Last days in Phuket and the arrival Of Emirrrrrrrrry

So a lot has happened in the past week since we blogged last with the most important thing being the arrival of our good friend Emily Madden-Ricker from Amsterdam. Emily is our good friend from Denver and I must say she was quite the trooper. She basically slept 3 hours in 3 days and managed to stay up her entire first day in Phuket and avoid jet lag. I picked her up from the airport at 10 AM and since Drew had a mild case of food poisoning he didn't partake in the activities. Emily brought the rain with her from Amsterdam but it cleared up enough for her us to show her Patong and Karon Beach, Hang out at our pool and show her all of our local favorite restaurants and she fit right in. Here are some photos with captions of our time together so far.

This is Emily and I having a beer on Bang La road. It was some holiday, they kept saying New Years and it was more crowded than usual.

Emily is not sweating here, its either wet from rain or just appears that way.

Drew and Emily getting dessert.

This picture is from Maya Bay on Phi Phi Lei Island which is a short trip from Phuket. The tour itself was nothing to rave about but the point of the trip was to show Emily the famous Phi Phi Islands and Drew and I had been before on a previous trip and the beauty did not disappoint.

Emily and Drew in front of the Crystal Blue water.

This is the typical scenery in Phi Phi

Emily and I.

Drew and I swimming in the bay.

Panoramic view of Maya Bay.

Drew getting artistic.

This is Emily's best friend. She sat next to Emily and had no sense of space and literally if she wasn't touching Emily would move closer to do so.

Snorkeling on Phi Phi

Drew doing his impression of a mermaid.

The water is very shallow in Phi Phi so I decided to do a handstand. I am actually about 100 meters out into the water and its still only "wrist deep."

We ended the day on Khai Island which would have been awesome except for how touristy it was.

Well we really ended the day burying Emily. A few things about the tour; The boats drive as fast as they can through 1-2 meter waves and as I said there is no sense of space so in a big ocean the boats drive about 15 to 20 feet apart which makes no sense to us. We just never looked out on the boat as it was too scary, at one point we were so close to the boat in front of us that I got sprayed by the boat in front of us and was drenched. Here is a picture of that.

Emily was supposed to guest blog this post but she was lagging so I did it. The next post hopefully will be about Emily's thoughts on Patong and Bangkok as well as our ventures in Vietnam which is where we are now. So far we are very pleasantly surprised with Ho Chi Minh City.

SCOOT-OGRAPHY, FOOD AND RANDOM SHOTS

This post is dedicated to photographs taken while riding our scooter around town and of our favorite food dishes as well as some random shots taken that we find amusing. As we have said before our main form of transportation is a two person scooter. It costs us about 120 baht to fill up (4 dollars) and last us 4 days or so. I have a blue helmet (This helmet was mine by default because my big head does not fit in the other) and Drew has a white and pink helmet with butterflies and flowers. With that being said, here are some photos with descriptions.

This is a picture of an elephant crossing which is quite common here but we never see back home. You can also get a glimpse of Drew's amazing helmet.

This is a photo of a "gas station." The gas comes in old alcohol bottles and is 40 baht per liter.

Here is another view of the gas station.

An elephant getting ready to cross.

And another, as I said, seeing elephants is quite common.

The lights we wait for with a count down timer on when to go. This makes it more dangerous because people try to make lights and also start early.

This is a picture while zooming up a hill and is our typical view as scoot around. Sure beats the 405 or I25 in Colorado.

Our favorite restaurant called the Pad Thai shop (there is no sign though) and it costs us 3.30 cents to eat here with drinks and that is for both of us not per person. We eat here about 5 days a week.

Pad Thai from the Pad Thai Shop. They make it and then give you a plate of different vegetables and a cart with sugar, peanuts and spices to make it to your liking or just eat it as it is. It is customary to squeeze some lime and sprinkle sugar on top.

Tom yum goong soup which is coconut based and has a great flavor. The downside is there are millions of things in it we hate to eat that are the texture of tree bark and whole chunks of ginger. Locals eat everything, we have to pick it all out.

Papaya Salad. This is incredible and spicy and its served with peanuts. We had to ask where the papaya was and it is actually a baby papaya before it is formed that kind of looks like cabbage when shredded.

This is probably our favorite dish when we find it and it is Massaman Curry. We frequent a place in Kata Beach called the Red Chair to get it. We pour this over white rice just as we do with all of our curries.

This is me preparing for my role in the Avatar sequel. Actually this one is amusing because we put our camera on a setting to change anything orange into the color blue. Well I am so tan it turned me into an Avatar character. Whoops.

An awesome sunset with black clouds.

Look closely at this photo and you will see about a 5 foot iguana. Just a typical day at the beach. He was sunbathing just like us.

These bars are all around town and are made in an old VW bus. That is our friend Jay from Canada hanging out with the bartender.

So tomorrow our friend Emily arrives from Amsterdam and we could not be more excited. I will see if I can get her to do a guest blog post. Oh one more thing we were planning on skipping Thanksgiving while here because Turkey is not very common and we figured if we went to a hotel we would just be disappointed but some ex pats that live here invited us to an American owned restaurant that they have been going to in the south of the island for years and we were not disappointed with our food. We had all of the fix ins and it definitely did the trick though it was not the same as home cooked Thanksgiving with friends and family but it was good to get to celebrate Drew's favorite holiday. We only consumed about 1/3 of the calories we normally would on Thanksgiving which means we will just have to eat that much more next year. Alright Happy Thanksgiving all!!!

Beaching

Hey everyone! We want to wish our families and friends a happy turkey day since we can't be there...and I guess Deeter too since we have spent the last Thanksgivings together. We have been loving our time here in Phuket, hence our lagging on posting to the blog. Our lifestyle is quite simple, yet amazing. We sleep in here, put on SPF 50, then head out to the beach. We have been trying to get to the majority of the main beaches here in Phuket, although we are still missing a few. We still have some time! Below are some photos of the beaches we have been to. Starting from the South, working the way North. (all of the swim beaches are on the West Coast)

Nai Harn Beach. This has actually been one of our favorite beaches. It is very laid back with a lot of good looking people, which never hurts.

In between Nai Harn and Kata, you head over the hill and there is an amazing viewpoint called Kata Viewpoint. We stumbled across this and had to take some photos. Breathtaking

Kata Noi. This is a small resort-y beach. We stayed here for all of about 20 minutes.

Kata Beach. We really like this beach. It seems like the more upscale touristy beach for the island.

Karon Beach. This is the beach that is the closest outside beach from Patong, the beach where we are staying. We play real vball here with some expats and it's a nice and relaxing beach with the biggest waves. Oh, and there's a chick that makes some pretty amazing fruit smoothies.

Patong Beach. This is where we are staying. It's the most touristy beach but we love it...and it's convenient.

Kamala Beach. We don't have the best judgement of this beach yet, as it was pouring rain for the majority of the day when we came here. Although we did have a massage about 20 feet from the water and it was amazing. Also, their beach bars look like something we will enjoy once Emily gets here in a couple days.

Surin Beach: This was our other favorite beach, it's so pretty here and more laid back.

Until next time,

Drew