Phuket and The Beach

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Phuket

After arriving at Phuket airport, we navigated our way to our hotel without being conned and explored the town, once again looking for food. Major rest was required as lack of sleep from the previous night was clearly showing over a lethargic lunch. There wasn’t really that much to see in town, a few shopping centers and market stalls later, we devised a plan for our stay in Phuket (as initially we did not intend on coming down here).

Ko Phi Phi

We booked another action-packed tour that started at the crack of dawn to Ko Phi Phi and other islands around the Andaman coast. There were high expectations after our friend leo depicting phi phi as paradise island! Our host was once again a comical character spinning a few jokes here and there which kept us entertained until we set off on our super duper speed boat.

Our first stop was Maya Beach-where The Beach was filmed. It was picturesque but soon became crowded with boat-loads of tourists being dropped off on the tiny beach-we looked like seriously burnt sardines packed into a can. We got back onto our own speed boat and had a tour around the coast of Ko Phi Phi, observing the caves in which the locals collect bird’s nests-yummy! Next stop was the monkey beach - monkeys….yes it is what pretty much in the name. as our boat docked towards sandy beach, the cheeky monkeys knew it was feeding time. They gathered in their drove as our left over fruit was fed to them. They monkied towards the boat and when food was revealed, one displayed great cheek by coming close enough and boarded our boat to snatch the food off the tray! An unfortunate monkey was not used to eating watermelon and dropped its share of fruit, whilst the bigger monkeys gobbled up the rest of the fruit.

A snorkeling session was squeezed in before lunch. This time there the sea was even clearer and traffic down below was almost as bad as Bangkok. We kept swimming into fish that just don’t look where they are going! Compared to Samui, this was certainly one up, as pure white sand and crystal blue sea created a postcard picture!

Lunch was served on land and we spent the rest of the time messing around with the camera and watching local men bury dead fishes that had been washed up onto the beach in the sand…….worrying! Ha! Our last stop was a tiny island where our options were to sunbathe, swim or snorkel. We set up camp on the beach and I tried snorkeling again-however, the sea was not being friendly as things in the sea kept biting us (feels a bit like a pin prick) and causing irritation so I soon gave that up and settled for ice cream and playing cameraman. After returning to Phuket, we made our way to another night market (again huge) for a yummy dinner costing next to nothing!!

Tsz Wai and Chris

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