Driving round town
Woke up after a decent lie in and had our cereal for breakfast, we just had to borrow a bowl and cutlery which was no problem. It’s the little things in life, takes me back home. As per the hostess’ directions, we walked to a place where we could hire some bikes, as we’re going to be driving around Phuket today. It took half an hour or so, and the Sun was already blazing. Once we’d acquired a bike each, we departed for the Big Buddha, on top of a mountain. After 10 minutes of driving through traffic, all of a sudden, my bike stopped going forward.
For our first bike experience in Asia, click here.
There was power, and the engine was going, but no movement. Luckily, someone pointed us in the direction of a mechanic, which turned out to only be 5 minutes away. After a short push/roll to the mechanic, we showed and explained the problem. The mechanic dived into action, and it turns out the chain had been shredded, and was no more. We phoned the dude we hired the bikes from, and he will be footing the bill of 500 baht…it’s only a tenner or so, nothing to break the bank. Mat and I were back on the Phuket roads within the hour, and continued driving. It was quite the trek up the mountain, we sure gave our motors a run for their money. We saw a camp of elephants with tourists riding them…they’ve definitely seen better days. Quite sad to see.
Tip!
It’s a good idea to take the number of the person you’re hiring a bike from. If I didn’t have his number, one of us would have had to go all the way back to tell him what had happened. This saved us a lot of time!
The Big Buddha
Shortly after, we arrived at the Big Buddha and parked up. We entered the site, and a mighty big Buddha it was indeed. First of all, we walked around the edges of the site, which were overlooking the south of the island. You could see for miles around. After admiring the view for a while, we turned out heads to the main event. There was a wide staircase which took you from the first tier, to the second tier. The second tier is where the Buddha sat upon. Of course, there were plenty of photos to be taken of this gargantuan figure. We had a walk around the entire vicinity, marvelling at the views around and the statue. After we’d had our fill, we mounted our bikes and began driving to a viewpoint in the south of Phuket, called Promthep Cape.
For more things to do in Phuket, check this out.
It was midday, and the Sun was seriously blazing down on us now. The drive down to the south wasn’t too bad, but I was fearing the tarmac roads would start to melt. We parked up on a hill, and walked to the top. This viewpoint area was on the very tip of Phuket, so the sea was below the cliffs we were stood on. It was quite the marvellous view we were treated to. The sea was a beautiful blue, and there were many islands dotted about around us, it was great. Before we headed out, we decided to have some food here. The restaurants were scarce, and so was the food at the one we went to. Several dudes had just finished their meal, and there wasn’t much left for us. But we filled ourselves, and then carried on to our next destination.
Russians...Russians everywhere
Our next stop on our driving tour of Phuket was Kata Noi Beach. It was quite a long and winding road to get there, and once we did, we realised it was full with Russians and dried up old people who had soaked up too much sunshine. The Sun was roasting, but we decided to walk the length of the beach and then back. It was 40 minutes or so, but we saw many unsightly sunbathers. We returned to the bikes and carried on driving. Just because we were driving through, we stopped at Patong Beach, perhaps the biggest and most popular of the Phuket beaches. This was absolutely rammed with sunbathers, not my cup of tea! We only stopped off to get a drink and fill the bikes up.
We were on our final drive towards Phuket town. It was rush hour, so the roads were jampacked with commuters. Fortunately, we had size on our side, and were able to deftly weave in and out of traffic. The bike dude shuts up shop at around 6pm, and as it was around 5pm, we couldn’t mess about. Thanks to our crafty driving, we got back with time to spare. We decided to have a cheeky McDonalds as we were starving and we were nearby.
After McDonalds, we chilled at the hostel until after dark when we visited the nearby Phuket Indy Market. I think we got there a tad late, as most things were closing up. We did manage to get some food and drink there which was nice, so not a total bummer after all. I do like these small markets though. Soon after, we turned in for the night.
