Today was another day spent in transit so nothing overly
exciting to report but I feel like I should write a post anyway so I don’t end
up with a two day post that turns into a novel like yesterday’s.
The bus to the airport felt much longer than the one to the
city and I was paranoid I was on the wrong bus heading in to the city so it
felt way longer than it should have. I’m not sure why it felt that way but I
really couldn’t wait to get off the stupid thing even though it would mean
sitting around the airport twiddling my thumbs for two hours.
It started to rain heavily while I was waiting to board the
plane and I was curious to see how that would play out since all the passengers
have to walk to their planes at this airport, sometimes a fairly long distance.
Most of the walkway has overhead protection but the tarmac is obviously a
wide-open space. Turns out my friends at Air Asia are well prepared for such
events and have huge metal bins full of umbrellas for people to use between the
walkway and the stairs to the plane. I was pretty happy with this simple
solution since I thought for sure everyone was going to be soaked to the bone
and miserable the whole flight.
The flight wasn’t bad with only a little bit of turbulence,
we even arrived early. The stupid border agent stamped a new page though, which
means I’m down to two blank pages and that is stressing me out a little bit.
Everything should be fine though as long as I don’t have to clear immigration
during my layover in KL on the way to Bali.
Transportation in Phuket is pretty expensive so I opted for
the shared taxi option at the airport and paid 200 baht to share a van with
about 10 other people all staying in different places around the island. Of
course I was the very last person to be dropped off and was stuck in the van
for close to two hours. I guess that what happens when you decide to be cheap
but I will definitely be choosing another mode of transport for my ride back to
the airport.
I checked into the hostel and met the resident dive
instructor (I can’t remember his name for the life of me right now) and talked
to him for a bit about the Super Bowl and about diving certifications. I then
spent most of the afternoon trying to decide whether or not I should get my
open water PADI certification but inevitably the decision was made for me. Not only
would I need to take out a cash advance on my credit card (terrible idea) to
pay for the certification, but also I would have had to spend 3 hours tonight
watching instructional video and reading 200 pages of some book about diving. I
mean I guess I could have done in but I don’t think it would have been worth
it. I am still thinking about doing it in Bali though where I have more time
and hopefully they accept credit cards.
Other than that I didn’t really get up to much today. I went
for a wander around the hostel checking out a market, the beach, and some local
shops. The place to be in Phuket is Patong, which is a 400baht tuk-tuk ride
from where I’m staying in Kata. Patong is full of backpackers but it is also
full of hookers while Kata is more family oriented. I will probably make the
trek to Patong just to see what all the hype is about but I think I made the
right choice in staying in Kata. The beach looked to have lots of empty
loungers when I walked past earlier and the area just has a really relaxed vibe
so hopefully it rubs off on me and I can unwind a little while I'm here.
Alright I guess that’s all for now, sorry for the lameness,
hopefully I will have fun and exciting adventures to report about tomorrow.
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