You know what, just Phuket...

So after nine mixed days of relaxing in the bohemian surroundings of chiang mai, we hopped on a plane (our first taste of air Asia!), and headed to the land of the package holiday, Phuket.

Having already blogged twice about Ching mai, I will just tell you about our third cooking course in as many countries.

From Claire and vito's advice, the cooking classes in chiang mai were very much on our list of things to do after glowing reports from them. Plus after completing cooking classes in both Bali and Cambodia we were interested to see the variations in technique, plus you always get a load to eat so it makes for quite a cheap day! The course set-up itself was fantastic, you chose six dishes from six different categories. Shell opted for green curry paste, green chicken curry, papaya salad, hot and sour prawn soup, pad Thai and deep fried bananas. To mix things up (and keep us apart) I went for penang paste, red Penang pork curry, fish cakes, chicken in coconut soup, stir fried prawns in curry powder and mango and sticky rice. We had a really good day, our group was really nice (me and seven English girls!) and the cooking school was big enough to incorporate all students with a cooking station each. The cooking techniques were pretty self-explanatory to the point where our shell has promised an exact replica of her Pad Thai, once we are back home. The anticipation will kill, not least to see shell in the kitchen!

So for all of you who read this and have had the pleasure of being cooked for by us, we now have the experience of three different national cuisines behind us to practice on you once we are yet again, back home. Which in itself seems like some mysterious place we used to live, although its only been three months.

The day of the cooking course was actually our last day in chiang mai and thankfully was the first day that I seemed to have conquered some of the pain, albeit with help from mr tramadol. Lovely man.

So saying farewell to the guys at the guesthouse the next day we caught a tuk-tuk to the airport to catch our midday flight down to Phuket. The flight, although agonising again for me, was another smooth one. The time seemed to fly by, literally, until we landed, fifteen minutes early, in a hot and humid Phuket. Seemingly, with the rest of Thailand, and Europe, and Russia. And maybe Australia. In fact, let's face it, it felt as though the world had descended on Phuket for their Christmas package jaunts, just as we made our way down from tranquil chiang mai, backpacks in hand.

Outside the airport we hopped onto a minibus as the taxi's were criminally expensive, apparently because they belong to the well-known Phuket taxi mafia. The guide books and internet warn you, we were even warned by a hotel owner of a place we booked for Christmas on ko lanta that these guys, especially in peak season which we are now in, are allowed to charge extortionate prices which people, if they need to hire a taxi, have no choice but to accept. Not that the mini bus faired any better. Again, crammed about as full as is humanly possible, we swung down the west coast of Phuket island, dropping people intermittently, most in the truly horrific patong. Thing is, these drivers were so thick that they just looked at my address and nodded, in one of those 'I know this place better than a monopoly board, stop bothering me with your silly piece of printed paper'. Naturally, when we got to Karon beach, then proceeded to pass through it, I had to remonstrate yet again to get the bloke to stop and turn around, he was lost. Winding up back in Karon, he proceeded to wind down his window and ask, no lies here, probably ten people for directions. Until amazingly we crawled past our guesthouse where we shouted at him to get us off the damn bus. A journey that should have taken 45 mins took two and a half hours.

The guesthouse itself was ok but the most expensive place we have had so far. Depressingly, this is pretty much the lowest you should expect to pay at this time of year, all this for a room full of mosquitoes!

On the plus side we have sorted our place for Christmas, a place called baan rao on an island called koh lanta. We managed, amazingly, to get the last place in this b&b for £20 a night. It's at the top of our budget but it's Christmas, so you have to expect to pay prices such as this I suppose. The place is at the top of a hill but it's just up from the beach, with views over the sea and our own balcony with hammock! I can't think of a better way to spend Christmas away from home. From the emails that we have received from the owners, it seems we could well have landed on our feet in a place that actually wants to get to know us, rather than just being another guest.

Anyway back to karon beach. The reason we chose this place was that it wasn't Patong, a place we passed through that confirmed all of our predispositions about it. Truly awful. Instead, we chose karon beach, a little further around the coast and a place we thought, foolishly, that might have more of a cool backpacker vibe, nothing rowdy that you might get on nearby phi phi but a scene nonetheless. Instead what you are faced with is Blackpool. I've got nothing against Blackpool but it doesn't exactly fade into the background. I'm not moaning because the beach is beautiful, but that is obviously only one part of the town and well, their are other people on the beach. I don't quite know how we keep managing to do this but it is full of Russians, I mean absolutely packed. So much so that menus are written in Russian and much like Benidorm, or Blackpool on a warm day (thinking about it-or cold), bald fat blokes walk around in football shirts, but unlike Benidorm these are Spartak Moscow and not Leeds United.

