Airbnb - Lap of Luxury in Phuket

Just because you are backpacking, doesn't mean you have to slum it. If you can gather a big enough group of people, either friends that come with you on your journey or other trustworthy backpackers. Then there are short term rental houses available in most parts of Thailand. I have linked an example of one that actually was down the road from where I stayed in Phuket. I was staying in a hotel with 7 others. If we had pooled our money, we could have stayed here for US$350, which would have worked out US$10 cheaper per night each.

A beautiful 4 bedroom villa, that sleeps eight, with your own pool! 

Protip - Scooter Hire

Just a quick note on scooter hire within Thailand. Scooting is the best way to explore the local area, it's cheap, easy and fun to do, especially if there are 2 or 3 of your in a group. We had a group of 6 scooters, the locals probably just laughed at us. Oh well. When you are hiring, you need to give your passport to the dealer to keep as collateral while you have their scooter. When you bring it back you get your passport back. Don't forget to carry a photocopy of your passport on you at all times. Below is a list of things your should remember:

1.  Do not hire a scooter in Phuket, as there are known links to the mafia and passport counterfeiting.
2. When you do get your scooter, ensure that you take photos of it, especially in areas that are damaged. Otherwise you will end up paying to repair the damage.
3. Wear your helmet, the last thing you want is to have an accident without one.
4. Barter, especially if you are in a group. Barter on price or even say you want the fuel included in the price. 

Thailand 101 - Phuket

Morning travelers,

As I mentioned earlier I will be trying to give some basic travel information about each of the countries in Asia, these tips are based on my experiences and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Thailand is a travelers dream country, they say, if you have the money, you can get it in Thailand. It's a chance for the average person to experience the extra ordinary. Thailand's currency is the Baht, at the time of writing the conversion rate is 1 USD to 30.38 Thai Baht. Let me put that into perspective, if you go to a local mall (not a touristy one), buy a Thai food combo, it will only cost you around 20 baht, 66 cents for a meal, I still can't get over that.

Thailand is known for it's markets, fake consumer goods and even well-priced real goods. I don't enjoy walking around the markets as I don't see the point of buying low quality fake products. Instead of buying 10 fake Billibong tshirts, I would rather buy 1 real one as it would probably last longer than all 10 of the fakes. I do however love looking at the fake merchandise, just to see how bad it is and what ends up being counterfeited.

Another thing that you need to realise is that the price of almost everything is negotiable, it took me a while to realise that the locals expect you to barter and if you don't you may as well throw your money away. For example, I ended up buying some new golf clubs while I was in Phuket and shipped them back home. I went to an outlet factory shopping mall about an hours tuk-tuk ride out of Patong beach. I was looking at the new Callawy X-24 irons. The shelf price was 22,500 Baht, I walked up to the counter said I want to buy these clubs, I will give you 12,000, the salesman responded in the middle at 17,000 and I agreed. It must be said that I am not the best negotiator, but I still got a great deal. In New Zealand I would have paid three times that price for the clubs and yes, I checked to see if they were fake.

In part two, I will talk a bit about the tourist attractions. Well, they aren't so much attractions as they are ways for the locals to extrude more money from you for watching monkeys ride a bicycle for 20 minutes or cobra's doing nothing.