Phi-Phi

Day 9:

This time, we didn't fly to our next destination. Instead we took at 3-hour ferry to Phi-Phi Island. It was hot on the ferry, like really hot! 2 hours into the ride, it started pouring. It felt refreshing, though.

A guy met us at the pier, took our luggage and walked us to our room, or little cottage, I should say. The entire front of it was made of windows, but the curtains were thick enough to give us privacy. We also had both an indoor and outdoor shower. I loved how the resort was so secluded. It almost felt like the entire island belonged to us. In fact, in took us just 5 minutes to walk from one side of the island to the next, widthwise. We didn't walk across it lengthwise, but if I were to guess I'd say it might have taken twice as long, maybe.

After we got settled, we walked over to the beach. It was low-tide, so we got to walk pretty far and see a lot o sea life, including tiny crabs. It was really cool to see everything that the water normally covers up. We hung out until sunset, then we found a place to eat for dinner. The island is so tiny that our choices were slim, but we got some good stuff. It made me think a lot about how much the people of this island must rely on import, though, because I'm sure they can't possibly grow everything they need right on the island, especially the things they need to provide a variety of food choices for their guests.

Day 10:

Our tour guide's name was Ko. She was this sweet young girl who was very friendly. She and the boat driver took us to the pier where we got on a small boat. I didn't know this was en entirely private tour until we got into the boat. One thing I have loved about this entire trip is that it has been so personalized to us. Our tour guide have been ours, 100%. This meant that we could ask all the questions we wanted and that we could spent as much or as little time as we wanted visiting things.

 

Our first stop was at Bamboo Island. We parked the boat on one side of the island and pretty much hiked over rocks and around the island until we nearly got to the other side. The sand was soooo soft! And the water was soooo warm! It was a dream...! There were some people there, but not a ton, so we mostly just swam around, and it felt very refreshing.

Our second stop was at Loh Dalum Beach. We got some snorkeling gear and explored the area. There were so many fish under the water, really cool ones, too. William said he saw jellyfish. I didn't see any, or I probably would have freaked out and gotten back onto the boat. It was so relaxing, though. I didn't even have to swim; I just floated.

Out third stop was at Monkey Beach. I was really excited about that one, but also nervous because, again, these were wild monkeys. At first, we only saw one monkey, then all of a sudden, we could see a dozen of them. We even saw a couple of baby monkeys. They were so cute! One monkey got really close to people. It looked injured, with almost its entire back scraped. We didn't get a lot of good pictures with us in them because we were too scared to get too close and to turn our backs to them.

Our fourth stop was at Wang Long Bay, which is basically a somewhat hidden cove. It was secluded and very cool. We ate lunch there, while on the boat, admiring the beautiful views. I love that we haven't had to worry about food during these tours. They really took care of everything!

Our fifth stop was at Viking Cave. It was a quick stop because the cave was closed. There were bird nests there and it was harvesting time, so they didn't allow tourists in. Viking Cave is privately owned, so they allow tourists to visit most of the time, but they can also choose not to let them in at certain times of the year. Bird nests are used medically and are worth a lot of money, which I didn't know. 

Our sixth stop was at Pi-Leh Bay. It was srt of like a cove, but it was  large and open. We jumped off the boat and swam around. William and I found some algae that we used as mustaches. I wish I would have gotten pictures of that.

Our seventh and last stop was at Maya Beach. Some of the beach was closed because people were damaging the corals there. But we got to snorkel a little away from the beach, and we actually found another really cool beach. There were tons tons of rocks there that people were piking up to make wishes. I didn't get any pictures because we snorkeled there (without our phones, obviously). I wish I had because it was really neat to see. The picture I took from the boat doesn't give it justice.

The boat then took us back to the beach right in front of our resort, where we took a shower and covered ourselves in Aloe Vera. We were both burned badly. It's crazy how fast you can burn when you're in the water, especially when you're in it most of the day.

That evening we ate a fancy dinner at the resort. It was delicious, really fancy, and convenient. There was only a candle in the middle of the table for lighting, so it was very intimate, too. Then we took a walk along the beach, admiring all the stars in the sky. There's so much pollution in Phoenix that we hardly ever see stars. But this sky... wow... it was astonishing and eye-opening to see so many stars.

On the way back to our room, William felt something crawling over his foot. He wasn't sure what it was. Then I saw something moving across from us. I quickly realized that it was a snake! And we were walking barefoot! We put our flip flops back on after that. We later learned from the staff that pythons are often seen on the island. I'm not sure that's what it was, but python or not, I was freaked out.

What an amazing trip! It was so special, unique, and life-changing. There are so many beautiful places in the world, and I am so happy that we got to see this one. If there weren't so many other places to see, I'd for sure come back to this one. Thailand, thank you. You have been great to us.

