The good thing about going to bed so early every night is that you get to wake up early enough to see the sunrise!! Not something I am used to. Especially the Buddhists in the temple across the road banging their gongs (no pun intended!).
Time to leave Lao. It has not been what we expected in a really good way. It's such a great country. We have been spoilt with such amazing scenery, experiences and meeting some great people along the way. The Mekong tour, that hotel in Pak Beng and Luang Prabang in particular were the highlights. We will definitely come back.
Vientiane airport was unique for two reasons. 1) We have never been to an airport in a capital city where they allow you to check in but customs is not open for another hour (there are so few flights that go through here they open and close customs like Tesco's does check outs when it is busy) and 2) Never been to an airport with an outside viewing deck on the roof. The irony that there is buggar all to view does not escape us!
An hour stop in Bangkok and we are back on our way to Phuket. Absolute school boy error by me when I completely forget that Laos is a closed currency. Not good when we have £40 of Kip left and are standing in Thailand. Anyone know anyone that is going to Laos any time soon and needs some money I do a good rate! Alternatively we have some new Monopoly money.
Bangkok airport is pretty nice.
Some great scenary coming into Phuket. The islands look amazing.
Our hotel is on the southern tip of Phuket Island which is a pretty big island. In fact it doesn't feel like an island at all. Also coming from Laos it strikes us how western and built up it is.
We are staying at the very lovely Radisson Blu. http://www.radissonblu.com/resort-phuket
It is the perfect timing on our trip. We are definitely in need of some proper relaxing time after being non stop for the last month. This is just the place.
View from our balcony (overlooking pool number two).
Out by the main pool we are greeted to one of the best sunsets we have seen so far. A massive shock to the system with the beer prices though. What happened to 90p beers?
Five mins walk from the hotel is the esplanade. Not much here but a nice few local restaurants and bars which should keep us busy and well fed this week.
This is the monstrosity that faced me in the toilet at the restaurant we ate in tonight. Rogues galleys would be proud of this addition. So much wrong with this picture, especially the proportions such as a) this baby has 'cankles' and b) willys are never this big ;-)
We go for a night cap (late one tonight - it's 10pm!) at such a cool little bar opposite out hotel called Small Bar. Love this place. This is night caps sorted for the week!
Useful menu teaching the tourists how to speak Thai.
Back at the hotel we have some great face time sessions. It was so great to gate crash Caroline and Rach's annual Christmas feast via face time. Really great seeing you all. This weekend we are really missing the London festivities what with this and the Hurlingham Christmas dinner on Saturday too. Thanks to Charlotte for sharing the video of "Pete's tears part 2" with the groups rendition of 'can you feel the love tonight'. Also great face time with Mum and Dad. This is what speaking with great signal is like!!
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