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Published: December 14th 2009
Day 9
An early morning beach hopping of Phuket and way to the Real Beach
I woke up to a loud knocks at the door at around 7:45 in the morning instead of wakeup call at 7 am. Hurriedly, I was dragged to the pickup van at 8 am and had to miss out my breakfast. Damn! I was the first person in the van as it went on cruising along the entire South beaches of Phuket. None the less it was nice that I got a complementary early morning trip to all the beaches. After final pick up of middle aged American couple from kamala beach we were transferred to a private Island estate villa across the Phuket main road. More people merged with us Russian couple, Romanian Group, 3 Aussi party girls, middle aged German guy and dark South Indian honeymoon couple. The Thai guide for the trip gave us instructions and provided the fins and masks for snorkeling. We were guided to an dockyard where all the super rich private yachts and speedboats were docked. It was posh and I felt I am in at some millionaire’s backyard.
After a brief introductory session with the Thai
guide in our private yacht we headed to Monkey Island. The Thai guide was totally professional and he was fluent in English and Russian. I wonder where he learnt Russian! But that again depressed me as I did not possess that skill set. I parked myself to the front of the speedboat despite my horrible experiences at Ko Samui to Ko Phangan for dreaded journey for Full Moon Night party. I comforted myself saying this boat is larger and there are enough of pretty people around me in front to support me. The people inside the boat looked gloomy. The journey was not bumpy. Ideal weather conditions - bright sun, gentle sea breeze and deep blue sea lie ahead of us as I stand in front feeling the wind blow my face and hair. We passed by numerous secluded small islands or inhabited land stretch. It was perfect morning and great start. We arrived Yong kasem(Monkey Island) in about 45 minutes time. A beautiful bay lead to this white sand beach with secluded glass green sea. True to its name there was very little of beach and more of rocky jungles with monkeys all over the beach. It seems the
resident monkeys are very much seasoned to see the tourists, just gave a routine look to us and did not bother any one of us or forget However, one of the monkey drank one bottle full of Pepsi in an expert fashion in a slow steady sips as if it wanted the footage to appear in fashion cover page! The “Aussi girl gang” even had a combined photo with thirsty Pepsi loving monkey!
The Beach
We headed for to Hin Klarng at a zone famous for sea snorkeling. I had little problem in adjusting to breathe from the pipe fixed to the mask provided to me. Water kept on getting in the pipe and I could hardly breathe. It took a while to get adjusted to breathing technique during snorkeling and then I could swim around very well. Some extra ordinary variations of fishes I could spot there. There was predominant variety of the zebra fishes (stripes of yellow and black). There was a special dark blue fish, dotted chocolate fish and green fish which I spotted but I could not catch them as I was no match the speed to grab those fishes. We had another brief
session of snorkeling session close to and opposite side of Monkey Beach for the fear of monkeys and snakes. We left Ko Phi Phi Don for Ko Phi Phi Leh. We arrived at the mega hit Maya Bay of Leonardo DiCaprio starrer "Beach" movie fame. Maya Bay is really beautiful shallow bay between two limestone cliffs. But I guess much of its beauty is been destroyed by the commercialization. There are demarked swimming area, boat parking area and also toilets inside the jungle. But I could imagine how Maya Bay would have looked like before Tsunami and even before "The Beach" movie was shot. Still I felt I am in the remains of the lost of lost paradise. A 360 degree view of nature's perfection and tropical paradise. I did some sunbathing, swimming on the beach and explored the jungle inside though there was not much to see in there. There was some snorkeling activity going on at the side but I somehow did not feel like doing there anymore. After Maya Bay we went in to another private bay with clear blue water.
Luxurious Life, luxurious wishes
Suddenly the guide suddenly shouted "jump! jump!" to the ocean.
I got exited by the feeling of open sea jumping from yacht and could not let this opportunity miss. So I jumped from the front tip of the speed boat to the sea. The guide took a good video of me jumping to the sea and I decided to jump to the sea again and asked him to take some photos this time. So I jumped from the boat again to the sea but he failed to take a good photo of me!
Viking Caves
We neared Viking Cave(tham pyak nak) from there. It was located at the bottom of a limestone cliff. The viking cave is a major collection point for swiftlet nests. Bamboo scaffolding reaches its way to the roof of the cave as nimble collectors scamper up to gather the nests building high up the cliffs. Before ascending the collectors pray and make offering of tobacco, incense and liquor to caven spirits. It seems that from the nests a special type of soup in Thailand which costs some 10,000 bahts!
