I don’t like travel days and really wasn’t looking forward to this one.

A 7am transfer to the boat pier, 2 boats, and a transfer to the hotel in Phuket.

Luckily each transition was very smooth, even the crossing from one ferry to another in the Andaman Sea.

All very slickly done, and we were littered with coloured stickers so the guides and drivers could easily identify us.

We arrived at our hotel just after midday dazed and half asleep, and dropped our bags off at the reasonably priced hotel (great location, nice room, fantastic shower) and set off in search of food and wine.

That’s when things started to go awry. It’s hard to make good choices when you’re not quite with it, and I really dislike it when touts try to get you into places as it mostly ends in an underwhelming meal and a sulk.

So we ignored the touts and wandered towards the Walking Street of Bangla Road.

Big Disappointment. No Alcohol. Anywhere.

The Buddha Day was actually two days long and, unlike in Koh Lanta, the law was being observed.

Our faces fell and we decided to go to a place that I knew did nice food so that at least we had that. 

I’m not saying the name (you’ll see why) but it is down a little side street and I’ve never had bad food there.

We sat and ordered and wondered what soft drinks to get before being told that we could have wine in disguise.

So we did.

We drank wine from teacups served in saucers.

We didn’t want to leave so kept ordering more food and “nice cups of tea”. We chatted to the owner’s son, who was incredibly accommodating of our needs. We giggled when a group of men came in who were from Dubai. One of them thought we were Russian or Serbian. We liked that.  He was pumped up, wearing gym gear and totally showing off about his muscles to everyone who he could. And they were very impressive muscles.

I had been reluctant to come to Phuket as it’s such a huge contrast to the other places we’d been: very touristy and extremely noisy and busy.

Our first night here was perfect though.