After 6 pretty intense days of eating and sweating, our final Thai destination was relaxing on the undiscovered island of Phuket.  We headed straight to our resort (our only choice we were relaxed about as it came through a recommendation = we had someone else to blame if things went awry) to discover our piece of paradise for the next 4 days…before making the interesting decision to leave and discover some of the beaches.

A sweaty walk along Kata beach later, we stopped for a snack at some markets before looking up to see a cool looking rooftop bar named “Cloud 9”. So after 6 days of walking past side by side marijuana stores we rolled on into this high joint and feeling like complete dopes, decided weed just go to the bar on the street instead.

The lovely barmen could see the soberness on our faces and pulled out some plastic chairs for us before he’d even opened the “doors”. Having been surprised at not having too sexy a belly so far (for context: https://europez2a.com/2023/04/10/some-sausage-and-a-little-prik/), James was coy in his approach to the complimentary nuts…until Lea, fresh from ordering street prawns, jumped straight in and ate a solitary nut, thus prompting James to immediately demolish the whole bowl (forgetting the porcelain time over the last 2 trips to South-East Asia) to then see Lea producing the hand sanitiser. But, to be fair, we’d have had to give the hand sanitiser to everyone else who’d had their hand in the same bowl to make a difference.

Breakfast at our hotel was entertaining as we witnessed rich people not being satisfied with being rich, in paradise, with people cooking for them.  One tantrum about demands to see every available room to see which had a slightly better view of paradise and another with a guest intruding in the kitchen to tell a professional chef in a country with just about the best food in the world literally how to suck or at least cook eggs was enough to make us realise we prefer dodgy street bars where we can enjoy the guilty pleasures of things like plastic straws rather than shiny bars with plastic people.

A handful more outings from our beach followed. A food tour of old Phuket town where the highlights were Lea constantly being called Leo, and James biting into a dessert at the behest of the guide and then squirting juice in some poor lady’s face; 10 minutes in Bangla Rd, Patong; a tuk tuk back to Kata past family friendly hotels with My Humps blaring were enough to convince us to spend the rest of our time in our plunge pool drinking smuggled in gin from 7/11 and finally getting to see a sunset over the Indian ocean…

We splurged all of $20 to enjoy a once in lifetime floating breakfast in the pool (twice), triggering the conundrum of wondering how to wait 30 minutes after eating when said eating occurs while swimming? Almost as much of a conundrum as buying beers from a 15 year old on a beach and wondering whether leaving a tip would be considered hush money.

As our amazing time in Thailand came to an end, day 9 saw a brain snap from James as a runny nose led to a handful of tissues being dropped into the toilet (of all places right??) and we got to prove the signs in every toilet in Asia right as our poor 5 star loo filled and overflowed over our bathroom with dual shower heads, claw bath and now poo and wee soaked towels. A different take on the full moon party everyone in Patong was heading to, not the Easter chocolate stains we were expecting, and proof that I should have followed Lea’s advice to call the 24 hour service team rather than (out of guilt) try to fix it myself armed merely with a free toothbrush and the bum cleaning hose thing in the dunny. If I was a media magnate I would have paid for a plunger for every room after such an experience…the one from the coffee bar sure wasn’t any help. “Taking the plunge” would have been a great name for this blog…had I not already used it in 2005 (https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/archive/57-3-takingtheplunge.pdf).

What an amazing and beautiful country, lovely and generous people, and delicious food. We can’t, and probably won’t, wait to go back.