Patong stories!

Well after yesterdays win with the hotel, the food I ate caused a fail. I went back to the brewery because it was close and I figured I could have a beer with some decent food and pay extra for the privilege. I got a seafood pasta thing just because, and it tasted good. But couple of hours after I ate I got reflux, just enough that if I had a drink or something else to eat it would go away, but then it got a lot worse. I was awake most of the night not able to lie down or lean back while sitting while my stomach was in extreme acidy pain. That is the worst I've ever had it. I took an extra nexium when it started to get bad but they take a while to work, so I had to do an emergency shops run at 4am to get some gaviscon as well. Then 3 hours later it's still getting worse, so I repeated nexium and gaviscon process. And it still got worse! So all I could do was wait it out. I couldn't eat anything again until late afternoon today.

Yesterday when I arrived in town I found a bike shop that services bigger bikes and I dropped in to ask if they could fix my front wheel. The rim has been warped or bent from shipping, not extremely bad, but it's just annoying to ride with. They said to come back again today at 10am to see if they can do it, but they were busy today and couldn't. They recommended a place on my way south that might be able to help though. If that fails I'll just wait until I get to Bangkok (or KL, if Bangkok has washed away).

So since I was on my bike in all my gear, I headed to the southern part of Phuket which I didn't get to last time.

This was the view from Kata view point.

This was only with the small camera, I didn't think to bring the SLR with me.

After the lookout you start heading back down and you go through a village that has lots of elephants! Unfortunately I didn't take any photos. They were washing a big one with a broom, and there were 4-5 others with saddles on (a howda? according to my googling), and a couple of baby ones playing too! Should have stopped for photos...

Not quite the southern tip of Phuket

I tried to get to the big budda on the hill but I missed the turnoff somewhere, I didn't know it was there until I saw it from the lookout. Given my stomachs state I figure it was best to go back to the hotel rather than back tracking to the budda which I may not find.

Tomorrow it's back towards Ao Nang, but at the next beach north this time. Found a place for 350b/night!

Then I have to figure out what to do about Bangkok. I was told I can get round it on the roads, but it's likely that a lot of the accommodation surrounding it will be booked up with people escaping. An option is to stay in Malaysia for a bit longer than just a visa run to wait out the floods rather than wasting my 30 day limit here again. The German rider I met back in Australia has decided to skip the rest of SE Asia and ship his bike from KL. Something I might have to do as well depending on how busy air freighters are after the floods. And with the recent grounding of an airline that's one less option for carriers, the others could be busier because of this now.