From Phuket (to Bangkok) with Love

Greetings from Bangkok. Yes we have made it. But not without a few days at the beach. Having flown from KL, we arrived in Phuket to the warm welcome of P'Piew and Jay, two former students turned friends, who had organised for us to stay in a place called Sunset Mansions. It wasn't quite a mansion, but it was a great little house with everything you would need for five days beach time. It felt like utter luxary after some of the windowless boxes we stayed in in Malaysia.

Our days in Phuket were lazy days. A typical day included getting up after 10 to 12 hours sleep, moving downstairs for breakfast. Chilling for a couple of hours. Having lunch. Chilling. Going out on a motor bike or in our rented car to another beach/view point/mall. Eating. Coming home. Chilling. Going to bed.

Patong beach, where we were staying, is quite developed as a tourist resort. The beach itself is lovely and sandy and the waves are big making swimming quite enjoyable. The tsunami hit Patong back in 2004. You wouldn't have thought it apart from the signs marking out evacuation routes. Despite it being low season there were lots of people about and we couldn't really walk anywhere without being offered a taxi, massage, or drink in a bar.

It was a good few days in Phuket but I've been itching to get up to Bangkok since we arrived in SE Asia. Now we are here and I'm in my element. In just two days we've already sorted out where we're staying - within (fairly sweaty) walking distance of where we're studying - as well as visiting pretty much all of our favourite eating houses and coffee shops. It's not as easy to live it up as it used to be though due to the weak pound, but still a lot easier than in Europe.

The place we're staying in is right in the centre of the city - in between Chit Lom and Phaya Thai. It's surrounded by busy markets and big shopping malls so there's no shortage of things to do. The ECC centre is in a Big C mall next to a cinema. It seems well set up for training and teaching and we managed to get a cheeky peak at a lesson whilst we were there. Our course starts next Monday and it's safe to say I'm ready to get involved.