Beaches of Phuket

---

Thursday Feb. 7th we took a flight from Bangkok to the beaches of Phuket. Only an hour long flight, we could see the clear blue waters and islands from the plane. It was a 45 min. taxi ride from the airport to our hotel on Kata Beach. We stayed at the modern and trendy Sugar Palm hotel. Changing into our swimsuits we walked to the beach 5 min. away. Clear warm refreshing water greeted us, beige sandy strips of beach. We had a crab lunch on the beach and explored the quite island full of topless Europeans. We spent our first day here, swimming and napping. The next day we had our complimentary breakfast at the hotel. It was great glad we had a good breakfast since we wouldn't eat again till 2:00pm that day. We were picked up from our hotel and taken to the port to catch our speedboat to the island. Our tour guide for the day was a funny and entertaining Thai man who insisted we call him Mr. Boy. The captain whisked 20 of us foreigners at 70 miles per hour to tour our first destination Maya Beach. We stood on our seats and watched all the islands the whole way for about 45 minutes. The huge rocky islands were lush with greenery and surrounded us. It was breathtaking. Maya Beach is beautiful and I can see why the Beach was filmed here. We spent 30 minutes swimming and taking photos of this uninhabited beach. Only a small strip of beach is accessible. The rest is jungle which I wish we could of explored. Back on board the boat we headed to a snorkeling spot in open water. Mr. Boy encouraged us to take a banana with us and said "Lots of Nemos will greet you". He was so right. Jumping into the water banana in head I was swarmed by clown fish that took nibbles from my banana. It was awesome but I was overwhelmed by them and had to get rid of my banana. In the feeding frenzy I recieved nibbles on my hand as they mistook it for food. The coral life is amazing. We encountered clown fish, angel fish, parrot fish and many more we could not name. Back on the boat we passed an island that had a natural formation of a skull on its rocky face. Then we stopped by the Viking Cave to view how locals used bamboo poles to climb the caves and retrieve the much coveted Swifter bird nest used by Chinese to make bird's nest soup. One kilo of them goes for 100,000 baht. Next we headed to Monkey Island which according to the brochure is full of monkeys. But to our dismay they were no where to be found even when Mr. Boy tried to lure them out with fruit. Instead we swam and back onboard we headed to our 2nd snorkeling destination. Here there was even more coral that was breathtaking. Afterwards we went to Phi Phi Don Island for lunch. This is where the devastating tsunami hit. It was not a good meal but we realize it was typical of Phuket, not a place for good eats. Next we were taken to a quiet island with many umbrellas and a bar to relax. We snorkeled some more where the fish were literally on the shoreline. That marked the end of our perfect island hopping adventure. The islands are breathtaking and the water is so clear not even blue just completely see through. The sealife is amazing and friendly. I loved our beach adventure.

---