Phuket in 4 hours, eye yah yah

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Sitting at the Night Market in Nathon eating noodies and sticky rice with mango (oh my god...nothing is better!) I look up to see a huge banner for Bangkok Airways advertising non-stop flights to Phuket, Krabi and of course Bangkok. I mean, of course I realized that being on Samui that has an airport and again with the knowledge that the above locations were also equiped with airports, until then I hadn't given it much thought that we would actually fly off our island. Yes, we've boated to our neighboring isles, but I was totally content with our humble accommodations in Ban Taling Ngam until right then! I don't say a word to Shaun and casually continue to enjoy the people watching and the sunset. (who am I kidding, I was squirming around with ants in my pants not wanting to wait another second to get back to the villa, start searching the web and book a side trip, like right now people!) We're in the Sporty making our 15 minute trek back home and I send out a few "feeler questions" to Shaunee to see where I stand...
This is me..."Let's book a flight to another island!"
Shaun: "huh?"
Me: "Yeah, let's fly to Phuket and spend a few days on Ko Phi Phi!"
Shaun: "Ummmm, what? Babe..."
Me: "Ok, cool, then it's set!! We're going on a Holiday from our Holiday!"
Shaun: "When were you thinking of doing this babe?"
Me: "How about tomorrow or the next day?"
Shaun: "Babe." (Another head tilt look that says, "you and your damn ideas")
Me: "Sweet! I'll let you know what I find!"
Back at the villa I don't waste any time looking at airfare to Phuket and Krabi which are on the other side of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. Seems as though the flight is 50 minutes and about $120 bucks roundtrip. Sweet!!! I click "submit payment" and then hollar out to Shaun..."We're gonna leave on Thursday babe!" Two days notice, that's plenty of time for him to wrap his head around it and get all excited like I am. Before we embarked on this whole Thailand trip I had poured over the details and research and I had realized that Koh Phi Phi is an island with no roads or vehichles for that matter and only reachable by boat and was about 45 km from Krabi which is attached to the southern mainland and about 50 km from Phuket an island out in the Sea. Very easy to catch the ferry from either of these places, a few running daily. So, I get back on Sawadee.com (Thai booking agent that I used ALOT, has reviews, pictures, rates of course, etc) and start looking for places to stay. Being that I was booking a last minute trip (which obviously I have done before) I knew there would be deals, and I mean sweet deals. So I narrow my search to 4 and 5 star accommodations and click...Phi Phi Island Resort pops up. 100 Bungalows nestled on a private 800 meter beach, on the quiet side of the island (the other side of the island...Ton Sai Beach is a backpacker haven, full of shopping and nightclubs and without being there I make the assumption there will also be a ton of white people!) Nothing against the above descriptions...but again, I was not looking for a Miami Beach with a twist of Haight Ashbury)
I end up booking a garden bungalow for 3 nights at a fraction of the regularily posted rates, still a bit over budget, but we're on vacation right? And as I later tell Shaun, we might not get another chance to be so close to the Andaman Sea and it's only a 50 minute flight.
After booking everything...I start to work out the logistics...they go like this...
We leave Samui for an 8am flight, arrive on Phuket about 9-ish, we then have until 1:30 before the speedboat takes us to Phi Phi. (Yes, this resort has a private speedboat that drops you off right out front. vs. taking the ferry to Ton Sai beach for 2.5 hrs and then a 30 min longtail boat ride to the resort) In order to kill time in Phuket we hire a taxi for 4 hours to take us around the island. We did more toursity shiot in 4 hours on this island than we had for 3 weeks on Samui, but whatever. Our cabbie Chaipot (sounds like it's spelled) speaks pretty good English and he starts to drive us around. First observation...holy cow, Phuket is so developed!! They have the same "loop" around the island, but this is a 4, sometimes 6 lane very well paved road, compared to Samui's 2 sometimes 1.5 lane loop, that is barely gravel filled, much less paved. And oh my god, neon signs, huge shopping malls that resemble Ikea and more white people than Arkansas. I was having culture shock. We decide to be at Chaipots mercy and have a little experiment to see where he takes us, a Thai rendering of what he thinks foreigners want to see. Well, that and we had both taken Dramamine for the upcoming boat ride and were too drowsy to put up much of a fight.
So, he pulls into this arena where there are several activities to choose from. Elephant trekking, Monkey School, Snake Show, Shooting Range (hmmmm, never in my mind would I consider this even in my real life, but yes, their parking lot was full. So, apparently people really enjoy using fire arms and practicing shooting people in the head) There was also Paint Ball (way too hot to layer on clothes and run around, I mean this is friggin vacation people) I'm sure there was a load of other crap to do as well, but we settled on Monkey School, in our daze...I'm not sure why we just didn't say, "drop us off at the nearest beach bar and we'll have an early Happy Hour and we'll see you in a few?" Not the case, we pay our 600 Baht for 2 tickets and enter the school which was already in session by about 10 minutes. Ok, it was cute for a second, monkey riding tricycle, shooting baskets, (the lady MC trying to say "Michael Monkey Jordan, making baskets!") eating bananas, kissing girls and pulling little kids hair (this was actually super hilarious). But then of course it fully sunk in that these monkeys are on a 40 minute school schedule to preform their tricks while attached to huge chains and if they're not chosen to preform they are in a 3x3 cage yanking at their collars and growling. Yikes, get me outa here! I'll attach the few pics that were cute before I was scarred. Next stop, we tell Chaipot that a lunch spot will do. Damn it! I should of made some disclaimer like, simple, cheap and not a seafood restaurant. We ended up at a very high end Seafood place, which I always find it difficult to eat for the first meal of the day, where we ordered our food by the kilo...? I mean really? Shaun orders what he thinks is safe, grilled prawns in glass noodle soup. I swear he jumped a foot when he realized they still had their heads on and their little black eyes were staring back at him. hahahha, I laughed. Only for a second because I had ordered Tiger Prawns...3 kilos of them by the way. I didn't really know what the eff tiger prawns were, but I quickly found out, they are the GIGANTIC version of shrimp, actually resembling more like a lobster, with yes, the heads still on. The lunch was $60 bucks, more than we had been paying for a weeks worth of groceries! Next stop, Shaun pipes up and we land at the Butterfly Garden which was cool for the duration of our time on Phuket. The four hours on this island wasn't all bad, but not exactly what we would have filled our time with otherwise. We were glad to be moving on...

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Photos

Our lunch Spot
pretty at least

some islands along the way
Never a good idea to take a pic from the plane, but it was really pretty!

Playin' Around
you would think that one on the left doesn't like the papparazi

Tiger Prawns
at least I knew they were fresh

Butterfly and Bouganvillea
so pretty