Phuket

First of all we apologize for the lack of writing, it has been mostly out of our control. 

Secondly, h's in Thai go with the vowel so its its Pooket, not F**k it. If this disappoints you then don't worry, there is a Phi Phi island that we visit later as well as a Phouping Palace that was up in Chiang Mai. 

So we left off coming from Koh Phangan with barely any sleep and after a good amount of traveling we made it to Phuket, ready to crash. On the way though we saw immense tree farms that apparently were for palm oil plantations and banana farms. 

The hostel we stayed at the next few nights was really cool because we got to meet so many people. We even ended up traveling with and meeting up with several of them at Phi Phi island.

The first few days we were the loners in the place because we were scuba diving all day. The first day consisted of getting picked up by the character that is Andy of Andy scuba diving, going to his cool house office and watching some videos, and finally trying the equipment out in the pool. The feeling was incredible to go down and take your first breath while fully submerged.

Watching videos and taking quizzes. 

The pool that we did our laps and equipment training in. 

After each scuba day we would come home and watch a movie in our hostel after or during dinner. 

The next day we got to do our very first scuba dive in open water. Our first 4 dives were all training exercise dives and the last two were free, certified dives. Pictures doesn't do it justice but here's a bunch. 

Expressions after the first dive!!!

After the first day in the ocean and Halloween night, too tired to move. 

The next day we went to Koh phi phi lan and saw two sights that most people never get to see, one that rarely anyone on earth gets to see. The first the "best beach in the world" from the movie The Beach. 

Second was this thing here. 

Our instructor has dove 3000+ times in Phuket and has seen a wild whale shark once in his life. Now they "tame" whale sharks by providing food for them so the have conditioned them to always be in one location. It's hard to imagine when you're down there trying not to get pushed into a rock wall by the gentle yet strong current and you look at what catches your eye to find that it is a 20ft massive animal swimming by you. Even though I knew they were docile and I hard plenty of people around I was slightly terrified and in complete awe of its size and power. Frozen and jaw dropped I watched it cruise by, and then we continued on our way. It was only after that we realized how lucky we were. 

Artificial reef

Eel.

It may look like sandy water, but it's really just an immense school of fish.

Nola giving the "I need to go up right now" sign by accident. 

There we go.

Exhausted from all of our diving we watched the sunset as we headed home on the last day.

The next day we hung out on the beach and went out with a bunch of people from our hostel. Also before I forget, a lot of the pictures underwater look green and that is because the water absorbs red and yellow first, leaving green and blue to penetrate down to the bottom better. The ocean isn't actually that bland color wise.  

This toilet has a little stick that poke out after pressing a button. It comes out about 4 inches and then blasts water, a but cleaner. This little thing gave us quite the surprise. 

Walking to dinner with Ryan and Christian. Both call Canada home but Ryan is a Brit. We got to be good friends with these guys and traveled to Phi phi island with them a few days after we finished scuba. 

Paul and Hunter lost and had to buy some beers as a result.

After hanging out for several days and eating tons more rice and pork meals as well toasties and yogurt from 7/11, we decided to head out to Koh Phi Phi for a couple of days.

Andy invited us to play some football with a bunch of his older English buddies and a few younger Russian guys. It was really really hot and humid and Hunter can be seen here overwhelmed with heat while everyone else is just fine. It was still a blast though. 

Overall our critique of Phuket, specifically just the Kata, Karon, and Rawei areas is pretty good. A lot of people say that there isn't much to do in Phuket but we found some good people and had tons of fun doing activities. The beaches were pretty nice and the people were friendly. Weirdly though there was a large Russian influence. It's a full fledge city, but the areas we went to kind of felt like smaller towns as if they were smaller areas long the coast of California. Other than having the waitresses wait at your table until you ordered the restaurants were great. The sewers run open under the streets so at times it can be a bit smelly but for the most part you couldn't tell. The nightlife wasn't huge so it ended up being much calmer and group oriented, which was still lots of fun. Lastly, the only thing I think this place really missed as with the rest of Thailand was waves. The oceans are so calm and flat and warm we were ready for a bit more excitement.