Welcome To Thailand

Well the month in India was over and to be honest we were glad to be leaving.  The constant hassle of the people, the dirt and choking polluted air (Delhi has been on the news recently about it's dangerous levels of air pollution) was all too much for us (especially Kathy who spent the last week or so staying in the room due to a respiratory issue).
Apart from the shocking early start, all went smoothly getting to Delhi airport.  We had breakfast courtesy of McDonalds (better than curry!) followed by a mad dash around the duty free shop to offload our remaining rupees (cleverly turned into a big bottle of Vodka!). We boarded the jumbo Singapore Airlines plane and settled down for the 5 hr flight to Singapore (we got fed, watered and Kathy even managed to catch up on S7 of Game Of Thrones). From Singapore it was a short delay of 1 hr before boarding another flight with Silk Air (and we got fed again!) to Phuket. We landed just before 8pm then we had a frantic runaround to find the bus into town as the last one was 8.30pm.
We were the only tourists on the bus (Government run) so we got a lot of strange looks which we returned as we were convinced a woman near the front was a lady boy (big feet/hands, no boobs and a masculine face with lots of badly applied make up). We were told where to get off for our guesthouse in Old Phuket Town and luckily it was just a short walk around the corner.  Well without boring anybody, it was a slow painful process getting checked in due to the dozy Thai woman on reception and a gang of young Brit travellers who decided to rock up shortly after us for last minute rooms.  Kathy was doing her best to stay calm but it was difficult when the woman wasn't it any hurry and the gang of kids didn't want to wait their turn. Eventually we were shown to our room - a twin bed job downstairs which was ok given how late it was but we didn't stay after the 1st night as it reminded us of a prison cell (no windows!) and managed to blag an upgrade to a nice bright balcony room upstairs for the same price.
We spent most of the first day in search of a suitable mobile sim card and getting a few other supplies and we found a local eatery which knocked up a mean (& spicy!) vegetarian Pad Thai for just 80p each.

Yum, tasty street food - only 80p a plate so money left for a Chang beer or 2/3!

As getting around was essential, the next day we hired a bike and off we roared to explore the island.
We discovered Tesco is alive and well in Thailand - well Lotus Tesco where we explored the aisles looking for treats and found the booze aisle which had bottles of 'Black Cock' and 'Red Cock' on display (thoughts of us asking each other 'would you like some black cock tonight darling?' instead of our usual 'Vodka dear?' made us chuckle like school kids whilst Thai people stared at us wondering what the joke was). We settled for some cheap 'Uncle Tom' gin which we would recommend is avoided unless you like gin that makes your throat rasp! Yes, it was rough.

Ooh, which one shall I choose? 

We went on to check out Monkey Hill which on first ascent wasn't a place reflective of it's name, until we rode further up the road to be confronted with an army of macaques. Well, we had a front basket on the moped filled with goodies from Tesco and these guys are like food grabbing ninjas so we hit the throttle to carry on up the road where we could safely stash said food under the seat before returning to see the cute primates in all their glory. Well maybe not all cute - the males were big, muscular, large testicle endowed scary beasts then followed various sizing of the other family members right down to the tiniest scrawniest babies. All were after two things - food and mischief! We watched on as tourists lined up with their stall bought bananas expecting well mannered primates only to find out these monkeys have no manners - hanging off their clothes, legs and arms until the goodies were given up by the frightened humans overpowered by an animal who didn't even reach their knee level. The monkeys jumped all over the place - even the parked up mopeds were not safe as they climbed on to handlebars, seats and baskets - pulling at trims, looking into the mirrors and biting the seat covering.  When one medium sized one decided to sink his fangs into our bike seat we decided it was time to go before the bike was dismantled by these furry little hooligans.

'You really should invest in a decent pair of knickers dear'

'I really like this red one dear - what do you think? Well the seat is nice and tasty'

"News headlines" -Stupid Russian woman gets pants pulled down by monkey (glad she had pants on!)

We rode on to another place to see a temple with a reclining Buddha but on arrival we found the main building was locked so we could only get a glimpse of the statue through the door blinds.  We instead amused ourselves saying a prayer to the shrine outside, taking in the stunning views of the surrounding countryside and shore line.  Daz found some thrown away gold leaf used to decorate the buddha statue and decided to decorate me instead which might have took some explaining had one of the buddhist monks stopped us on the way out!
We were glad to have hired the moped as otherwise it would have been very restrictive getting around and we probably wouldn't have got to see the places we did.