Thailand: Phuket then Koh Lanta

Woke up our first morning here and it was pouring rain.  Not a problem for us adventure seekers.  We headed out to see the area and familiarize ourselves with the markets, restaurants, and pubs.  We headed to the beach in the torrential rain to see what we would be enjoying the next couple of days before heading to the calmer islands of Thailand, as this is more of a party town.  Patong Bay is a relatively small bay and the beach is lined with chairs for rent—it was a perfectly straight line all the way down the beach.  But since the rain was coming down, the beach would be for another day.

One thing we have seen often in SE Asia, but not to this degree, was the amount of men walking around with their Asian “girlfriends” for the day.  Shelley and I term them “losers”.  They are typically older men, with super young Asian girls.  They buy them jewelry, clothing and food amongst other things.  There is no hiding this and they walk around as if it is okay—imagine your 85-year old grandfather holding hands and walking down the street with an 18-year old.  It is sad to see this and seeing how prevalent it is here.  That is something we will not miss seeing in this part of the world!

Next day in Patong Bay and it is pouring again—where is the sunshine??  Well maybe the wind and rain will keep us away from the beach but not the pool.  We chilled outside and swam and read our books for the majority of the day.

In the evening, we headed to the night market, had some ice cream (a great day is not a great day without it!), saw a water and light show (which Shelley thought was amazing, okay, not really) and had dinner at a place called No. 6.  Great Thai food with an interesting atmosphere where there were mosquitos, cockroaches, and people from all over the world.  It is a surprise we haven’t had more stomach issues on this trip.

We had an early wake-up call, as we jumped on a ferry to head to Koh Lanta.  This is an island a little further away than Koh Phi Phi (the one most people have heard of.  We wanted to try an island that was less affected by tourism, trash, and simply back to nature.

We thought we were over the travel stories from hell.  This one began innocently enough, but a storm blew in and our boat was not necessarily “water-ready”.  The wind picked up, the torrential rain began and our 3.5-hour trip turned into 7-hours of 8-10 foot waves, water coming in through the windows, the boat rocking back and forth and a captain who was not sure where he was due to zero visibility.  Talk about sea sickness.  Shelley manned the bags and I stood in the back trying not to heave, praying the boat wouldn’t sink and we could get off this watery coffin.

On the boat, while the weather was still nice and smiles all around

Fifteen minutes of comfort before the storms hit and become a long wavy rainy adventure

Some of the cool islands as we left Phuket

Another pic of the bay

We made it to Koh Phi Phi for a couple of hours

Ready for the second part of the trip and the sun has come back out, but it stormed again

We did make it, but knowing we had to make the trip back was not a good thought to have at this point.  We did arrive just as it was getting dark, and there was no electricity on the island.  The tuk tuk driver was able to get us to our hotel and we made it to an incredible bungalow of our own.  We took a stroll on the beach since it was going to be dark soon and unfortunately there was a lot of trash on the beach and of course I (Erik) stepped right on the mouth of a bottle that was buried on the beach.  With a bruised and cut foot, we decided to head back and try our luck with dinner. 

Walking along the road, past empty and closed stores and restaurants we happened on one that was opened and had a nice candle lit dinner—making this the new start after a long arduous day of travel and stepping on the bottle (which was almost the last straw for the day!)  With the rain coming (again) we grabbed some beers at a beach bar (we were their only customers the entire day) and I taught Shelley chess on a travel size magnetic playing board.  This was more challenging then the game itself!

On the way back to our hotel (still no electricity on the island), we stopped off for some snacks, but had to remove our shoes prior to entering the store.  All we could think about is how they don’t use soap to wash their hands or toilet paper to clean themselves and we are walking in the filth that their bare feet brought into the store.   Great thought, isn’t it?  First time we shopped by candlelight.  Anyway, washed our feet at the bungalow, took a swim, lit some candles and called it a night.