Anyway,I decided to make as much room for all the other passengers as they jumped on and there was plenty of room for everyone. We ended up in Hat Yai (after maybe 30 minutes) and I went to give the driver (a different guy) the money and as I did , i asked him for directions to the bus station to Phuket. He drove off as he didn't really want to talk....
I headed back to the Cathay homestay and booked a ticket from there. As I was waiting for a bus, I started chatting to a guy who had some great grandparents who had emigrated from Ireland back in the famine times. It seems like Irish people are dotted all over the world! In fairness to him, he had roots from many places around the world and it was a pity that I only had an hour before junping on the bus to Phuket as he seemed a friendly dude.
I jumped on the bus and I got the picj of the seats as I was the first there!!! or so I thought. The bus driver picked up a couple , then drove 5 miles and told us to get out as we were going on another bus :-( No problem ! This time I ended up in the front seat which wasn't too bad as I could grab 40 winks pretty easily from here...
The journey from Hat Yai to Phuket was something like 7 hours with a few stops thrown in to get everybody awake! At one point we went for a toilet break and I noticed a picture of a woman crouched in that kind of mermaid position. This was odd until I realised that she was wearing nothing....Then, I thought to myself..'Have you walked into the womens toilets' before answering myself with another question 'why would there be a naked picture of a woman in the womans toilets either'. I decided to stop thinking to myself...
Here are a few photos of the journey.
These were jam pastry puffs
I must be drinking at least 3 litres of random drinks every day (Not a joke, and it all comes out as sweat...damn sweat glands!!). The pineapple drink always tastes the best
seeing another monument along the way.Thai people seem to be very patriotic as the flag seems to be visible everywhere... I am not sure if you would see many Irish flags located anywhere (well, except during the world cup if Ireland have qualified for it!)
More rice fields. I wonder what would happen if the rice crop ever failed in asia?
Not sure if I mentioned this before but the buddhism calendar reveals that this year is 2555 (see the year in the driving license , well, you would see it better if I took the pic from the front of the van..all you can see is the inverse of the number but you understand, right?)
These signposts are bilingual.Yay!
These roads seem to stretch on forever
Space is at a premium here. There is a market happening behind all those cars. (As a sidenote, There seems to be LOTS of jeeps over here.I have seen as many jeeps as cars in Thailand)
This house looks quite different to all the other ones that I have seen on this journey. It's a cool country retreat from the city though!
More land being used up for agricultural purposes
wow, those trees look perfectly in line with each other.
More empty road...it's a long journey you know!
This must be a REALLY holy shop
I have never seen so many Buddhas in one place
Beyond the hazy sun, there is a giant rock (I swear!)
Another pitstop. In this place you could buy eggs to go with your coconut while looking at ....
a tractor AND.................
Some fishes (you know the whole fish - tractor - coconut with eggs connection? )
actually, this was the place where there was a picture of the naked woman. Maybe this place was not supposed to make sense!
Anyway, we got into Phuket around 7.30ish so it was nearly dark (over here, it is dark around this time whereas back in ireland I wouls guess it is not dark until 10.30 - 11.00 around this time of year) so I tried to find the recommended 'om hotel'. The woman at the bus terminus pointed me in the direction of the hotel and as I was walking towards it, a guy on a motorbike told me that this place was closed. I didn't believe him so I kept going. This guy wass not lying though!!! The place was closed for renovations so I decided to stay at a place called 'route 68' for this night and then get a cheaper place in the morning... The room that I stayed in had 3 single beds in it so it's a pity that I didn't know anyone looking for a spare bed as It could have been cheaper!
I started to see things that I had not seen for quite a while....
A menu to cater for westerners!! (I had not seen this for a long time but as I stayed in Phuket, It became REALLY obvious how it's REALLY geared towards western tourists )
I retired to bed and resisted the urge to sleep for 2-3 hours in each of the 3 beds...
The next morning , i walked around thee are ,whereupon I bumped into another temple.
Outside of a Buddhist temple located in Phuket
Inside the temple
and a water feature (water features seem to be a common occurance around here )
The water needed to water those flowers has to come from somewhere!
So, I can hear you think, what to do if you are staying in Phuket. I did the most obvious thing....I went to the chinese museum to see how The Chinese community have influenced Phuket over the years....
I took a tonne of photos but I am guessing that you would not be too interested in viewing them all so i'll put a few of them up here.
