Day 74-78 Phuket and Kuraburi 3/13/14- 3/17/14

From Koh Lanta we took a three hour ferry to phuket. Learning from past experiences we didnt book a hotel in advance. When we arrived at the ferry port in phucket we hopped in a taxi van and told the driver to take us to a cheap hotel. Within minutes we were dropped off in old phuket town at a cute boutique guesthouse. The price was reasonable $17 a night with free coffee and toast in the morning. I was happy to be in phuket town as opposed to other parts of the city; from what we've  been told it can get very dirty, dangerous, and overall not very pleasant. Phuket town was different;the architecture had a portuguese influence, and the streets were decorated with Chinese style lanterns and colors. It was clean, quaint, and inviting. Our main goals while in phuket were; buy a cell phone, get food for surin island, and figure out how to get to surin by public transportation. To help us accomplish our tasks we rented a motorbike. We had become accustomed to the easy riding on Koh Lanta, that riding in Phuket was a bit intimidating. The streets were busy, the lights were confusing, and no one followed the rules. Our first attempt at navigating the city was successful. We took out a tourist map provided by our guesthouse, and found a tesco lotus supermarket. We memorized our Path; left on the main street, take a right after a gas station, four turns after a temple, etc. The thing about navigating in Thailand, is that even if there are street names on a map, that doesn't mean there will be street signs on the road. The easiest way to navigate is to look for other landmarks. The drive was nerve racking, and I had to close my eyes a few times. When we got to tesco lotus I was relieved. We were able to find about half of the things we needed; instant coffee, tea, pasta, and dried fruit. From here we road to Big C's supermarket where we found the rest of our things. While in phuket we ate the most amazing Thai dish. It was by far our favorite meal in Thailand. We had tempura morning glory topped with fresh squid, shrimp, and a spicy sauce. It was so delicious that we went back two days in a row and ordered the same thing. Near the restaurant we came across a cell phone shop and bought a prepaid thai phone for 1000 baht. We were happy to find out that international calls home would only be 3 baht a minute. Having a cell phone was necessary for planning the rest of our trip. The information we couldnt find online, we were able to find out by calling phone numbers. One of those numbers was for surin. Through conversation we learned that you couldn't cook your own food on surin. Unfortunately we learned this after we bought cans of chili and bags of pasta. We ended up returning most of our food at big C's and keeping a few items like dried fruit and nuts. On our last day in Phuket we decided to take a ride to find the bus station that we would be leaving from the next day. We looked at the map and memorized the route to the best of our ability. Our navigation skills were a little off and we ended up taking a leisure drive. During our ride it began to rain. The rain turned into a down pour, at which point we pulled over until it subsided. Almost everyone on a motorbike did the same. We pulled over in front of a large outdoor market. We decided to use this opportunity to look around a buy some snacks. We ordered delicious fried shrimp and pineapple. When the rain stopped we decided it was best to head back to our hotel while we still remembered the route. The rain stopped but the roads were wet. This was our first time experiencing rain in Thailand, and unfortunately it was while we were riding a motorbike.  On the small road parallel to the market traffic came to a stop, and we slowed down to stop at the light, when the motorbike slid out from under us and we skidded across the lane. Luckily there was no damage to the bike, and besides a few scrapes on our bottoms, we were untouched. A little shaken up, we got back on the bike and road extra cautiously back to our hotel. Once at our hotel we did some last minute research tying up loose ends for our trip. The next morning we checked out and walked with all of our gear to the city bus station. Like most things with us, we got lucky and arrived when the bus was ready to take off. We hopped on,road through town for 15 minutes, and arrived at the main bus station. From here we walked up to the counter and asked the woman for two bus tickets to Kuraburi. Once again our timing was perfect, the bus was to depart in five minutes. We bought our tickets, hopped on the bus, and three hours later we were in Kuraburi. The no reservation, go with the flow, loose plan thing, seemed to be working out for us, so we decided to stick with it. I was glad we did. When we got off the bus in Kuraburi there were two men standing at the station asking where we wanted to go, we told them that we were going to Surin to camp. They couldn't speak English very well, and weren't able to answer my questions, but within minutes a woman in an suv arrived at the station. The Men had called her and told her where we wanted to go. Her English was good, and she told us that we could stay in a bungalow in kuraburi for the night and catch a speedboat to surin the next morning. We accepted her offer, put our bags in her car, and hopped in. She took us to a run down building with a hand painted sign that read "Am and Tom tour", where she answered all of our questions and gave us specific information on Surin Islands. She drove us across the street to a small field with a wooden hut. The accommodation was as basic as it comes; a bed, mosquito net, toilet, and cold shower, but it was only 280 baht a night, so we couldnt complain. She told us that we would be picked up at 8am to have breakfast and then be taken to the ferry where a speed boat would take us to Surin. The rest of the day Ryan and I spent exploring the town. Considering the town only consisted of two streets  this only took about twenty minutes. There was a seven eleven, a small bus station, and  a few small hole in the wall places where you could buy the most random of objects. Fortunately we did most of our shopping in Phuket. The town didnt have much options for buying food but we were able to buy some bananas and oranges at a tiny outdoor market, as well as bread and nuts at seven eleven. Back at our bungalow we packed up and went to sleep to get rest for our new adventure tomorrow.