Jetstar Dramas

I have fell victim to the evils of low cost airlines. I still don't know what happened to our plane on the 29th, but our flight was delayed for 20 hours. It all seems like distant pain now, but at the time it was truly painful.

The staff at Phuket checked our luggage and told us to come back at 9 to find out what was happening to our flight. Trish was off to geneva on business class so she was fine. At 9 we hear rumours that the flight has been delayed indefinitely and we're all to be bussed out to hotels.

Having none of a crowd of bogan aussies with bad tattoos and imitation Von Dutch bags (the customer base of the low-cost airline) I collected by bags and got a taxi back to our old hotel where they were more than happy to have me for another night. I was more than happy to spend another day by the pool, although lacking in clean clothes and toiletries that I had tossed out to lighten my pack. And I was more than happy to charge it back to Jetstar along with room service and any other charges I could think of. They're also giving me a $100 voucher to use, although I'm reluctant after being stuffed around twice (first time they flew me domestically on an international flight - very annoying).

In addition I got a bulk head seat and a spare seat next to me as Trish didn't fly, and the Valium was good.

Having missed my cheap bus back to Canberra I booked a flight (which was heaven) and was home by 9 this morning to be met at the airport by Phoebe.

It's good to be (finally) home.

All in one day.

So we finally had a sunny day, with no sign of cloud in sight. So Trish and I headed off on a sunset boat trip. It was a boat full of aussies, and we did everything conceivable in one afternoon. We checked out monkey island (apparently they bite). Went canoeing and snorkeling in this amazing area surrounded by limestone cliffs; all that much more fun as the guys running the boat tour kept throwing bread into the water where we were swimming to make the fish bite us.

And then we went for an adventure off to the beach where they filmed 'the beach'. When I say adventure, I mean adventure. The only way to get to the beach was through a cave and lagoon, at low tide we could walk through, but at high tide people have to swim through the cave. So we canoed out to the cave and attempted to scramble onto a rock whilst being bashed against them by the waves, and climbed our way up through the cave. We then proceeded to walk through a sandy path in the forrest out to the beach. It was stunning, gorgeous blue water, towering limestone cliffs and no one there but us.

On the way back to the boat (another adventure with the tide coming in and more submerged rocks than you could scrape a knee on), Trish and I were walking through the forrest with two other aussie girls. Suddenly we hear a noise. The bush is rustling and there is a low growling noise like I've never heard before. I thought to myself quickly, 'should I be scared? Hell yes, I decided, we were in the middle of nowhere and the terrain looks disturbingly like the set of Lost'. Someone in our party screamed, so I jumped on the bandwagon and screamed as well as we all ran off down the path hearts in our chests. From behind us comes peals of laughter, the rustling in the bush was one of the guys from the boat trying to scare us. Relieved, and a little humiliated, Trish and I spent the next two days killing ourselves laughing over it; she tells me I have a girly scream.