Days 18, 19, 20 and 21

First mate joey reporting. Christmas Eve AKA travel day. Not the usual way I'd spend Christmas Eve. I'd usually be seeing my family today and then going out with the girls in Sheffield tonight for our annual piss up. Today this year we had a very early start. We woke up at 5.30, got a taxi to the pier which ended up being on the back of a moped with all our bags! Ahh! Then we got a boat to Surat Thani which couldn't have been smoother (we both slept most of the way). We then got straight on a coach to Phuket. The coach was ready and waiting, and to our amazement what was meant to be a 12-15 hour journey was actually only about 8 or 9 door to door. Score.

We got more and more excited as we drove into Phuket town, as it's completely different to the other islands. It's huge! So it reminded us of our time in Bangkok which we absolutely loved. Instantly we knew we'd have fun here and we were glad we'd be somewhere busy and bustling for Christmas. We arrived at our hostel in Patong at about 3pm. Our room was well nice. After staying in hippy-ish beach bungalows for the past week or so we were ready for 4 solid walls around us and a power shower with hot water, which is what we got - thank god. We even had a fridge and a place to hang a few items of clothing! Sheer luxury.

After unpacking a bit and freshening up, we set off out to explore our surroundings. Tired and hungry, we ended up in KFC - it was so good! We had a look down the famous Bangla Road, where most of the bars are in Patong. It looked mental - like Magaluf on steroids! We'd said we were gonna stay in on Christmas Eve night so we could be fresh for an all day sesh on Christmas Day. So we got some supplies for the night and made our way back to the hostel. Compared to the last place we'd stayed this place was like a five star hotel! So we felt more than comfortable just lazing around, watching TV and vegging out ready for tomorrow.

 Christmas Day. What a strange day! Didn't feel like Christmas at all. We woke up quite early and decided to go out and treat ourselves to Thai massages as a little gift to each other. We leave the hostel and realised it was pissing it down. Both unsure of what to do with ourselves, after a short walk we stopped in the nearest restaurant for a drink to wait for the rain to die down. Aptly, it was a Muslim restaurant opposite a mosque. Christmas Day just got even weirder.

The rain stopped after a while, so our mission continued and we found a place doing massages for 250bht an hour, the equivalent of £5 - mission complete! They were amazing too, definitely one of the best hours of my entire life. We both walked out feeling so relaxed and our moods uplifted - the sun had come out too - time for a beer.

After a beer we headed out for a Thai lunch. We'd decided not to bother trying to track down a Christmas dinner. In 30 degree heat we really didn't deem it appropriate - it's not like we could've laid on the sofa after and watched Christmas films like we usually would, cuddling a box of Roses. Also nothing compares to mums homemade Christmas dinner, and we'd both had one before we came away anyway to compensate, so we weren't too bothered. We also planned to get absolutely leathered, so a big dinner would have been a hindrance to this. After lunch we skyped home, then got ready to go out.

We headed straight to Bangla road where we crawled from one bar to the next. We tried going to see a ping pong show with 'free entry', but when we got in there and looked at the menu the beers were £18!!! And you had to stay and watch about 30 shows. Safe to say we got off (not at the ping pong). Eventually we found ourselves on the buckets - Samsong & Red Bull, and that's when shit got weird. We teamed up with a middle aged Swedish couple and an underage Scottish couple, but through our beer goggles they seemed like the perfect people to spend Christmas Day with!

Things get very blurry from here on but from what we can piece together, eventually me and Shaun decided to leave as we were both too drunk for life, and so got in a tuk tuk which took us to the wrong place. We think we went into a restaurant (at the wrong place) for a pit stop, where there was live music on. I believe, from video evidence, that we had beer in there - oops. Video evidence also shows that we turned the place into a karaoke bar, and that Shaun was the star of the show. Hilarious. God knows how but we made it back to the hostel where I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. What a night. Captain Kelly will fill you in on the rest of our time in Phuket.

So I'll pick up from where Joey left off. We get in, her head hits the pillow and she's fast asleep. I on the other hand, was a bit more affected by the redbull – and eager to carry on. She wasn't for waking, and I don't know a single other person in Phuket so my only other option: Skype. The 7 hour time difference worked in my favour here. Whilst I was wanting to carry on drinking at 2am, it was only around 7pm at home and everybody else will still be enjoying their Christmas day. A few good topless chats with friends, with Josephine sporadically waking up to join in every now and then preceded a 2 hour skype with my family. They were sat around the Christmas table, having just finished eating and moving on to drinking. So I sat on the table, drinking with them. It was almost like being at home. It was great.

On to Boxing Day. Having gone to bed at around 6 or 7am, I'm sure you can guess that Boxing Day didn't really amount to much. Josephine was a bit more energetic than I, and plucked up the energy to have a walk down to the beach. Whilst I lay in bed drinking Coca Cola and eating M&M's. Her trip didn't last very long before a thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere, and she returned home, drenched from head to toe. After a while, we went out for some food. The plan was to go and watch the United game in a bar, but the thought of drinking more turned my stomach, so I settled for watching it on laggy internet on my laptop.

The next day, we went down onto Patong Beach, and sunbathed for a couple of hours. This beach is huge, much more like a Spanish beach than any of the Thai beaches we've seen thus far, and it was packed. The sun appeared behind a few clouds every now and then, but it was mostly a bit dull. We found a bar with some wifi, found a really nice looking bar called Iguana Beach Club, that we thought we'd like the look of and jumped in a tuk tuk. We got there, and it was on a seperate bit of beach, really really secluded. There were about 6 or 7 other people there, the bar had some excellent music on and it was a really nice vibe. We lay on some giant bean bags in the sun and treated ourselves to a few San Mig Lights. A few hours passed by, dipping into the sea for a quick cool down and before I realised it, I was as red as a tomato. Tanning isn't really my strong suit. White, whiter and red – my 3 shades, and I'd done really well to avoid the sunburn up until this point, but it got me.

Patong Beach on Phuket is excellent. It's a really nice blend of the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, and the serenity and beauty of the smaller islands. We had a brilliant time here, and although it was a bit strange spending Christmas away from all of our family and friends – I'm glad we spent it here. Ko Phi Phi Don is the next stop on this journey. We've heard great things about it, and we've got one excursion already planned – a day trip to Maya Beach, the setting for the film 'The Beach'. More on that soon.