We arrived to the usual touts and scammers and tried to persuade the Taxi Meter stand to actually charge us on the meter to no avail. Apparently the fixed rate of 600b is what it costs everyone going to Kata Bay (our beach of choice on Phuket Island). We opted for a minivan at 180b/pp despite the 1.5 hour trip, the bus gradually dropped people off at their posh hotels and we were the last ones off and the only ones to get suggestions for better guesthouses (we had not booked anywhere, just said a place for the driver to take us).

We finally rolled through the busy street of Pating beach and Karon beach to our chosen guesthouse, Fantasy Hill Bungalows, just at the start to Kata beach and decided on a room for the night — we went for an apartment style room with a view and with aircon. (more for the view than the aircon) at 700b/night it was expensive, so the next night we moved to a cheaper room (400b/fan room) without a view.

The first evening we went for a walk to see what was about and to see how to get to the actual beach. The thing ht struck me first was that most signs were in Thai and russian, then I realised that I was hearing mostly Russian accents around me. Most other places we have visited so far have had all sorts of nationalities, but as this was more a resort like area, I guess nationalities stick together. Like the mafia run hotels of Sharm El Sheik (I might have made that up).

We stopped at a random place for a mediocre and expensive dinner, and decided to rent a motorbike the next day to explore nearby beaches.

We motored to the next beach along, Kata Noi beach, which had snorkelling at each end of the bay, and went for an explorkal. We hung around for a but, but I came away feeling underwhelmed. The beach was Ok, but the sea was full of rubbish.

I feel we should have tried to find an affordable place up in the north west, at the national park.

That evening we biked into Patong beach to see what it was all about, and found the awful neon party place that we wanted to avoid. GoGo bars everywhere and crap restaurants all selling watered down Thai style esteem dishes.

We ended up using the LP as a guide to eating places, and sought out the Mengrai Seafood Court — a handful of small places down a back alley that specialise ifs sea food. I had black crab curry and Laura a chicken curry. Both were excellent, but a little pricey. Not many westerners and only a handful of Thais, the staff were lovely and we left happy. We wondered past the gogo bars and watched the British, Australian and American party people get drunk before heading back.

That night we planned our next move. I had read about Koh Yao Noi and it sounded like the secluded paradise we found in the Perhentians on or last SE Asia adventure in 2005.

It was incredibly expensive to get around Phuket island, I think because it’s quite a resort place with lots of westerners who are happy to pay. So instead of paying 650b for a taxi, we got a local bus to Phuket town (30b/pp) and got stung for a tuk-tuk ride to the pier (200b!!). We wanted Ao Por pier, where we could get a shared long boat to Koh Yai. The Driver was nice and asked around the locals at the pier, but unfortunately, Friday is a bad day. KOH Yao is a mainly Muslim community, and apparently Friday is a bit like a Sunday for the british. nothing much runs. It was 10:30am and the next boat didn’t leave until 5pm, despite the large sign saying 8:30,14:00 and 17:00. So much to my disgust, we got the guy to take us down the road to Ratsada (aka Rassada, Ratsad) pier for the Ko Phi Phi Boat instead. We had planned to go to Phi Phi after Koh Yao Noi, so not too big a deal, but would have been nice to see the last bastion of tourism resistance…

I’m still not convinced the map in the LP is accurate, as the taxi driver (and most others) seem to think Ao Por pier is further north, nearer to the airport, but I thought that war Banrong pier. Who knows, but we caught the expensive tourist ferry (600b/pp) to Phi Phi.