Day 159 -- Langkawi to Phuket

Alarm buzzing at 8:15AM we got up and had some quick showers before heading off to the airport. Returned the rental car and checked in for our flight with Firefly airlines. 30 minute flight to Penang, Malaysia's food capital! Everything was on time and we actually arrived a little early...airlines here are strange in that they couldn't check our bags all the way to Phuket, but maybe thats b/c this next flight was international. Our plan was to check-in and take advantage of the 5 hour layover to hit the town for food but were disappointed when we were told we could not check in for 2 hours...killed our timetable so we ended up hanging out around the airport :(

Running low on ringits had to change some US dollars to eat lunch since no point hitting the ATM with only a few hours left in Malaysia. Cleared immigration and boarded our flight to Phuket, Thailand. This flight was not crowded at all, only 20 passengers and the flight itself maybe an hour or so...we realized that we haven't had a long bus journey in a while and these cheap Asian flights are really tempting. From KL to Langkawi it would have been a 12 hour night bus, followed by a 5-6 hour ferry whereas we took a 45 minute flight for 30USD...lets not even talk about how long the overland journey would take from Langkawi to Phuket, but we did it in an afternoon. I think I found my new mode of travel the rest of the time here :)

Got into Phuket about 4pm local time and took a taxi to our guesthouse about 300meters from the beach...really nice place, very clean and well-kept and one of the better places so far. No bed bugs here! It started pouring down shortly after check-in so we stayed inside getting caught up on some things that have been put off for a while. Feels good to be back in Thailand and the next 3 weeks should be all beaches...much deserved after so much traveling around! Had dinner at Patong Seafood and got to pick our our own lobsters and fish...very inexpensive compared to the States, but still more than what we'd like to spend on dinner but sometimes you just have to splurge. Plan to go back one more time before we take off and have a real seafood feast!

Taking it easy tonight so we can spend a lot of time on the beach tomorrow...plus the past few nights have been crazy! Getting all the pics uploaded now so check them out if you get a chance.