Phuket

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Wednesday 4^th April 2012:

We came back to Thailand again today and this time to Phuket. The ship looks enormous anchored in the bay and we were glad to get here after the fun and games this port has had this week. The Queen Elizabeth was due here yesterday but couldn’t get in due to the fog. And that turned out to be a very wise decision because two ships collided here yesterday: one a tanker and the other a passenger ship. But today the weather was fine so we had a great sail in very early this morning and were safely taken ashore in one of the ship’s lifeboats.

Then it was a 2-hour drive up to the north, off the island of Phuket and on the mainland of Thailand. We were to the region of Phang-Nga where we boarded yet another boat for a fantastic trip out of the river and into the Phuket Sea. This is Thailand’s national park and you can see why: it is stunning with dozens of amazing high rock formations filling the horizon. At the foot of one of them is the village of Pan-Yi and the village is all built on stilts over the water. Venice it ain’t but fascinating it is. The people were wonderfully friendly and fluent in several key English phrases such as “you want buy?” and “very cheap price”. It was a lot of fun.

Then we went further out to sea to see even more amazing rock formations including the famous James Bond Island which featured in <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Man with the Golden Gun. It’s impressive out at sea but when you get close to it, it really is fantastic. It’s really 2 huge rock stacks joined by a tiny sandy beach with a third rock stack just a few feet off the beach. I dread to think how many photos we took today but it was hard to resist. At sea level, the water has gouged out caves and rock overhangs and centuries of rains have caused huge stalactites to hang down. The vertical cliffs are covered with lush vegetation and trees seem to grow where you wouldn’t think it was possible. We were even taken to see some cave paintings that have been dated to over 2,500 years ago.

Lunch was a buffet in a local hotel and some of the food was delicious: wonderful tasty beef, tender pork, lots of local cashew nuts, barbecued crabs and prawns and some glorious fruits that we’d never eaten before.

The 2-hour drive to and from the ship was lovely because it gave us another chance to see some of the Thai countryside. This is a very agricultural corner of the country with lots of cashew plantations, pineapples, palm oil, bananas and coconuts.

Thailand’s weather has stayed true to form today with soaring temperatures and very high levels of humidity. It makes coming back into the wonderfully cool environment on board the perfect end to a lovely day.

We now have 2 relaxing days at sea as we cross over to India. And the captain has just announced that from then on we shall be taking extra security measures to try and protect the ship against pirates. We sail very close to Somalia so it will be interesting to see if the passengers notice any changes. I think we start getting security briefings tomorrow. Let’s hope the next sector doesn’t get too interesting!

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