Phuket, Thailand

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Arrived Phuket early morning and used some more of our "credit" to take a tour to James Bond Island. We travelled by coach for the full length of the Island of Phuket and crossed to the mainland over the Causeway Bridge, skirting Phuket town on the way. We were very surprised to see a high incidence of mosques in a country that we understood to be mainly Buddhist. However, we learned that the island is populated by a mix of Thais and Malays which explains this fact since the latter are strictly Muslim. Along the route we saw many rubber plantations where, we learned from the guide, it is common to grow pineapples and other crops in between the rubber trees for the first 6 years before the trees are mature enough for the rubber to be tapped.

On the mainland the scenery was, initially, much of the same but soon we saw dramatic and steep limestone hills. Arriving at one of the inlets of the Phang Nga Bay we boarded our transport for James Bond Island. On the trip we passed many small boats that looked exactly like those in the movie "The Man With The Golden Gun"; that is to say, the engine looked rather like a liquidizer sticking out of the back of the boat. On closer inspection these very long prop shafts actually looked like truck engines with extended drive shafts with propellers on the end that sprayed water all over the place as well as driving the boat. These were simply lowered into the water to propel the boats.

The trip was exciting with lots of irregular shaped islands of limestone sticking straight out of the water. What cannot be seen from the movies is that much of the sea area is very shallow, but more surprisingly, the actual James Bond island seen on the film is a relatively small stack, although interesting in shape. It's made to look big by the camera angles.

We also visited a genuine kampong stilted village populated by Indonesian immigrants - so also Muslim - where the regulation tee shirt was purchased. We followed with our first genuine Asian meal at the end of the trip. Although we have an Indian chef on the ship, the food is quite bland - so this was our first spicy food and we loved it.

We travelled back by coach and took an hour out to post our blogs (using 5 star hotels) and do a bit of shopping. All in all, an impressive day in Thailand.

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