my grandpa, aunt and uncle (that happened to be in Phuket too!) for some delicious Thai food on a reagge bar with a spectacular view over the ocean. Great evening!
A few hours ago we arrived to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. After some misunderstandings at the immigration office at the airport we managed to enter the country illegally, at least for a few minutes. With everything finally sorted we arrived to our beautiful hotel room and are now going to enjoy sleeping in the most comfortable bed so far on this trip!
Now that our journey has almost reached its end we feel almost obligated to name our favourite places and the best things we've experienced (and will try and do so soon...ish). Not only that actually but also places and things we had rather avoided if only we had had all facts beforehand.
One of the latter is definitely the beds we were provided with in Thai Charm Guesthouse in Patong, Phuket. Little did we know when we walked into the usually clean and luxurious room (well we noticed that the beds were a bit more narrow than normal but didn't put very much thought into that, blinded by the fact that we didn't only just have our own PRIVATE bathroom but also our own private really amazing bathroom) but we started to suspect that something was wrong the second we went to bed. The beds were so hard it was frankly impossible to endure more than five seconds in lying position. Or any position actually. They were so hard we actually felt we had to investigate things. And after removing the sheets from my bed its narrowness and hardness all of a sudden started to make sense.
It was a massage bed, fully equipped with a head hole. Only in Thailand I guess. And hope.
Just realized that the last proper update was from Langkawi on the 17th of January. And to be honest not much has been going on since then.
After Langkawi we took the ferry to Satun, crossed the Thai border and got on the bus for yet another endless bus ride (last one on this trip though!). This time Patong beach in Phuket was our final destination. First night we met up with Elin and Fanny for some drinks and delicious Pad Thai. The rest of the time in Patong was spent relaxing on the beach, drinking fruit shakes and spending some time with Marjolein, a Dutch girl we've been travelling side by side with since KL.
Next stop was Phi Phi islands where we ended up staying for as much as seven nights! If it was for the fact that we fell in love with this beautiful little island or that we simply didn't have the energy to travel anymore we leave unsaid. A normal day on Phi Phi was spent eating a long and delicious breakfast, reading Håkan Nesser on the beach, eating a long and delicious lunch, reading some more on the beach, heading back to our guest house for showers and finally having a long and delicious dinner. Not bad at all. Marjolein joined us at Phi Phi as well and the evenings were either spent partying on the beach or just talking over a beer or two.
But again, every sun has its cloud and at Phi Phi this cloud was definitely all the party tourists, most of them Swedish actually (people didn't even bother to ask for directions in English, the possibility that you spoke to a fellow Swede was very high). The fact the the beach turned in to a massive dance floor at seven obviously made it look pretty bad the next day (read; cigarett butts, empty beer cans, used condoms, urine etc).
Luckily enough there was more than one beach to go to if you wanted to avoid all this nastiness.
We left Phi Phi today and are now back in Phuket for three nights before ending our trip with a quick visit to Jakarta.
See you back in London on Saturday!
We're just spending our days like this on Koh Phi Phi. Plan is to keep on doing it until we get tired of it but I guess that the downside of that plan is that we don't experience anything exciting enough to write about. Sorry for that but we have our tans to worry about too, in just one week we're going back to London.
So far we've never spent more then three nights in one and the same place (if not counting Vang Vieng we're we stayed four - only because we were to hangover to move). But we're now on our fourth day in Langkawi and do not intend to leave for yet a few days. It's so beautiful here, unbelievable.
The beach is just five minutes walk away, the sand is white, the water is turquoise, the beer is cheap and the food is amazing - what else can you ask for? So far we've spent all days just relaxing on the beach from morning till late with just a few breaks for food and ice cream, we are definitely not complaining.
One thing that stroke us both by surprise is the amount of Swedes here, we are everywhere! In every bar you go to you'll find a Swedish girl behind the bar, on the beach you're surrounded by Swedish speaking people, in the book shops you'll find books in Bahasa Malay, English and Swedish and I guess about half the rooms on our guesthouse is occupied by Swedes.
- is there even anybody left in Sweden?
On Thursday we're leaving for Phuket in Thailand to meet up with my friend Elin and her cousin that are just in the beginning of their South East Asia-trip, it's going to be awesome!
If anybody have been to Phuket or Phi Phi islands before and has any good tips to share - please feel free!
