Our last day on the boat.  As we head back to the marina we pass by terraced hillsides that are for growing latex rubber trees.

Here’s Chris having a discussion with Leslie on the poop deck.

As we head into the marina we are met with mega yachts on one side

and very small shanties on the other.

Now it’s back to our wonderful, air conditioned hotel, a hot shower, and a couple more swims in the sea.

Today it is on to Rang Yai Island with stops for snorkeling along the way.

Very laid back and peaceful.

We walked across the island

to the other side

and on the way back, came upon this beautiful shrine.

And this one.

A long sail before final anchorage for the night.  We actually sailed.  Check out this sunset.

 

 

Today I woke up with the dreaded bug.  Yuck.  No pictures from day six.  Today we headed to Monkey Beach on Phi Phi Don.  The report was that they saw many monkeys on the beach – grabbing water bottles, eating peoples food.  And it was really dirty there.  Sorry I missed it.  We also stopped at Monkey Bay.

At mid-day we arrived at Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee) the nine Scandinavians left and around 4pm four new folks came on board; a young Swedish couple, and two women from the U.K. who did not know each other, so now there are 9 on board instead of 14.  We went back to The Beach with the new group.

The next day we traveled to Koh Yao to spend time ashore, not too much here, a few resorts with WiFi.  Here I am trying to post my blog but as you recall I gave up ’cause it was just too slow.

Here’s the view from where I am sitting.

And a nice picture of our boat.  You can see that it looks like it could have been a racing cat.

From here we traveled on to Khai Nai Island for some snorkling.  I think I forgot to talk about the snorkeling.  We’ve had the opportunity to snorkel at several spots and saw some beautiful fish.

Here’s what the back side of this island looked like.

We learned that the Chinese like to vacation here en masse.  There seemed to be a gambling parlor here as well.

Then on to our anchorage for the night.

 

It’s quite warm, in the 90’s by day and the mid-70’s by night.  Fortunately, there’s been enough of a breeze to help us sleep at night.  We have a tiny cabin on the boat which I forgot to take a picture of.  We were also lucky to have two hatches so more chances to catch the breeze.

Here are some views on the way to our first destination of the day.

We are headed for Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh Island, the site where the adventure movie “The Beach” with Leonardo diCaprio’s was filmed.

Now a popular tourist destination.

On the island was a cool little path you could take across to the other side

where you climbed up to a platform

and saw this view.

Once back on “The Beach” we saw this interesting view from Australia

as well as other views of the local color.  In addition to fishing, the long tail boats are used as tourist taxi’s.

It is the last night for the Scandinavian gang.  They didn’t know each other before this trip but will be together for 3 months of vacationing and traveling around the world.  They seem most excited about their last stop – Los Angeles.

Time for a little sake with our dinner.

And the end of another lovely day.

 

Up early to catch the first dingy ride to explore limestone caves and lagoons nearby. 

When we got back and were eating breakfast the second dingy took off for the same little excursion.  The reason for the early morning trip was first because the tide was high and second because very quickly this place filled with tour boats and tourists. 

After breakfast we motored about a half hour north and hopped on a “Long Tail Boat”

for a trip to Gypsy Town (from the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun). 

This was an odd experience because we got off the boat and were taken through the “residential” area

to the Mosque

and then had time to shop and explore.  Here is more of Gypsy Town.

Apparently, tourism is all that keeps this depressing little place going.  Back on our long tail boat.

On our way to our next destination we passed by this popular spot.

Then on to “James Bond” Island (from the same move).

Another spot barely surviving on tourism.

More sights around James Bond Island or really the island right next to it.

This was an interesting spot where part of the island slid down.  Can you see Chris in there?

By now we are all really hot and thirsty and hungry.  Back to our boat (around 1300) for a quick swim.  Then lunch and underway for a two hour motor/nap to our final destination.

Dinner ashore in a tiny local village and our first MaiTai’s!

We spent the morning exploring the hotel pools and the beach.  Real warm water in both.  We had to be checked out by noon but didn’t have to be at the marina until 3 so lots of time to explore.  We walked to the end of our hotel and then past the next one and just beyond the resorts was a little stand with a friendly local selling drinks and snacks.  He had several tables out by the beach so for half the price of the hotel beer we had a lovely time enjoying beer with a beautiful view of the sea.  Plus, he had really fresh peanuts that he had just roasted.

We made our way to the marina in a much tamer taxi ride and met our fellow crewmates.  Eleven young people from Scandinavia and one wonderful woman from the UK.  Our captain is Willie, and we have a chef and a skipper.  The catamaran is huge – 80 feet long and 35 feet wide.  Very small quarters but we won’t be in them much.  Chris says it looks like it used to be a racing cat in it’s day; the mast has been chopped and amenities added.

We left the dock around 4:30 and motored to our first destination, Kho Hong Pangnga Bay, about 2 hours away.  Remember the little islands I saw from the plane all sprinkled about?  Well, that’s where we’re headed.

Most of the Scandinavians were not interested in the scenery.

Anchored off shore in the dark, had a good Thai dinner and called it a day.

At the big kid’s table we shared a bottle of sake to celebrate the start of our trip.  Most of the group was dog tired having been up more than 24 hours flying straight from Finland to Phuket.

