ESL Blogs

Hi. everybody!

Want to tell you a few words about our (my and my girlfriend's) trip to Phuket, the famous island and resort of the country of Thailand. It's lying 800 km south of Bangkok and it's very popular among Russian tourists thanks to its numerous beaches, rich nightlife and wonderful nature. We began our trip with 8-hour train-moving to Moscow. It's rather weird, but it's much more exprensive to fly directly from Saint-Petersburg to Phuket, than from Moscow, so we decided to visit our capital again. Boing-747 took us on its board and gently carried us to Phuket airport. We chose the Patong city to stay at - it's the center of the island nightlife: numerous clubs, shows and entertaiments everyday. But, unfortunately, the Patong beach was too dirty.. Imagine hundreds of boats all over the shore and you'll understand why. So we decided to swim at the beaches nearby - Karon and Kata. It was rather cheap to get there by "tuk-tuk" taxi - about 300 baths (10 $) for round-trip. "Tuk-tuk" business is the most popular commercial at Patong.. It was IMPOSSIBLE to walk anywhere without a dozen of offers from tuk-tuk drivers to get in and move somewhere out. By the way, Thais aren't very fond of walking, they use bikes even to get to the nearby market-shop. So, they find us, foreigners, very strange - they don't understand HOW we can walk SO much :) Thai people are very kind.. They always smile, they never yell or get angry (thanks, first of all, to their religion - Buddhism). They love their King, and their King loves them. I think that I fell in love with this nation.  

As about entertaiments, we chose bike-driving, rafting, elephant riding, diving and 2-day trip to one of nine Similan islands (Thailand national reserve). Bike-driving was some kind of extreme :) First of all, we don't have international driving license and were lucky for haven't being stopped by police.. Secondly, in fact, there're not any real road rules in Thailand - everybody drives as he likes to drive. But, anyway, it was too much safer to drive there, than here, in Russia. We visited different beaches and view-points of Phuket and finally were very happy and satisfied to come back to our hotel with all our bones unbroken.

The last, and the main Thai impression was connected with our 2-day trip to Similan islands. As I have mentioned before, it's Thailand national reserve of 9 islands located in the Andaman sea. Only 2 of them are inhabitable - but the "inhabitance" concerns only Thai island staff, several dozens of people living there constantly, like those in "The Beach" movie with Leo di Caprio. As about tourists, they are allowed to stay at one of those two islands no more than for 2 days and 1 night. And so did we - living that night in a tent closely to the sea shore. So it was amazing to fall asleep to the sounds of the surf. At 5 o'clock we were waked up by the bats. They had returned from night hunting and were arguing about the best places to sleep on the trees above our heads. I felt myself like a savage. In the morning we had a great and tasty breakfast on the board of our pleasure boat and, then, moved closely to other islands of archipelago for snorkeling. Our captain awared us not to go to islands' beaches or the big money penalty would be imposed: the matter is that turtles lay their eggs there, and human being could surely break them. 

The next day we were buying suvenirs for our friends and relatives. 24 hours later we were sitting in the plane, flying back to Moscow and chatting with our new friends. It was a lovely journey and the words are not enough to express everything we got through during it. The part of my soal was left there. And, hope, somewhen I'll be ready to move to Thailand forever. 

Thank you for attention!