Abby is keen to get her haircut this morning, after we chopped most of it off on Pulau Pehentian in Malaysia. We find a professional looking place where the lady speaks at least a few words of English. Abby takes some photos from a magazine and is pleased with the result, which costs just 300Baht, a tenth of the cost at home.
I do some online jobs. We head towards the shopping centre, but find it closed, and the supermarket, which is the reason we went to the shopping centre, is very basic. But we get the supplies we need.
I am always surprised that products such as fruit juice are so expensive in countries in Asia. Fruit itself seems to grow everywhere and is very cheap to buy. I guess it is a supply and demand situation, and the fact that few of the local people buy fruit juice, therefore it remains fairly expensive. Breakfast cereal is also expensive so we go without.
We rent a scooter on our way back to the guesthouse. I don’t have my passport on me, so the lady lets me take the scooter to get my passport and return with it. I’m barely around the block when it runs out of fuel. Rental bikes are almost always drained of fuel when they are returned, and I think they went a bit too far this time. Anyway, I’m able to easily push it to a fuel station and top up.
We get out things together and head out of Phuket town towards the beach. The urban area is quite large and it takes us 40 minutes to reach the beaches as the southern end of the island. The beaches there are nice, but still have some of the tourist facilities we were hoping to escape. After a nice swim we have some great Thai food there. The numerous restaurants are big and empty, evidence of the downturn in visitors since the tsunami.
It’s dark when we head back to Phuket town. The lady from the restaurant tells us to drive slowly. We only 5 minutes into our ride when it starts to rain. Thankfully the rain never gets really bad, but bad enough to make it a cautious, wet and bleary eyed ride. We get back in one peace and decipher the parking rules; one side of the road on odd dates, the other side of the road on even dates. Strange.
We relax with a couple of drinks before ending the night with some laptop TV.