These two very young children were begging outside the Indian temple – they didn’t look deprived, so were probably taking advantage of the many people visiting the temple!

This morning I wandered through the streets of Little India, whilst Alan stayed at the hotel with a painful knee, which walking makes much worse. I love the atmosphere of the Little India in Georgetown – the Indian music blaring out, the smells of joss sticks and incense, and the shops selling beautiful bright coloured saris. Certainly a taste of India!


At 2pm we were picked up from the hotel in the mini-bus to collect our visas from the Thai Embassy before we made the long drive back, once again through very heavy downpours and mad driving. However we did stop at a very nice Thai Restaurant on the way back with very clean toilets!! We arrived back in Phuket at 10.30pm, hoping that we don’t have to do the trip again!!

Photo: Huge Joss sticks outside an Indian Temple

In the evening we went back to one of our favourite Indian restaurants –a pleasant change from Thai for me. We enjoyed wandering around Georgetown again. The place really comes to life at night with all the street traders selling food.

Photo: Street traders in Chulia Road

Last evening at 10pm we were picked up for a ‘Visa Run’ to Penang as we had to do to renew our visas. We are only allowed a maximum of 90 days on a Thai ‘Visitors Visa’, and to renew this one has to go to either Penang or KL in Malaysia. After much deliberation about finding a cheaper more convenient way to renew them we ended up going in an organized, mini-bus 'visa run' from Phuket, along with 10 other people all strangers to us and 7 different nationalities!

What a trip, 10hrs in a full mini-bus, and much of the journey in torrential rain, with a driver going at break neck speed and tailgating other vehicles. After the overnight journey, stopping only occasionally for a toilet break - toilets which were about the worst I’ve used, we arrived in Penang at the Thai Embassy at 8am, where we left our passports and completed the necessary paperwork.

From here we were driven to a hotel, which was basic, but was well situated in Georgetown, the old Chinese/British town of Penang. We were dead tired but made the effort to go out and wander around before having some lunch and returning for a siesta.

Photo: A typical Chinese owned shop in Georgetown.

In preparation for the decks to be sanded all the fittings have to be removed which even includes the hatches and the windows in the hard dodger. As we have never had any problems with water ingress through the hatches we are concerned about whether they will be as good when they go back!

Photo: Oh’s guys covering the holes left after the removal of the hatches, and starting to sand off the old paint.

The three kitchens at the entrance to Boat Lagoon are very popular with the local marina workers as well as the yachties having work done here. The food is excellent and so cheap; 40-70 baht (around £1) a meal. The kitchens are only open until about 3pm each day, so we have our main meal of the day here at lunch time, as we have very limited cooking facilities in the apartment.

Photo: Mamma – the producer of wonderful fast Thai food!