We pick up the travels again on the 27th of December. After a fairly lousy Christmas in Krabi, and both still feeling a touch under the weather the minivan to take us to Phuket, arrived 1 hour early. Luckily, we were ultra prepared (as always, thanks Katy!) and managed to get from the room to the van in 15 minutes, including check out! The journey was uneventful as we crossed onto Phuket Island where we were dropped off at our hotel in Phuket old town for the next 4 nights, In Phuket House Hotel. The owner very kindly gave us a map of the local area with some of her written recommendations on it for food, drinks and sights. We took her up on the first and went to One Chun Cafe around the corner. The food was delicious! However, the smell of fish may have started to churn, the still poorly, Katy's stomach but after some food and water the feeling passed. With all that sitting around, we walked along Thalang Street admiring the beautiful Sino-Portugese shophouse architecture, a by-product of the melting point of cultures brought together by the tin mines in the region. The colours were wonderful in the afternoon sun and the wares on sale were mostly clothes or bolts of every material with samples laid out at the entrances.
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Season's greetings! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Santa was good to everyone! The Wild Salisburys spent Christmas 2019 in Krabi, at the Ava Sea Resort, in southern Thailand but we were both unwell over the period so here is a slideshow of some of the photo's we managed to take and the beautiful Christmas dinner we had at Jenna's Bistro. Friday morning started with a lovely 6am alarm, a quick cup of coffee for breakfast before strapping our bags onto our backs (and fronts) and walking half an hour to the bus station for our bus to Kanchanaburi. Looking on Google maps we had decided to walk instead of bothering with a taxi at rush hour. Big mistake. HUGE! The majority of the roads had no pavements so we traipsed up the side of the roads with cars, motorcycles and tuk-tuks whizzing past. When we finally got away from the roads we were traversing the side of a canal on a rather ramshackle walkway. Anyway, 30 extremely sweaty minutes later we arrived looking awfully dishevelled and ready to get into the nice air conditioned bus.
It took us just about 3 hours to get to Kanchanaburi, arriving just before midday. Our hostel was just over half an hour walk away, so I hear you all say “they surely learned their lesson after the mornings antics, surely they got a taxi”. Well no, you’re wrong. Gluttons for punishment some would say. So bags strapped back on, off we traipsed down the side of the roads, this time in a balmy 35 degrees. We arrived at the Wee Hostel hoping we would be able to check in early and be able to grab a shower and change before continuing with our day however, carrying on the theme of the trip, this was not to be. The lovely young Thai girl at reception had very limited English so between hand gestures and a bit of help from google translate we were able to establish that she would look after our luggage until check in and an English speaking receptionist would be in in an hour or so. After a deep, if somewhat short, sleep we woke with the alarm at 4am, got ready, travelled down the 2 escalators to the airport (that was convenient!) and checked into our Scoot flight to Bangkok. To say space was at a premium on our flight may have been an understatement, as Craig's knees left an indentation in the seat when we disembarked. Like the true locals we clearly aren't, we took the skytrain into the city and then switched lines to get to our hotel, Citichic. Walking along the street was like stepping onto a different planet. Taxi's, mopeds, motorbikes and Tuk-Tuk's weaved and hurried their way up and down the roads as we dodged people on the narrow pavements. The smell was an assault on the senses, a mix of spices, petrol and an odd sulphur smell that just seemed to take you unawares every so often. The most remarkable sight were the vast quantity of overhead wires that seemed to weave together and create a maze at the boxes, a sight that would give the fear to any electrician!
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