Phabulous Phuket

Hey all, I'm writing from an Internet cafe on one of the main roads by my hotel and in about 20 minutes or so, myself and my friend Kate (my other friend Ashley left on Wednesday) are heading by taxi back to the airport to go back to Tokyo. Due to limited time (and because most of the keyboard is in Thai), this'll just be some snippets of my last 6 days here, but I figured I'd lay out the basics.

We got in on Saturday night and walked around one of the main roads in the town. Now I have never really experienced something like Phuket before, a place where as a tourist, you are basically viewed as an open wallet and are haggled every 10 feet by clever (but oh so annoying) Thai salesmen trying to sell everything from wooden motorcycles (SO Thailand, I know) to jewlery to weird looking fish on sticks. I haven't really "haggled" in my life before, but today, when I bought something for my brother, I knew I had come a long way. The guy today offered me 900 baht (about $28) for what I wanted and I got him down to about 400 ($11). NICE!

The town here still has some remnants of the tsumai that happened just over a year and a half ago -- a lot of the stone sidewalks are all chopped up and there is loose gravel everywhere. Phuket was one of the places that was badly affected by the storm and by looking at some of the pictures posted around of the aftermath, it looked devastating. Nevertheless, today you really can't tell that much of anything tragic happened here as all the businesses are thriving and it's as crowded as ever.

The beaches aree absolutely gorgeous here -- long, winding white sand beaches, that aquamarine blue water that you find in the Carribean, and towering mountains in the background, covered in green trees and vegetation. Quite a sight, indeed. However, it's hot. And I mean hot. Did I say it was hot? Because holy moley it is. It's about 90 degrees everyday with about 6000% humidity which makes it, let's just say, uncomfortable. But with the ocean nearby and the gorgeous pool at our awesome hotel (which cost me just over $50 a night and would certainly fetch triple that in the States) it was all okay. And the cheapness of everything certainly helped. Though we did spend a decent amount (mostly on some boat rides, jetskiing, and tours), meals were rarely more than $3 a piece. A bottle of water (you can't drink from the tap here) cost about 14 cents.

Anyways, a sum of the events of the past 6 days:
-Lots of lounging on the beach, which was full of cats and dogs that sat under your chair
-Being haggled by people all over, especially on the beach where they just walk up to you with huge wooden elephant heads or tables and try to guilt you into buying them
-A fabulous ride on an elephant
-A boat tour of Phi Phi (pronounced Pee pee - HAHAHAH!) Island
-Some great meals
-A lot of sweating
-Jetskiing

and more! However there is not much time to explain it all, as I have to leave to catch the taxi in 15 minutes. Anyways, now it's back to Tokyo for 2 weeks of travelling around Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hong Kong with my dad. I'm quite excited to have all the power (langauge, at least) and showing him around the city I lived in for the past 4 months. I'll be home in just over 2 weeks on May 5th. I can't believe it!

And finally, my thoughts go out to anyone affected by the horrible events at VT this past week. I learned about it the day after it happened, and its pretty much not being discussed here, over 5000 miles away. But it still shocked me and I'm just appalled that such a thing could have happened. Hopefully happier days with follow.