Malaysia to Thailand

The above pair of photos are not supposed to be here, so ignore them.

We were both fairly wrecked when we finally reached the island of Ko Phuket, but gained some consolation from the fact that some of the Malaysian blokes were knackered as well. We were able to get a room at their hotel that night, but changed hotels the following day, as we had already prebooked accomodation over the net,& we were a day early. We relocated to one of the best places in Patong Beach,the 24 storey Royal Paradise Hotel, & when we checked in, we were told that because we booked so early we had been upgraded to a Suite---EACH!! We decided not to tell the Malaysian guys in case they thought we were pretentious knobs, but it certainly was nice.


The locals certainly show an interest whenever we stop to refuel. Such service!!

Phuket Bike Week is really something. The streets were packed 24/7 with bikes & bikers of all types from far & wide. But what really made the place tick was the Songkran Festival. This celebrates the Thai New Year, and once it starts, its total mayhem. For about 3 days,the whole country just goes off, and the principal manifestation of this is that you can dump as much water on anyone else as you like, for no other reason than its Songkran. I wondered why all the shops were selling huge water pistols, super soakers, etc. These were soon superseded by hoses & buckets,and no one on the streets was spared. All good clean fun, (I mean in Palestine they use real guns, so it can always be worse!). Here is the catch. We had finally arranged to get a BM mechanic to change the immobiliser on the bike, but I had to take the bike over to Phuket Town a few kilometers away. At the servo to fuel up,it wouldn't restart. After a 3 hour wait at the servo, we got a truck to take it to the dealers,by which time it was too late to work on it. The mechanic agreed to come in & work on it the next day, a public holiday. When it was ready to collect Songkran was in fullswing, and we had no option but to go get it. I went pillion on Chris's bike, thru bumper to bumper traffic all the way & when we got there we were of course soaking wet, & some bastard had covered my bare leg with a red dye, & dumped talc powder all over us. Then we both had to ride back & cop even more all over again. No chance of saying we dont want to play! This was actually quite nerve wracking, because by this stage, they were using rubbish bins full of ice water, as if it wasn't hard enough riding in suicidal traffic & not getting lost. WE arrived back at the hotel looking like shipwreck survivors. With as much dignity as we could muster, we squelched our way thru the hotel lobby leaving a trail of liquid debris, much to the amusement of the reception girls, while someone hastily followed us with a mop. We later heard that there had been at least two bike accidents, & one bloke was hospitalised. I'm surprised there was not more carnage, but I am very relieved we survived.

Anyway, we thought Phuket itself was a pretty sleazy sort of place, & were glad of the diversions.