Phuket Town

the On On Hotel

Back on the main island we climbed into a shuttle bus and made our way to the hostel. It was still pouring rain when we arrived, which was putting a damper (haha no pun intended) on things. We checked in, and headed to our room. If you're familiar with the movie the Beach you will know what the place looked like – kinda run down, kinda damp and musty. Our room had 2 double beds in it, one of which Ren collapsed on the minute we arrived and had set our stuff down on.

On On Hostel, Phuket Town

Not content to just sit around a musty hostel, Eric, the German and I set out in search of food and drink. Because of the torrential downpour we had to duck under the awnings from the stores while attempting to find somewhere that might have food. We made it to a central spot of town (or so it seemed) and found refuge. Beer Changs and food were ordered and we discussed what we should possibly do in the soaking wet town.

hottest green curry in Thailand

Food arrived and it was pretty wonderful – I had some Tom Yum soup and Eric had what became known as the hottest green curry on the whole trip. The German had a burger, which seemed a bit disappointing... but being in Thailand I can't imagine it would have been exactly a top menu item.

We gave up waiting out the rain and made our way back to the hostel. By the time we got back Ren was up and feeling a bit better so we decided to go find somewhere with some more cold beverages. There seemed to be an alright place down the road so we headed there along with a Chilean guy that the German had run into a few times in his travels that was also staying at the same hostel.

We ordered a few beers and sat around talking. It wasn't too long before it was discovered that the bar had both Connect Four and Jenga available to play. We took turns playing and I reigned victorious at both games.

the German and Eric face off...

Somewhere along the line Eric decided he wanted street meat. Ren opted out of joining us and headed back to the hostel with the Chilean guy and Eric, the German and I headed out for a walk. We didn't think it could possibly be hard to find a street vendor to give us some food, but it turned out to be more difficult than originally intended. We walked and walked, somehow getting completely turned around and having no idea where we were. After about half an hour of walking in the opposite direction of the hostel we found a random street stall of food and filled up on debatable “meat”. We started the walk home and got the idea to pick up a few big bottles of beer Chang from a shop along the way.

As we were walking it started to rain again and we had no idea where we were. I'm sure we walked back and forth a few times before finally finding a street that looked vaguely familiar. Another half hour and we were home – soaking wet, tired and kinda grumpy.

There wasn't much of a common area to speak of at the hostel so we went and sat in a strange empty room that had a two seater bench in it and nothing else. We cracked open our beers and tried to keep our voices down while doing impressions of various movies and actors and just talking about travel and life in general.

After two huge bottles of beer each we figured it was due time to go to bed, since we had to get up and go to the airport the next day to fly to Bangkok.

Breakfast before leaving Phuket Town

The next morning we were all up relatively early, Ren earlier than the rest of us as he'd been sleeping for the better part of 12 hours. After all of us were up and moving we set out to find some breakfast before heading to the airport. We walked down the street, found a little place and filled up on breakfast food. Back to the hostel, we gathered up our stuff and said our goodbyes to the German – he was heading to another island and we were off to Bangkok!

I realized how incredibly short I am when we took this picture