inconsistent news from southeast asia

Alroight, Jan. 18th - a sort of generalized lazy-man update.

We've been on the move a lot lately and have just settled in Phuket as of a couple days ago. Now now, children, as we've discussed, the "h"s in romanized spellings of Thai mean almost nothing and this includes "ph". Say it with me now: "Poo-get".

Our first stop, as mentioned, was Prachuap Khirikhan. I think I haven't got much to say about this. There was a short bus ride and then there was a very small town with very few amenities for tourists. We managed it okay, thanks in part to the night market across from our ancient hotel. There was also a pretty water front, but that's all (for us, at least - there was an airforce base).

After Prachaup, it was further south, to Chumpon. No huge surprise here, it wasn't much more exciting than Prachuap. Certainly bigger and more comfortable for us. We found a marvelously cheap and clean place for dirt cheap. It was the first time we've had a mattress on the floor for a bed, but I don't see the disadvantage, so long as there's no rats. And there were no rats.

Chumpon was big enough to stay for a day, shopping a bit and Catherine forced me to play "Family Feud" on a Playstation somewhere in there. Very exciting.

More travel then, to the Andaman (West) Coast and Ranong, a border town leading to Myanmar (where we are not going). Again, nothing here, we were sorely tempted to just jump on the next bus and risk arriving in Phuket late at night on a Saturday. We did manage to find a dingy place that was in the process of being built and had nothing going for it except the price and the super-funky stuff all over the place. Witness the TV set aquarium. It was only for one night, anyway.

Onwards, then, to Phuket via some stop in the middle of nowhere. I got my dream of riding on one of the ostentatious mercedes benz busses fulfilled on the second leg of the trip. Big chrome things, even on the inside. Not as swanky as it sounds, but very.. umm.. Well, I like them.