The place is also packed to the rafters with restaurants selling crap food for expensive prices where poor quality, tacky western imitations outnumber traditional Thai twenty to one. In fact we struggled to find anything resembling good thai food at all.

Anyway, this is our second full day on the beach here today and we have no real complaints. How can we! It would be a travesty if we did! The beach is beautiful, pure White sand and crystal blue waters, we've spent the days eating fruit from the local stall, bloody amazing pineapple! We've also got to grips with our foot badminton! Something we bought in vietnam after witnessing the local population playing it everywhere!

We will have another day here tomorrow amongst the Cossacks then make our way over to Krabi on Monday where we have booked ourselves into a wicked place that is inland a little bit but that is central to Railay beach, Ao nang and Krabi town. It's even got a pool!

So, now were off to find Christmas hats, we may even steal some tinsel to put on our rucksacks!

Mui amore, Tommo xxx

More dentists and more night markets in Chiang Mai....

We've now been in chiang Mai for 8 days, the longest we have been anywhere since the start of the trip. We obviously would have moved sooner if it wasn't for the massive inconvenience of having my wisdom tooth removed.

The past few days, since my operation on Friday really, have been incredibly quiet. The pain at times, has been excruciating, far worse than I was expecting! Shell, bless her, has tried hard not to become disillusioned with our time here through four days of me not wanting to do anything but curl up into a little ball. We have managed to go out, walk around the now very familiar streets and try to keep ourselves occupied as much as possible. It's just quite hard when at least one of us is just bloody fed up.

The op itself was ok, apart from the bit when he told me he would have to chisel the tooth into four pieces to get it out as it had partly grown into the adjacent tooth. Apart from the noises and a horrible feeling in my lower jaw as he yanked it out, all was ok, done in 45 minutes. The problem began as soon as I left the building. Pain so bad I wanted to cry, and shell could see this, so we both rushed back to the room.

For the past few days I've eaten nothing but soup, porridge and the occasional Thai curry. To be fair to chiang Mai, those three items are sold everywhere as it surely has to lay claim to be being the vegetarian and health food capital of the world. We've obviously visited a lot of places by now but here, amongst the kinds of people that frequent and own the establishment's here, it's the nearest we have got to being back home in sunny Southsea.

It's something we have managed to do in abundance, to glide effortlessly from restaurant to coffee shop, bar to street cafe, making the most of the free wifi to plan our next few months. This is fine, but usually this kind of thing is interspersed with activities, sightseeing and things do to, stories to accumulate to tell you on here! Unfortunately we have none of that today...

Saturday, to add to the heady mix of painkilling medication and alcohol, was the anniversary of Ady's death, five years to be precise. It's my mum and dad I feel most for during this time, as I have never really had the chance to spend this time with them since his death. So being in Asia, on a hotel roof, drinking beer looking at the mountains, a certain amount of melancholy started to grip me. Of wishing he was back home, insanely jealous of his little brothers whereabouts or actively planning to come and join us. Either way, I just hope he was with us in sprit. If not, then I demand to know where else he would have been!

One of the cool things about staying a little longer here is that it is the King's birthday here on Monday. Normally, as in the UK, this would mean a celebratory coin or box of shortbreads, as an extravagance they might even fly the flag at half mast. Here, the admiration for their Monarch reaches infatuated levels. The entire population have images of the king adorning their walls at home and in the case of this weekend, have images so big of their beloved leader that they make Stalin look like a car salesman. See photo above...

The celebrations for the Kings birthday started some days before with crackles of fireworks heard right across the city, much like chavvies setting off rockets at the end of October back home. On Sunday, the night before the big day, the Sunday walking street returned so we walked the streets for a while, bought another couple of items then once again, headed back home in pain.

Although today went in much the same fashion as the previous days, we did have our first massages of the trip. Shell opted for the back, shoulder, neck and head massage and I went in for the traditional Thai. Although the room and the setting were unbelievably relaxing, my Thai massage was, minus the small polite thai masseuse, what I would expect to happen in say..Guantanamo Bay, or maybe medieval London. She stretched, pummelled and smacked me around for an hour while shell, looking like a scene from a spa brochure, looked a picture of serenity. I have to be honest and say I can't feel a great deal different other than the fact I now know about twelve more areas around my body that will hurt if you press it really hard...

So, stitches out tomorrow! Then we finally get to do our Thai cooking class on Wednesday then fly south to Phuket and the Thai islands on Thursday.

We are both really looking forward to some sun, sand and sea after a few weeks inland but it's December! Where are the grey, frosty mornings and annoying supermarket Christmas carols??

Much love, Tommo xx