Phuket

Well, since the train sent sent me south I decided to see Phuket island.
Phuket island is connected to the mainland by bridge, and supposedly is the most "famous" tourist area in Thailand. Its also the area hit by the tsunami a few years back.
Unfortunately its a huge disappointment.
The entire island is a gaudy tourist trap, and it's also very much Muslim country.
All I could find were beaches packed shoulder to shoulder with fat Europeans in speedos, beach bars blasting American top 40 hits, streets filled with women in creepy burkas, and the sound of Islamic prayer calls blasted so loud across the town that it makes you want to shoot yourself in the foot.
Not only that but its also 150 miles of absolutely insane bumper to bumper traffic, and people crammed into every spare inch.
I did find one beach open enough to walk on and went swimming. After dodging the before mentioned fat European men with full buttock exposure, and after floating bags and various other garbage impeded my ability to enjoy a quiet swim, I decided to split.
Whatever you do DON'T go to Phuket. It's crowded, overpriced, and just plain old disgusting.
So, Growing tired of taxi scams, and mystery train rides, I decided to do what any red blooded American would do when feeling a bit trapped.
I decided to rent a truck, and I hit the open road on my own.
Oh ya, that's right! It all gets better now.
Nothing says freedom like driving the open road and camping where you please.
So, my next group of posts will be what I like to call the "on the road again" series. (hats off to Willy please)
Stay tuned! I guarantee the pictures alone will be worth it....

Heres an explanation of the pictures below....
First of all I took a picture of eggs for sale in the grocery store because they don't refrigerate eggs at all here.
The whole country eats unrefrigerated eggs and they survive.
It's actually not to odd to me because an old farmer taught me once that you don't need to refrigerate eggs, but I thought some of you might be surprised, and I wanted to show you a picture of a thousand eggs just sitting out in the open!
Also a picture of some very strange fruit that is common here.
Next picture I took at a stop sign, it's a messy wad of exposed power lines that were laying on the ground and in the road. In my job a situation like that would require police, linemen, and a total road closure, but I guess it's not a problem here!

Next is a tree turned into a shrine.
Some folks here believe your soul goes into a tree when you die so they make shrines out of a lot of trees.
I even crawled off into a hobo jungle
(google it if you don't recognize the term) while waiting for my train and when I went to lean on a big cozy tree, I discovered it was surrounded by melted candles and incense sticks...