Thailand Recap
- Only A Plane Away
- Nov 7, 2018
- 4 min read
Our flight from Hong Kong was delayed so it made if a very late arrival into Phuket Thailand. The immigration process at the airport in Phuket was also not very organized the process took longer than it needed to. Mainly due to the fact they didn't have any pens readily available to fill out paperwork. Pro-tip: Always pack a pen in your carry on where it is easy to get to.
Making matters worse, another flight was arriving the same time as ours when the airport was at low staff due to the late hour so the lines moved at a snails pace. Once we finally got through immigration and got our bags, we had about an hour cab ride to our hotel, the Lunar Patong.
We were surprised to find out that our hotel required a cash deposit in Thai Baht for the room. This is the first time we had heard of something like that and we had not switched over enough currency to cover this charge. Luckily there was an ATM across the street and we were able to get more cash. We made sure to get a receipt for the deposit and were happy to finally make it to bed.
We had a big excursion planned for our one full day in Phuket. We booked a speed boat tour to the Phi Phi Islands with multiple stops.
Our first stop was swimming at Pileh lagoon. The water was the most beautiful color of turquoise there. We had a fun time jumping off the boat into the water and cooling off in the refreshing water. Next, we headed to Monkey Island.
We were not able to go up on to the beach but we were able to catch some photos and videos of the monkey from afar.
Next, we stopped by Viking Cave and got to do some snorkeling near there. It was Lisa's first time snorkeling and was a great experience for us to share together.
Viking Cave owes its name to the paintings found on the eastern southern walls of the cave: they represent various types of boats, including what resembles a Scandinavian drakkar. It is also famous for it's birds nests, which are one of the most expensive ingredients in the world and used to make birds nest soup.
After about an hour of snorkeling it was time to head to Phi Phi Don for lunch. The tour included a buffet lunch of local thai food, but it was about what you would expect from a tour buffet.
After lunch, we had a bit of time to explore Phi Phi Don. We walked through the town a bit to a bay on the other side of the island. After exploring a bit, we found a beach-side bar that served drinks and sipped some cocktails with a view.
We returned to the boat at the appointed time and were a bit disappointed that we had to wait almost an hour for our tour guide to return. They mentioned something about our tour guide having to go to the police station, but they didn't elaborate further for us. We wished that they had told us it would be a bit so we could have more time to explore or have another drink on the beach instead of having to wait on the boat.
Due to the delay, they gave us a bit more time at our last stop at Bamboo Island which had a huge beach. It's called Bamboo Island because of its bamboo forest. There was even a little park area with a snack shack and restrooms in a shady area on the island. We walked along the beach for a while before heading back to the boat.
Our return trip was quite interesting because it was low tide, so we had to weave through a channel dredged out for the boats. The channel was probably about 50 feet wide, and it was kind of crazy to see sand bars on both sides of the boat.
Once we returned to the marina, we boarded a van that took us back to our hotel. We ordered some drinks at the hotel bar and had them brought to our room. Once we showered, we felt much better after a long day in the sea and sun.
We decided to head to a place called Pan Yaah for dinner. It was highly rated and right on the ocean with views of Patong beach. We didn't get too adventurous and ordered some of our regular favorites including, chicken satay, Tom Kha Gai (chicken soup with a coconut lemongrass broth), pad thai with shrimp, and chicken massaman curry. All of it was delicious, but the soup was especially flavorful. After dinner, we were pretty tired and decided to head back to the hotel and call it an early night.
The next morning we decided to explore the Patong area a bit more.
We walked down to the beach and grabbed a fresh fruit shake on the way. These are literally fresh locally grown fruit blended up into a delicious drink. We walked a long the beach for a while and found a beautiful little inlet.
After walking around a bit, we had worked up an appetite for a real breakfast, so we stopped into a little cafe. We both ended up ordering banana pancakes, while not authentic Thai in any way, they were quite good and hit the spot.
We headed back to our hotel to check out and store our luggage. We then headed to the hotel pool bar to figure out our plan for the day since our flight didn't leave for several hours. We opted to get Thai massages. After researching online, we found that there was a highly reviewed place right across the street from our hotel.
Pro Tip: Get a massage while you're in Thailand. If you aren't familiar with Thai massage, it's quite different than other types of massage. The massesuses use their whole bodies during the massage including their elbows and knees to really work on tight muscles. They also had us sit up and stretched our bodies in odd ways. The best way to describe it is...it hurts so good. It isn't a relaxing massage but after several days of traveling, it seemed to be just what we needed and the massages in Thailand are dirt cheap. Our two one-hour massages cost a total of about fifteen U.S. dollars.
After our massage it was time to head to the airport and on to Malaysia.
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