We then headed back to Ko Phi PHi Don. We were served with buffet lunch at a open air resaurant close to Phi Phi
The Beach Resort, Long Beach(Hat Yao). The food was really good or that I was very hungry. I had my first taste of the Thai yellow curry. I already had the red curry at Ko Samui. So I guess the yellow curry is famous in the south here at Phi Phi. I wonder where the green curry will be then. There were some thai fried vegetables, rice, chicken dishes and fried sea fish as well followed by fruits and deserts.
Phi Phi not a Pee Pee Island rather paradise on earth
Post lunch I Went to Ao Tonsai(Tonsai Beach and village) and was just opposite to the other beach Ao Loh Dalam. I just went vertically from the Tonsai Beach and reach the Loh Dalam beach which faces on the other side of the sea! Amazing! I wished to go to Laem Tong which is located to the north side of the island, but I did not have much time to get the long tail boat. I heard there is a beautiful view from the top of the 180 meters high hills. From where one can see both Ao Ton Sai and Ao Loh Dalam beaches arch in
opposite directions and a string of tropical forest separating the two. I returned back to the long beach and to our boat. It was time to head back towards Phuket.
Romantic Romanian Encounter. Payback time
But there was one final island where our speedboat stopped closed to Phuket. We got down at Khai Nok Island and it was late evening. Some people went for snorkeling at the rocky edge of the beach and some people went to the completely other side to relax in the yellow white beach and swim. The sky was bit cloudy so I could not get the sunset view I wishing for. Anyways I went to do get close to the fishes in the sea where the people were snorkeling. I saw two lovely young girls in lovely two piece bikinis like mermaids by the sea playing with fishes on the were there alone away from the normal tourists at the extreme end. When I neared them I realized the place has a best lot of fishes in the island and there were fish every where. One of the girls sat on the sea waters just off the beach and she held a piece
of bread and all the fishes got attracted to it for share of food and were desperate to snatch the bread. There was hardly any room for fishes to get there. The view was amazing. As we got eventually got introduced with the kind of accent they spoke more of Slavic that I thought could be Russian. I tried the tried and tested formula of using "privyet" at beginning but continued in English. I guess they felt embarrassed about it and continued taking photos.
“Uno! Doi! trei! click!”
But something clicked in mind instead. I don’t think they were not Russians as those words were belong to Latin originated languages. Then from where?? As I listen carefully, the language sounded funny and similar. Ah they are Romanians! I should have guessed it before. With my stay at Constanza, Romania and interaction with my ex colleague from Romanian at Hyderabad I lacked recognizing this language. And indeed they felt disappointed as well as I mistook them to be Russians. Our comfortable levels improved with further interaction. I helped them take some photos later as they could not take one due to diminished light conditions. It was a surprise as
they operated advanced Digital SLR camera with great lenses but sadly could not use it. As I adjusted the camera and readied it I could not help but smile remembering of the day when I was been humiliated by a Romanian girl some year back for not able to take her photo correctly in similar situation in Calcutta or use my camera. It was time for a sweet revenge time to the Romanians. What goes around comes around! We joked each other and about us doing the photo shoot and this going to feature in FHM, Romania and Romania's next top model and we will next participate in Big Brother, Romania and be rich and famous. It had been a while I met with people from Romania and one was from town close Bucharest and another from Craiova, south Romania. They were surprised to know I have once been to Romania in Constanta and that I enjoyed the casinos and beach there. From a distance I watched the Russian couple enjoy the sea, swimming and found others no where in the scene. After having some fruits in fresh sea breeze and gorgeous multi layered sea view relaxing and enjoying every
moment at the beach we headed back towards Phuket. The journey back to the starting point took 15 minutes amidst the dense mangrove forest area. We were then transferred to our respective hotels and again me being the last one to be dropped to my hotel.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Interesting!
Hi Arnab: Interesting...really interesting porey bhalo legeche BTW did you coordinated with any of the tour agent for this trip to Phi Phi? How much do they charge per pax? In some of the blog I found ppl recomanded to stay few days in Phi Phi island what would be ur recommandation? Is it worth taking a day trip there? Rgds, Xia