Soooo excited to finally relax for a few days!!
Tom and I have been getting along well so he's coming on this trip too (not that I have a choice)
Tom Bihn 19
2 bathing suits
1 shorts
1 tank top
1 dress
1 panties
1 bra
Toiletries
Bag of cords
iPad
Nook
Travel towel
Small beach bag
I wore the undergarments, the shorts and tank top, and sandals
We flew AirAsia again, $96 per person roundtrip, the flight was about an hour and a half and we landed on the beautiful island of Phuket!
My dad's friend from long ago opened a resort in Phuket on the west shore, when I came 2 years ago I stayed at his resort, it was beautiful. I wanted to stay there again cause it's very secluded from the touristy area of Phuket and it's quite breathtaking. I had my dad book the room for us and one of the owner's employees picked us up from the airport.
Andaman Bangtao Bay Resort
About 40 mins southwest of the airport, sits along the quiet beach... Rooms start at 1900B ($58.51) per night. The rooms are bungalow style, you open the door and there's the pool, beyond the pool is the beach... Rooms include AC, welcome drink, a ride to or fromt the resort, and breakfast... They also say wifi but their Mbps is terrible and currently being upgraded
We arrived around 1pm and they fed us
Three flavored fish - I ate so much of this last time I was here... Sweet, spicy and tangy sauce over fried fish
We had a couple other things then went to our room to change... They gave us an oceanview 2 bedroom with a king bed and 2 twin beds!
We spent a few hours out here, it's so beautiful and quiet... The water is perfectly warm... There's little crabs scrurrying around the sand
Chris found this hermit crab
The nights get pretty dark and the tide comes in so we ate every meal at the resort and mostly stayed in the vicinity of the resort (if you want to hire a car to take you to the city of Patong, there's a taxi booth like 20ft from the resort entrance... It takes about 40 mins one way and is a negotiated couple thousand Baht roundtrip plus tip)
We spent the next day sunbathing, eating, drinking and relaxing... After dinner we walked up the beach a bit and found a shack playing Bob Marley and serving drinks... Homeboy bartender had a huge 'fro and wore a trench coat over his swim trunks, he looked really stoned but really liked that I am Thai hahaha... Beers were 80B ($2.46) and cocktails were about 120B ($3.72)... We had a few beers and walked back to the resort. Because there's no light anywhere, the crabs come out to play... We stepped on so many crabs accidentally, sometimes you see them scurrying and it freaked us all out!! Sherena spent most of the walk back screaming while Chris and I yelped!
I wanted Chris and Sherena to see the islands so we booked an island hopping tour with Ruk Talay or Love the Sea company. The itinerary included snorkeling, visiting 5 islands, lunch, and sightseeing a Viking cave on a speed boat for 1700B per person ($52.72) and since our resort was on the other side of the island, a hotel pick up costed 200B per person ($6.20)
A mini bus picked us up at 8 and picked up a few more people and headed to the Love the Sea dock on the southeast side of Phuket, all together there were 60 people on this tour
Our tour guide was the owner, Gift, she told us the intinerary again and said that things would change depending on time, tide, amount of tourists in certain areas....
The islands are closer to Krabi if you're debating on which beach to stay at, I prefer Krabi myself but I don't know a beach side resort owner there so we didn't stay there... I say this because it takes an hour and a half from the dock in Phuket to get to the first island! On choppy water! I don't get seasick but Gift does offer motion sickness pills if you like
First we started off with snorkeling while the tide was high... The tour company lets you rent flippers for 100B ($3.10), snorkel and mask are included... Normally I wouldn't rent flippers but Gift insisted the tide would only be about 1-3 meters 3.5-10ft)... Um you can't snorkel in that little amount of water... You'll step on coral! So we rented flippers for safety... When we got there, the water was more like 30ft deep.. Oh well, it was nice to use to propel myself around
The water was very clear and there were many fish swimming around... The water is very salty! We were allowed to snorkel for 40 mins at this location
Next was Mosquito Island... It was a very warm day, there were many tourists but the island was very beautiful! We were allowed to snorkel here as well... The water was pretty low at the time so you can walk out 20 feet and the water was still only up to our knees
Long tail boats are beautiful to photograph here
This sand hurt to walk on cause it's mostly made up of shells and coral so be careful!
We were allotted 40 mins to spend on this island... Gift informed us that a walk around the entire island would take 15 mins so one of the tour guests took the walk.... We waited an extra 20 mins for her to return... Apparently it takes longer than 15 mins to circle the entire island... Unfortunately this made us late to our next stop and therefore decreased the amount of time we had at other locations
Monkey Island... Normally we would be able to disembark to photograph the monkeys but the tide came in and we didn't have enough time so we just watched from afar... Beware though, these monkeys are crazy! They will steal anything! Cameras, sunglasses, food, hats....
Now lunch! Sorry no pics, just on an island, buffet style... Nothing spectacular, just sustenance
Next they took us to view the Viking caves... Back in the day people used to be able disembark and see Viking paintings on the cave walls but nowadays this cave is protected by a private company as they now collect bird nests for bird nest soup here. When tourists were allowed in the caves, the swallow birds were reluctant to build nests there so now there are hundreds of nest and someone gets to capitalize from this!
Next we went to browse Pileh Lagoon
We only circled the lagoon because Gift wanted us to have more time at Maya Bay, it looked like a fun place to snorkel and hang out... Too bad
Maya Bay... Famously known as where The Beach was filmed.... Sooo many tourists... Both beautiful and not so good looking! We were allowed an hour and half here... The water was so warm, Sherena and I spent time wading chest deep, beautiful people watching and photo bombing as many photos as possible... Then we air dried off on the beach, it was later in the day so there were less tourists but still quite a bit, you can also snorkel at this beach if you'd like
The not so good looking people we had to look at
Selfie before the ride back
After the tour we all went back to the dock where tipping the boat hands is a nice gesture (do it!) and separate vans were waiting to take people back to their hotels/resorts
The next day we surveyed the damage... Ouch! I applied, reapplied, and reapplied and I still got sunburned! Once the pain, itching, peeling went away I was left with a nice tan... I've never been this tan! I quite enjoy it... But my aunties almost fainted when they saw how dark I got hahaha... They said, "What happened to your white skin?! Why?!" Hahahaha
The next morning we got ready to leave... We checked out and had lunch, watched this guy fish and got dropped off at the airport
Honestly I really do like Krabi better because the beach is prettier and it's different... But then again I haven't been there in 8 years so it may have changed quite a bit since then... This area of Phuket is really quiet and secluded so it's nice for relaxing, you can always take a car into Patong so you can have a bit of crazy in your life as well, but otherwise I enjoyed our time in Phuket... I got a tan!!
The oceanfront two bedroom, food and drinks for 3 nights/4 days all came out to be $127 per person... Incredible right?! Well I think so...
Now back to Bangkok!
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