Such a great day in Phuket, Thailand. Was it what we imagined? No. But that's not a bad thing. We imagined what you read about.... " Phuket, a rainforested, mountainous island in the Andaman Sea, has some of Thailand’s most popular beaches, mainly situated along the clear waters of the western shore. The island is home to many high-end seaside resorts, spas and restaurants". In other words, we imagined beach and coastal related tourist activities. But there was/is so much more!!!!
Let me start at the beginning, which is approaching Thailand this morning. Here are some pics of our approach.
It is a tender port which is a bit of a complication in that there's a timing issue getting off and back on the ship. You need to allow at least 45 min on both sides. But we were in the first group off the ship, and that helped. It doesn't look rough from the pics but it was. That means we couldn't use our normal tender boats and instead they secured a large 300 person passenger "yacht" to usher us from ship to shore. So many passengers had their own snorkle equipment with them, so it was obvious what their plans were.
We didn't have an excursion planned so we were going to be happy getting to see anything. This port was not really near anything, and we knew that. But as I always say, "there's always people willing to help us spend our money". We decided a tour would be nice and there were of course dozens of taxis ready to give us a personal tour. The going rate was $60 for the two of us for 6hrs; but, the problem was finding a driver who spoke english adequately. By the 5th "interview", we selected Bayan and he took it from there. He asked us what types of things we liked to see and do. After we told him, he said "sit back and relax, I got this".
The first stop was the Wat Chalong temple. Jaw droppingly beautiful. Here are our favorite pics.
After our time at the temple, we headed up the mountain to the "big buddah". But before that, we passed a few elephant zoos where you could ride, pet and feed the elephants. We chose to just pet them.
We then headed further up the mountain to the BB and spent time enjoying the views and the (pardon the expression), elephant in the room. The Buddha statue depicts Gautama in a sitting position and is 45 metres (148 feet) tall and 25.45 metres (83.5 feet) wide. It is made of concrete and covered with Burmese white marble. Most of the information at the site was in arabic??, so we couldn't understand it, but clearly it has significant meaning for the locals.
By this time, it's 11:30 and we're thinking we should start looking for a lunch place. I suggested a hawker site, but our driver felt that we might get sick from the food. We trusted him, so he took us to the mall. Yup, the mall. Shockingly good food, reasonable prices. The food court is like the hawker stations but clean and sanitary. We had a delicious lunch so it was a good choice. It was the best cashew chicken we'd ever had.
After that, shopping! Again, can't divulge too much except we got great deals. My wife and I both got shirts. Snazzy!!!!
After that, we headed back to the tender to take us back to the boat.
After a dip in the pool and a much needed cool drink, I was ready to relax a bit. The weather was HOT today. But we're thankful for beautiful blue skies and sun!!!!
The show tonight was a ventriloquist and he was legit funny. Then to watch Dan the guitarist and now I'm finishing the day.
The last bit is highlighting the beautiful flora in phuket
Now we have 2 sea days until Sri Lanka. We really need the rest. Thanks!!!
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