Day 11 - Phuket Town

We started the day with breakfast on our balcony. Today we had company of a bird. I don't know what kind it is, but there are quite a few of them here. They are fun to watch down at the beach. We gave him some bread and he seemed happy. Our plan today was to make it down to Phuket Town which is almost an hour's drive from here. We went to the pool for a few hours, had our visit with the elphants and gave them bananas. We were given kisses by Tonkow who seems to recognize us now.

After showers we went to the lobby to meet our taxi driver. It was an uneventful drive and we were let off downtown Phuket. Our intensions were to shop and have dinner. The first street we started on was not good at all. Just cheap and ugly. We managed to find a map and stopped to try to figure out where we were and where we might want to go. So this little old man came up and helped us find where we were and of course offered us a ride in his tuc-tuc to where we should go to find better quality on Thai clothing and souvenirs.

The little guy was right and we found some things to buy right away. Now we remembered that we had not had lunch so we decided to have linner (lunch and dinner combined). We found a nice little place and figured it would be OK because there was a table full of local police (they are not very respected we were told by our guide yesterday, because there is a lot of corruption). The food was really good and now we were ready for more shopping. We felt we made out all right with heavy bargaining going on. There were a couple of things I regretted that I didn't get, but I am sure I didn't really need them anyway!

When we had had enough of shopping we found a nice bar and had some beer (even I had a beer!) There was a cab driver who had been following us for quite some time and whenever we saw him we just said "not yet". He did not give up and eventually after almost 2 hours at the bar, we found him parked nearby so we agreed to take his cab back to the hotel. He was a very interesting young man who knew a lot about America and american history. That was not expected. We gave him a good tip and he was really happy!

In Phuket I made an observation that there were quite a few rather large (chubby to fat) locals which I have never seen before. However, I soon figured out why. Right across the street from the bar where we sat there was a McDonald's and a Kentucky Fried Chicken! No wonder! It is too bad though. I have heard from friends that the same thing is happening in Japan. This is an export we really should not have!