Today was fabulously sunny and it was the day I had been waiting for, for well... months....an elephant trek in the jungle...I had even bought my heavy timberland boots and gone over my luggage allowance just for this day.....As the brochure described it..."Take an elephant trek through a rainforest...sight see from a 4X4 jeep, visit a rice farm, see how a rubber tree is tapped, watch a demo of thai cooking and catch the national sport of Thai boxing....WOW what a fun packed 5 hours or so....

So I went to the gym...and did my 4km on the treadmill, had breakfast and then read by the pool watching my clock...I had to be in reception at 1.30pm...so at 12.45 I had a quick shower and went and sat in the grand lobby area...alone...surely others must be doing the trip?

Er no apparantly not...at 1.40pm a Thai guy arrived and placed a slip of white crumppled paper under my nose and asked "Mr Sewwwwarse?"....I looked at the paper, saw my name and nodded. So I rose and followed the chap to a mini-bus....odd I thought ...I was the only person in it....the driver smiled and said "you are a long way away".....I thought he was pissed off at me for sitting in the back....but as we drove....and drove.....and drove.... and drove, I realised he meant my hotel was miles away from civilisation...and of course he was right...it took us an hour at break neck speed and no seatbelts to reach "Island Safaris"

As we approached I looked up at the dense, tree covered lush hills and chuckled with pure excitement.

As we turned the corner we arrived in a huge yard with 4 tourist coaches parked in it.....ahaahhh...so this is where everyone was hiding...anyway as I waited for the rest of my group to arrive.....we were all put into groups...as I waited I did a quick recce...and the penny dropped....OOOH SHIT...

It was like a bloody petting farm or educational centre....I had imagined we would be going to visit an actual rice farm...and an actual rubber plantation and a Thai Boxing training centre...and actually go into the rainforest......Who was I kidding?.....I could see the rice farm, the elephant trek, the rubber plantation, the elephant show, and the measly boxing ring in what was essentially a square piece of land...a plot.......on a farm...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGH NO!

Talk about an outrageous misrepresentation of the epic kind...and when I mean epic..it's on the kind of scale of when Moses parted the frigging waves with a stick...or when I was told with a startled, distraught look on my face that Father Christmas didn't exist...

We had in fact arived at what amounted to an elephant farm..... and a very, very, fucking fly infested smelly farm at that....and although it was fun riding an elephant in a circle, I had to share it with a stranger. The nearest we got to the rainforest was walking in what looked like a storm drain and at that point, I could have reached out and touched a leaf of a tree. The storm drain by the way must have been the ("lush, fast flowing river"...)....I fed the greedy bastard elephant a bag full of bananas and tried to make polite conversation with my new American friend, but let's face it, I was so pissed off, had a face like a slapped arse and wasn't exactly in the mood to do much small talk or the river dance.

After the epic circular journey of ohhh 30 minutes..we saw an elephant show....3 pathetic elephants did tricks....after that jaw droppingly dull parade...we moved to the "Rubber pantation"...yeweeah right..it was a dodgey looking tree that just happeend to be on the farm with a few cuts in the bark....a thai kid then demonstrated the skill it took to cut the bark (er none)...and then explained that, that is how rubber was harvested...in pots....DOH....Oh WEAAAALLY? WOW....mind blowing I thought......after that...and just when my mind was about to explode we trekked all the way to the "rice farm"....which was about ohhh 4 steps away from the decrepid old rubber tree...and yes we had 4 pools with rice growing in them....."incedible" I hear you say....my sentiments exactly, and it was fucking scorching.....I was sweating like a pig and was not a happy chappy......

We then saw the funniest part of the day.....the monkey show... which actually cheered me up - especially my new girl friend - see the photo in the media section...after that, we climbed into 90 year old land rovers....ohh and this was the "4X4 trek".....which was basically a quick ride (we saw nothing), to a stinking jetty..sat alongside a putrid river...where we were stuffed like sardines with other parties onto this long boat...I was dangling literally off the front of it..with Mr America...We got 200 yards up the river and then we were told to get into the Kayaks which we had towed and to row back to the jetty....SORRY...WHAT?.....WHAT THE FUCK???....now when I say the river stunk, I'm not been dramatic...it was vile....it was a dark brown murkey colour....with no current and stunk like a dirty toilet...It had to be bad when because the fish were standing out of the water..trying to hitch a lift...holding up destination placades...one said "Kansas"..I thought shit...you don't want to go their TOTO!..

I had by this time lost my sense of humour and threatened to capsize the boat of the most annoying Japanese family on the planet who formed the other part of our "team"...there was no team work though or feelings of comradeship. In fact they didn't say a word to either myself or Bill Clinton. They were also stupid too because like me, they bought a whole bag of bananas but then forgot to give them to the elephants...DOH!...even though my elephant was tapping the guy on the back as a gentle reminder..and was basically saying "Give me a frigging bananna you stupd twat!"

...Well we travelled back to "camp" and were treated to a demonstration of Thai boxing.,...which was bollocks. Two guys in a naff little "ring" in lets say Sector 4 of the "Square"...pretended to box....it was a load of patronising shite. We do actually get thai boxing on cable in the western world you know!!! I was by this time dilirious and was giggling and shaking my head because if I didn't it would "just get nasty Linda"...

As if that wasn't enough we then marched to Sector 7 to meet a grumpy cow who taught us how to "cook" mango salad????....Cook a Salad?...What?...I think this farm was for retarded tourists who may have thought they were visiting Africa or France.....Mango, bean sprouts, lime juice, garlic and smashed together in a bowl.....God that was complicated and I'm just simply overwhelmed with relief that I took my 15 pages of copious notes to remember that recipe!

After that, we sat and ate dinner which was a bundle of joy. We had the mute japs on one side and myself and Mr America on the other side, who, to fill in the long dull silences, struck up a conversation about healthcare in the USA..."BEAM ME UP SCOTTY!!!!!"....well Scotty heard me and it was suddenly time to go....

Overall a pretty depressing disappointment....and I have realised that my hotel athough undeniably beautiful..is miles away from life on the island.....Phuket is larger than I had thought.....if I want to go for a drink into town it is an 80km round trip.....quite a way to go for a beer and there is no taxi service on the island..just a bunch of rip of merchants apparently....I was going to go even further north for my last 3 days and stay at the Royal Yacht Club...which I have now canned...I have booked into the gorgeous la Flora in Patong for the last 3 days...its pricier than the Marriott but at least it is near a pulse!.....ok back to mediating now.....

A :)