I woke at dawn and started writing the trip diary in the tiny bit of light that was sneaking past the curtains. The street outside was empty. Some boys on one of the opposite balconies were smoking. In the distance I could see mountains. Small birds landed on the electrical wires. A peaceful start to the day.

Greg woke eventually and we went downstairs at about 8:30 for breakfast in the bar/restaurant. They only offered a western style breakfast. We decided that our first destination would be the beach, but Greg needed to buy sunglasses and sandals on the way.

We walked down a lane almost opposite, past the Tiger Restaurant, thinking that there must be a way through, but it was a dead end. Someone else walking through led us through some back yards and into some shops. From there we found Thanon Thawiwong which runs along the beach. We quickly found a market stall selling sunglasses and another selling sandals.

Across the road was a series of shops and behind them hotels. We walked through one of these to the beach. What we found was a beach of soft white almost empty of people, but full of chairs and umbrellas. There were 4 or more rows of chairs stretching in both directions along the beach. At the back were people selling drinks and massages. Greg was not impressed. We headed back through another hotel where people were already drinking, then walked south along the road taking in the sights. There were Tsunami Evacuation Route signs pointing inland in a number of places.

A bit further along the buildings finished and the beach was right next to the road. There was a broad promenade here which was very new, having been rebuilt since the 2004 tsunami. There were mosaics and sculptures of all sorts of marine creatures. This was much more pleasant than having the hotels crowding the beach.

We crossed to the other side looking for a place to stop for a drink, but ended up walking past a number large hotels like the Holiday Inn. We spotted this workman up among the wires.

Eventually a woman stopped us and gave us a scratchie as some sort of promotion. Originally she tried to say something in French, then switched to English when she realised we were not French. Greg won a t-shirt, but I won "The Grand Prize" which was a camera or a laptop or a holiday or $US1000. But we had to go up the road for a 90 minute presentation. Normally I would have said no, but I was hooked. We were taken up the road to a recently refurbished hotel where Jason from Glasgow started showing us around. We were then driven to another hotel just south of Patong Beach (at Coral Beach?). This was across a bridge that seemed to rise up at an angle from the end of the beach (see beach photo above).

The hotel was built into the side of a hill, almost a cliff and had amazing views to the northern end of Patong Beach and out to the Andaman Sea. Jason took us down the the restaurant/bar and "bought" us a drink (non-alcoholic) and proceeded to chat about all sorts of stuff for what seemed like hours. Eventually he said something like "It's not time share." Finally he took us back to Patong Beach. I think he thought he had a sale, but we were hungry and tired by this stage and said no almost immediately. We then went to claim the prize. It was a holiday in their accommodation. We walked out when they started asking for our details.

Hunger was driving us, so we headed back towards where we thought the food was. There was an open air food court that we passed the night before, so we headed for that. But we were further away than we thought. It was shut, though there appeared to be people setting up. We walked back a short way to Restaurant 6, where Greg had Pad Thai and a Singha beer and I had Tom Kha Gai. Nice but no chilli. We reminded ourselves to ask for authentic Thai next time.

Over lunch we decided that we would do a cruise the next day, so went back to the hotel and asked if they could book it for us. We looked through the brochures in the cool of our air-conditioned room and chose a speedboat to Koh Phi Phi with snorkelling and lunch. We also got them to book us for Phuket FantaSea. Vikky invited us to the banquet the next night at Connect Hotel. We had thought we would go, so the comps were appreciated.

We then wandered back down to the beach, this time taking time a bit of time on Bangla Road. It is full of bars, many of them themed, some small, some large.

On the beach we grabbed some chairs, ordered a drink and relaxed. The beach was not very crowded as it was late afternoon, so we got front row seats. Greg had a swim. I watched the sights which included passers by, the people minding the chairs, other people on the beach, parasailing, jet skiing, various boats and the view in general. The parasailing was right in front of us so we had good views of them taking off and landing. It was interesting to watch them carefully harness the person up and, as they were taking off, the Thai guy jumped up into the ropes, hanging off them to steer the parachute.



We left the beach a bit before sunset, they had started stacking the chairs up and collecting the surf skis and other equipment. The most we saw was 4 jet skis being towed behind one motor scooter. We returned to our hotel where we enjoyed a glass of duty free wine on the balcony and watched the soi below us become alive. Tonight the Spartacus boys were wearing black singlets and black trousers. Below are the bars that were in the soi opposite our room.



Someone had told Greg of a great seafood restaurant that he remembered as something like Seafood Plaza. There was something marked Seafood Pl on our map, so we decided to check it out. We walked past a school and down a footpath with musical tiles, each with a different note. Not as many shops down this end of the beach.

Seafood Pl was a food court, and not what we were after. There was, however, a restaurant next to it on the beach called The Beach where we decided to eat. We were seated on the sand, and as we sat the chairs sunk in. The waiter put a second chair on top so we were at the right height. We ordered Fried Fish with 3 Spices and Squid in Red Curry, both of which were delicious. Because wine is so expensive in Thailand we ordered cocktails. A French couple at the table next to ours ordered steak and chips, the largest meal on the menu.

On the way back to our hotel after dinner when we were passing the market stalls people were calling out to me "Italliano". I ignored them. We noticed a young man who seemed to be following us. After a while we lost him; no idea what he wanted. Straight to bed.