Phuket


Phuket is the epicenter of Thailand's package tour industry in the south, with a dozen or more beaches hosting hundreds and hundreds of hotels. Our main reason for moving here from Krabi is that it has an international airport. Most of the tourist beaches are on the island's western coast while Phuket town on the eastern edge is without a beach within town limits. Phuket Town is however a great alternative because you can find nice accommodations at a fraction of the price you'll pay on the west coast. With scooters costing as little as  $5 dollars a day, most beaches were within twenty minutes or so from town. Also absent in the town was all the noise and hype which is part and parcel of the tourist haunts. But just as important, we didn't want to stray too far from the post office.



The beaches at Phuket run the gamut from mild ripples, to some fair surf like below. The one complaint I had was that on the beaches in India chairs and umbrellas were there for free if you were eating or drinking anything. On all the beaches here you had to pay for a place to sit down. The nice thing though was that the beaches were free from the onslaught of hawkers that plied the streets just off of the beach.

After we were there for a few days we got a text telling us to go to the post office. The Thai post office will wire a maximum of 50,000 baht. When we arrived there were three wires there for us. That still left Yut owing us just over a hundred thousand. There was only another day left on Yut's deadline, but I called him and told him we could give him a few more days. I made it clear our visa would be up soon, and if he didn't get the money to me on time I would be returning to Bangkok rather then heading to Malaysia as intended.

       With a few bucks in our kip we were feeling better, so we checked out of the town and went to spend a couple of days on a beach that catered to Scandinavian and Russian tourists. At the agreed upon time the balance of our money arrived and within a few days we were on our way to Kuala Lumpur.
        I do want to reiterate here that I really never felt that the problems that we had with the motorcycles here were Yut's fault. On the contrary, I felt that he went above and beyond in efforts to make things right for us. It was just an unfortunate string of events that would probably been avoided in large part if we had done more research about export rules here. I also want to say that anyone looking for motorcycle help in Thailand could do no better than this honorable man.