Within these walls lies the keys to understanding the Chinese influence on Phuket
The locals have really high opinions of the immigrant Chinese
reason why they Chinese cam here in the first place
Why Tin mining started
It seems like there were a few Chinese people who worked their asses off at the start of the 20th century . Once they had made enough money , they ploughed it back into the ex-pat chinese community. One such example is Jian Wanit. A synopsis of his life can be read in the following 3 pictures.
A self made man
How he fared during his life
The man himself
There were multiple examples of self made Chinese men who never forgot their roots and ploughed their money back into the community.
An abstract sculpture (too abstract for me)
Intro to the popular Chinese puppetry entitled 'Kaleh puppetry'
This puppet looks slightly creepy to me!
The Opium Tax in Phuket
sieve washing versus tin mining...a guide to who did what
The role of a 'coolie'
A typical Chinese 'Shop house'. the front of the house is located on the far left side of the picture above.
Traditional Chinese mourning rules
Celebrating a 60th birthday like you are 21!
A Chinese wedding ceremony can be encompassed in the following 3 pics...
The pictures speak for themselves....literally!
update (after 4 days)
I had better get a move on when writing this blog thingy as I am 2 weeks behind at this point! In fact, I have just heard some bad news as regards Phuket this morning. There was a fire in a nightclub in Patong and 4 people perished. At this point in time, I am getting used to hearing sad news when travelling so that news (unfortunately) does not really hit me. The t.v stations were saying that safety regulations are not that great in Thailand. I have to say that I have not really gone to many nightclubs on my travels (I guess it's mor of an age thing. I think I have (by)\passed that age at this point but I guess I could talk about all the tours I have taken and they ALWAYS stick to safety first .I will talk about my dive in phi phi soon but the woman whom I dived with made sure that I was fine throughout that dive. So, regualtions as regards sporting activities always seemed good to me. As regards fire regulations, I have been lucky enough to have neve been involved in any accidental fires on my travels so I could not confirm what the t.v are saying.
Anyway,as regards the rest of my stay in Phuket, I took it fairly easy. I was thinking of doing something crazy like smuggling some Durian into the hostel but then I saw this sign...
To anyone who does not know this fruit, It stinks worse than my shoes....well, maybe not that much but it isn't pleasant!
Normally, I would head for a stroll in the evening time, and seeing as this day was no different to any of the other days, I decided to pay a quick visit to Chinatown and grab some street food (which is always nice and most of the meat are drenched in some sauce which is very tasty!)
Chinatown, Phuket style
Some meat , I needed to compliment the meat with.....emmm
more meat, I thought I might try something different to meat so I bought some...
more meat..... I think I need to try something different apart from meat
After my meat cravings had been satisfied , I headed back to the hostel.
The hostel had plenty of books and I had not read a documentary in quite a long time so I happened to see Donal Og Cusack (He's an Irish Hurler from Cork) biography and gave it a read. This was both a good and a bad thing
good: I like reading autobiographies as they tend to be interesting takes on peoples lives
bad: you can make up most of an autobiography if you want and you can alter it to make yourself as cool/uncool as you like! Also, If you start giving opinions about others, they don't really have any comeback to your arguments about them (note: I realise that a blog is the exact same as an autobiography. That's why I try not to put too much stuff about other peoples opinions in this blog. Otherwise, It just sounds like I am pontificating and that is not a good thing!)
As regards Sean Ogs book, I was kind of surprised that I had pretty much read all the stuff about him coming out from the national papers. This was a TINY part of the book. It pretty much consisted of him trying to con the authorities such that he could get an advantage with the sliothars that Cork people use when playing the game (To all the people who have no interest in the game of hurling, this paragraph will mean nothing to you, sorry!) and how envious he was of Kilkenny. Actually, the biggest point that he seemed like he was trying to make in his book was hurling was his favorite pasttimes by an absolute distance and pretty much everything else took a backseat to hurling. It was an interesting read (although, I am not sure how much you would get out of it if you didn't like\know hurling) just to read his attitude towards professionalism in an amateur sport and how he pretty much doesn't care about the verbal insults from the crowd as regards his sexuality...
Yeah, I didn't go too mad in Phuket!! So I decided at this point, I might as well try a few more activities so I boarded a boat to Phi Phi. I think it was time to try a spot of diving and snorkelling! (I had tried snorkelling in the perhentian islands in Malaysia and I got such a shock when I jumped in the water (from now being able to stand on the bottom ) that I had a bit of a panic attack there. I think I decided at that point that I would try snorkelling again but at this point, I might be better able to control my 'freaking out' phase when I enter the water). Bring on Kao Phi Phi!!!
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