So we had arrived in Phuket with plenty of time to spare before all of our friends arrived. One of our many chores was to take our bicycles in for servicing. We found a bike shop to take a look, and they returned them back to us all shiny like new.
Except for one thing. By taking all our bags off and wiping them clean, the bike shop had found a serious crack in the top tube of the frames of both bikes! The crack in my bike was a lot worse than Steve’s, but both were no longer safe to be ridden.
We immediately started working on how to get riding again, and we were happy to find that our original bike shop can help us process a warranty replacement, but it’s going to take quite a while, given that it must be processed from the USA. In the meantime, we decided that we would do without our bicycles until we arrive in Budapest late July, where we will pick up new bicycles to keep riding. It was the more expensive option but the one that gets us back to cycling again sooner.
In the meantime, Steve’s sister and 8 of our friends arrived to join us at a villa we had rented for the week to celebrate Steve’s big birthday.
Credit to Mark and Dave for some of the photos coming up.
Our incredible villa!
Everyone relaxing in our elephant pants!
Steve’s birthday gift was a catamaran tour of Phang Nga Bay with the amazing Toon at Phuket Fun Day.
Chilling on the boat.
Swimming in the bay.
We did a lot of other stuff too, including seeing the monkeys in Phuket Town, partying at a beach club, seeing the Big Buddha and famous temple, visiting elephants, enjoying a food walking tour, and eating lots of food!
It was so nice after 15 months to be joined by friends and family. Traveling every day makes it difficult to create lasting friendships, even though we meet new people every day (we are very thankful for those of you we’ve met on the road and are following our blog! We hope your travels are amazing and we enjoy keeping in touch online!). So it was such a pleasure to spend time with those we are close with from home. Huge thanks to everyone for coming to join us, and to everyone who couldn’t make it, we miss you!
Steve’s glorious birthday cake! We barely made a dent after 4 days of eating.
Finally we got our camping gear back thanks to our friend Darin who held on to it while we were in Asia. We are excited to get back to camping once we return to Europe.
What an experience! We hope to see you all again soon.
