Phuket: A holiday from traveling 😅

Saturday the 29th of February til Friday the 13th of March: I had been looking forward to meeting my bestie Tina in Phuket for a while now. It was wonderful to spend time with one of those people, who knows me the best and longest. We stayed in Phuket Old Town for 3 nights and wondered around the charming streets in the centre, checked out the night Market, went to some temples and to Rang Hill View Point. The night life was very disappointing, after 22:30 the streets were kind of dead. One afternoon we spent in the Trick Eye Museum. That was a lot of fun, doing fotoshoots with all those comic, art and movie scenes. On Tuesday we changed our location to Kata Beach, on the southwest coast. On Wednesday, we did a hike to Karon View Point and a little tour to the Big Buddha Statue, located on a hill with beautiful views. What wasn't so beautiful was the behavior of the monkeys up there. We knew they could be quite naughty, so we stayed away from them. Nevertheless one of the little buggers sneaked up on Tina and tried to steal her rucksack. When she wouldn't give it up, the little shit got aggressive, bared it's teeth and tried to attack her. A guard saved us by threatening the monkey with a stick. I tell you, they are mean little bastards, I don't like them 😡! The monkeys I mean, the guard was great 😋 Our hostel in Kata was wonderful, but the location itself not so much. Very busy, a long, not so nice walk to the beach (because the straight way was blocked by some unaccessible compound) and again, the place was dead after 23:00. So we canceled our hostel booking (they were very nice about it and even gave us back part of the money, even though they didn't have to) and relocated to a very nice hotel in Patong, the main party area on Phuket. But the hotel was away from the big hussle, at the northern end of the beach. So we could relax there or at the roof top pool and walk straight into the action within 15 minutes. That was perfect. We enjoyed good food, beach time, good talks and good drinks 😁 On Saturday we did an island tour, visiting the beach from 'The Beach' (though we could only view it from the boat, as it is forbidden to go there at the moment so nature can recuperate from all the tourism), passing caves, where they harvest birds nests as a delicacy. The swallows build their nests out of their spit, that is very high in protein. We stopped at Monkey Island, not leaving the boat after our last encounter. The tour guide was very confused, that we wouldn't want to feed the monkeys and seconds later a little girl screamed because a monkey jumped on to her and wouldn't get off. We were very happy with our decision. Next we went snorkeling. We saw some beautiful fishes, but the coral reaf was mainly bleached and dead. So sad to see. Afterwards we drove to Phi Phi Island and after that had a very nice meal on an island close by. I forgot the name, but even though it's beach was not as nice as some of the others (a bit rocky), I liked that island the most, for it was very peaceful and not so crowded. Our last stop was at a little island, that was a total tourist trap. You could not walk 2 meters without someone trying to sell you something aggressively and the seafloor was full of stones, so you could not get in without water shoes. Tina had some and went in to do snorkeling, but she said there was nothing. Felt really scammed there. In the evening we went out on Bangla Road. As we were dancing in one of the clubs, a member of staff approached us and said, we had been invited into the VIP lounge. Uuuuuuuuu 😏. A group of professional football (soccer) players wanted to party with us. OK, why not. We had a fun night. Next day we cured our hangovers. Monday was also more of a chill day (yes, when you get into our age group, you need two days to get over your hangover completely 😩😜). On our last day together, Tina and me went to Freedom Beach. You can only reach it via boat, or by a short hike, where you have to pay 200 Baht to the family owning the land. It was worth it. Quite busy, but still OK, nice palm trees for shade (thought be aware of falling coconuts!) and cristal blue water with lots of colorful fish. We had a wonderful day and just before leaving, we got to know a group of German gentlemen, that we went out with later. Although the plan was not to party too hard, as Tina had to get up at 8:00 to get to the airport, that didn't work out of course 😅 Luckily I still had 2 days before leaving. I was very lazy and enjoyed the hotel, as at my next and last destination Singapore, I could only afford a hostel. On Friday the 13th I left Phuket. Tina and me had a very good time there, but I would not recommend it. We chose it, because it was the only affordable direct flight Tina could get and we didn't want to take a long bus trip from there, to get somewhere else. We thought it would be a bit like Mallorca, where the main party area is not so nice but the surroundings very beautiful and easy to get to. But it was much more extreme than Mallorca, very crowded, lots of loud Russian tourists (sorry for enforcing clichés, but they where mostly very annoying) and often a lot of littering. But we made the best of it and had a wonderful time together.