Island Village

A few shots of the Muslim stilt village and people in the area. There were lots of opportunities to hike around!!!

Bahtra Cruise

The cruise itself was great – a nice, relaxing voyage around the island, very picturesque, on a genuine junk-rigged-schooner (with, of course the addition of an engine because the sails are no longer strong enough to survive any kind of wind, let alone move the junk), allowing you to glide gracefully past spectacular islands that tower above the sea – a display of mottled limestone draped with multi-hued green vines. Ok…should sound like that came off of a brochure (it did). They did give us a photo-op when we went off to see the island – they put up the sails and then the smaller motor boat went around the whole thing so we could snap pictures.

James Bond Island

We took a really cool trip on an old chinese junk out to, of all places, James Bond Island. Hmmm…you might ask what is so significant about that. Well…one of the James Bond movies (Man with the Golden Gun) was shot out on one of the smaller islands just off Phuket Island. (We checked out the movie – it really is the same with place quite a bit of Hollywood editing to add houses and the required bedrooms.)

North of Patong

On to the beach. Patong was unfortunately hit in the tsunami and the whole coastline was heavily damaged. Patong Beach has received massive reconstruction and, despite the rain, was open for business. We drove up the coast further (fortunately it did quit raining) and we found other tourist areas that were not so fortunate. Here we saw homes and business still ravaged and little rebuilt. It’s a precarious existence there and the tsunami just destroyed so much.
The picture is just north of Patong, one of the small streams that feed into the ocean.

Patong Beach

I seem to have a thing about driving in all of these places and once more I have the drive story. We decided to rent a jeep type vehicle and drive around the island. Now remember, this is the place with motorcycles that go wherever they want, honk their horns if they do anything at all, make up their own rules as they go and have tuk tusk stopping all over the place. Add quite a few pedestrians who don’t know where the sidewalk is and, well, you get the picture.
With this ambiance, we took the jeep out to head over to Patong Beach. Now, you must add to the aforementioned mix, rain. Not PNW rain, this is tropical storm rain that comes down by the buckets – BIG buckets. This jeep…it is watertight, I’ll give it that. It has windshield wipers too…with 2 speeds; slow and slower. The road to Patong includes a hill. Not your little hill with a nice road going up. It’s a steep, windy road, with motorcycles wandering about – yes, even in the rain – with tuk tusk rushing by and the rain pouring down and the windshield wipers w..i..p..i..n..g the window. All in all, it was quite an adventure.

Tourist Traps

The man drove us around a bit more…a beach that was hit by the tsunami, a Chinese Buddhist temple, a few more scenic areas, then he just mentioned there was a great little store he could take us to. Before we knew it, we were at a very large, jewelry store. He had been so nice we went in and looked around (whew – Very Expensive) and left. He just happened to know where there was another little shop…just around the corner (WOW – VERY Expensive). Well…we thought it was a little odd but ok…we went in. I must admit, some of it is gorgeous and I now know how pearls are grown and harvested. Well…down the street there just happened to be….this one was VERY EXPENSIVE. I was worried about even walking on their carpet.
We finally discovered that there’s a method to their madness. The taxi and tuk tuk drivers are paid to bring tourists to these jewelry markets. All we have to do is stay a certain length of time and then they get paid for bringing us – whether we buy anything or not. Knowing that we continued letting them take us to one place, but we said no after that. I don’t mind helping the local economy but after a while…..

Treetop Restaurants

The next stop on our mini tour was a gorgeous hilltop with a pretty spectacular view of the city and the bay. There was a delightful restaurant that was nestled in the middle of the jungle and perched right at a beautiful viewpoint. Well…we, of course…had to have lunch there. I ordered a cashew salad…expecting to have lettuce and such with cashews sprinkled on it. Jeff had said that cashews were exported from Thailand but that really didn’t sink in….until the salad arrived. It was ALL cashews with a touch of a scallion type vegetable sprinkled delicately on it. Had a wonderful, spicy sauce dribbled on it. Very nice but I believe it might have been a wee bit high in fat….

Phuket

On to Phuket and back to our holiday pursuit of seeing everything possible. We thought we’d start out the day with a casual walk about the city. A tuk tuk driver stopped and started telling us about things we could see and places to go and one thing led to another and we found ourselves in the back of the little truck style tuk tuk and off we went. Our first stop was the butterfly garden – and what a garden it was. We must have spent well over an hour there watching the butterflies – it was absolutely filled with spectacular butterflies everywhere!

Ronald

I just couldn't resist this picture. This is the traditional Thai greeting - and obviously EVERYONE uses it!!!

Koh Samui

On to Samui. Here is where we really took the opportunity to RELAX. The place had a great beach for early morning walks and they offered meditation and yoga classes daily. We spent a blissful ten days or so just veggin’ in the sun, walking on the beach, watching the sunrise (and sunsets), drinking tea and reading books. Since we spend the majority of our vacation time running around trying to see everything possible about a place, it was nice to be somewhere where there wasn’t a lot to do besides veg. I did have to include the coconut tree picture – it's a view from our window. The juices here were spectacular. The cooks generally just walked out on the beach or behind the place on the mountain to pick whatever fresh fruit they wanted to create the drinks. Reminded me of Ecuador with the wonderful fruit drinks!!!
The restaurant here is a vegetarian’s dream come true!! The food was completely unsurpassed! It was a very modest place, the restaurant was not elegant at all but the food. They had the best Thai food I’ve ever had - I seriously wanted to bring the chef home (though then I’d gain weight – hmmm…maybe it’s just as well they stayed back there).