Phuket

Day 6:

After a short flight, we made to Phuket. Phuket was partially destroyed by a tsunami on December 26, 2004. I remember seeing it on the news in Belgium (I was there on Christmas vacation). It was devastating! 16 year later, we couldn't see the impact of the tsunami. Everything was beautiful. The sand was the softest sand I'd ever felt. The ocean was the clearest I'd ever seen. It was Paradise. Except for the crowds. While we saw a ton of locals in Bangkok, Phuket was filled with tourists. We heard a lot of different languages spoken around the resort and in the streets. I was surprised to see so many guests hanging out at the resort, in the restaurants, and in the pools. The resort was great, but it wasn't any different than other fancy resorts. There was so much to see outside of the resort that I didn't quite understand why people would stay in.

Anyway... we didn't plan anything for our traveling days, so we did kind of just hang out that first day. We ate a late lunch at the resort, then we hung out at the pool for a bit. Bored after a while, we decided to walk by the beach. The timing was perfect because we saw the most beautiful sunset. Then once it was dark, we bought a floating lantern and let it go into the sky. It was magical!

We were walking around the night market when we saw a mice running around luggage that we were considering purchasing. It didn't even phase the owner of the shop, like this stuff happens every day...

We found this cute little restaurant with live music and ordered some yummy food. Our waitress was okay, but she never brought me a drink. William grabbed the attention of another waitress walking by, but when she opened her mouth to talk, we realized she was a dude! We totally did not expect that. Later, when we were talking to Lily about our trip, she asked if we'd seen lady-boys. Apparently, it's a trendy thing in Thailand. 

 Day 7:

Well, we left Bangkok just in time! A man shot and killed 27 people right outside of the city. Crazy!

We met our tour guide Soi right outside of the resort and she took us on a ferry boat ride with about 40 other people. After nearly 2 hours on the ferry, we made it to our first stop, James Bond Island. It got its name because it appeared in the 1974 movie: James Bond: the man with the golden gun. It was actually a really cool island. It looked like a horseshoe, with another island in the middle. You couldn't actually get on that other island though because it was really tall and steep, but I guess you could rock-climb it... I swam up to it, which was really fun. William stayed on the beach because he probably would have died swimming that far. We stayed on the island for about an hour, which was plenty of time for an island that small. Plus I didn't like that there were so many tourists and vendors on the island.

We got back on the ferry for lunch then headed toward Hong Island. Most of the islands that we saw along the way didn't have beaches, so you couldn't actually get on them. Some were small, others were fairly large, but there were a lot of them.

Hong Island didn't look any different than other islands we'd passed, but after we got onto a canoe, we noticed an entry (or cave) into the island. It was so cool! Once we got to the end of the cave, it opened up to a beautiful lagoon. We were surrounded by the island, surrounded by mountains all around. Words cannot describe the beauty of what we saw.

The next stop was Panak Island. Again, we took a canoe inside. It was similar to Hong Island, except that the caves were deeper and darker. Once inside the cove, we saw wild monkeys. Our tour guide had told us to be careful because they tend to bite, so we stayed away as best as we could. One monkey was very daring, though, and jumped right onto someone canoe to get their food. Thankfully nothing bad happened.

Our last activity was to swim by a somewhat large island. I jumped right off the ferry, and it was so fun that I did it multiple times. We swam around for a little while, then when it was time to go, we noticed jelly fish right by where we'd been swimming. Yikes.

After we got back to the mainland, Noi took us to a place to get massages. Oh-my-goodness! I've had "full body" massages before, but these guys were very thorough! This lady even massaged my butt cheeks. And the sheet that they were using to cover up body parts was very sheer.

After these interesting massages, Noi took us to the night market. This one was huuuuuge! We didn't sit down for a formal dinner that night, instead we sampled a bunch of different foods. We didn't try anything weird, but what we did try was actually really tasty. We ate some dumplings, a banana crepe, coconut mini pancakes, and a couple of other things I can't even name. One chef was so precise about his chocolate cakes that I think he must have gone to cooking school. We could tell that he had a lot of pride in his work, and he was very detail-oriented. Everything had to be perfect.

Day 8:

Our driver took us to an elephant sanctuary. I immediately noticed that this was very different from the elephant camp we'd visited in Chiang Mai. The people really cared about the elephants. They elephants had a lot of freedom to do as they pleased.

K was our tour guide and he was hilarious. After educating us about elephants, he took us to the elephants to feed them. Our 37-year old elephant really enjoyed the 12 buckets of watermelon that we fed him. But he LOVED the bananas even more! 

After we fed the elephants, we walked over to the mud pool where we rubbed mud all over them. We then rinsed them off in another pool with somewhat clearer water. Lastly, we walked with them to the showers to wash off the mud entirely. It was such an amazing experience!

I thought they were going to feed us lunch, but we actually got a cooking lesson on how to make Pad Thai. Even better, I got to cook. At some point, K cracked a joke about how fish oil smells like Bangkok. Haha.

Instead of heading back to the resort, we asked our driver to take us to the beach. Once again, we were able to witness the beautiful sunset. I never get tired of watching sunsets.

We walked around, looking for a good place to eat, but for some reason nothing sounded good. Maybe we were growing a little tired of eating Thai food. But after looking at Trip Advisor, we decided to check out Elephant Number 9. Wow, that place did not disappoint. All the food was good, but the mango sticky rice was the best! I've tried to recreate it since and haven't even come close to it.