Having a great time.  Lots of interesting island formations.  And, lots of stories to tell.  Internet way too slow to even attempt anything more.  So stay tuned. . . .

It’s a new day in Phuket.  Now we get to see this beautiful hotel.  I just wanted to share some pictures with you before we head off to our great sailing adventure for the week.  It’s our 38th wedding anniversary almost so . . .

Check out this fishing boat.  Chris said he’s only seen these boats in James Bond movies.

Off we go to more great adventures.

 

 

 

After a great night’s sleep in our little bed in our little room with no bad dreams of fish floating around in my tummy we retraced our steps back to the train terminal and out the other side to catch a taxi to the International Terminal.  We had plenty of time to have a nice breakfast of eggs, ham and toast before we boarded our flight on Thai Airlines to Bangkok. 

It’s an interesting process to fly internationally.  You don’t have to take your clothes off to go through security but you do have to fill out a lot of forms and go through various check points.  Everyone is very orderly and helpful even if they don’t speak English.

Once on board we settled in and had a nice lunch of pork and rice with a lovely lotus root salad.  No sake this time and since we’re on vacation we ordered gin and tonics.  Can’t wait to get to Thailand and try their MaiThai’s!     just kidding

Our five and a half hour flight to Bangkok was uneventful.  The airport was a ways out of town so we couldn’t see any of the city.  We had plenty of time to find our connecting flight to Phuket so we wandered around a lot to stretch our legs.  Lots of huge orchid arrangements – all real.  And my favorite find of all

On to Phuket.  Bangkok is a very smoggy city because we could barely see the buildings and not for very long.  It was hazy most of the way but as we got close to Phuket and starting our decent we could see many small islands that looked like they’d been splattered about.  Look very closely.

We collected our two little duffle bags (traveling very light this trip) and learned that to catch a cab to our hotel you pick a company inside the terminal and pay for your cab there then head outside to get your cab.  When we stepped outside it felt like we’d stepped into a third world country. Night time.  Hot and humid.  Cars, buses, taxis, scooters zipping around. people yelling.  Utter chaos.  At least to us.  Maybe it was organized chaos to them.   All we were told was to look for number 45.  What the hell did that mean in all of this?

Well, believe it or not, we did it – although it took running to the other side of the organized chaos to get to number 45.  The view from our taxi cab ride was incredible.  I wished I could have taken pictures of all of this but it was too dark and things were happening too fast.  We were on a narrow two lane road with a high wall on our side and jungle on the other.  Lots of traffic.  Lots of tiny motor scooters and many 100cc scooters with custom made (ie homemade) “side cars.”  These side cars consisted of the frame of a cube about 2 feet wide by 3 feet long by 5 feet high and filled to over flowing with who knows what.  It was amazing to see.   On the jungle side there were many places where the jungle was cut away where people had  little houses and scooters were turning in and out of these places.  There were also trucks with ??? piled all around and over them, stuff stacked so high you’d think the truck would topple over.  It was all quite the site for us.

After about a 30 minute taxi ride to our hotel, we landed at the JW Marriott Phuket.     Wow     How fancy   So peaceful   It was around 1900 and very dark.   An open  breezeway with a big infinity pool.  As we checked in we were treated to neatly wrapped cold washcloths on a tray with orchids and glasses of ice cold tea.

Our room is amazing as is this hotel.

Off to the bar for a night cap.  Sa Was Dee Kaa

Our official Thailand sailing trip doesn’t start until Saturday, Feb. 28 at 1500 but we started at 1500 on Thursday, Feb. 26 with a ride to the Shin station with a friend, Tracy.  From Iwakuni we rode the high speed Shin south to Haneda in Fukuoka for our flight to Thailand on Friday morning at 1140. 

Our train ride turned out to be the commuter train with high speed stops all along the way.  Most stops were less than a minute long for people to exit and enter the train.  So it took an hour and a half to get to our destination and no fizzy cart this time.  Darn.

I was pretty sure our travel agent said that our destination was the last stop on the southbound Shin route and there was no hurry in exiting the train and I figured it would be pretty obvious when we were at the right stop.  So we got there, but it wasn’t that obvious and people were getting on board so we thought – maybe this was the second to the last stop.  I asked a young Japanese person who I thought might know English (which she didn’t and who got several other (non-English speaking young Japanese people involved) if this was where we should get off and boy did we get a lot of different answers.  Not only yes and no but also when I showed them our ticket they saw Iwakuni and got really concerned.

Anyway, one of them led us to the uniformed Shin attendant standing in the doorway who ushered us off the train and pointed to the stairway.  So we figured we’d better get off and figure it out later.  Lucky for us we were in the right place at the right time and all was well once again.

From here we wandered through the massive train/transit terminal and out the other side and walked the 5 blocks to our hotel – the President’s Hotel at $59/night.  What a deal.  Tiny room but we’re tiny people so it worked for us.

The front desk recommended a restaurant about 6 blocks away that sounded like it was called the Booty.  She said that’s where they always go so off we went to have our “going away” dinner.  To our surprise there was no English menu and no English speaking people so once again we had a most interesting feast.  First course was sashimi – a whole platter of raw fish.

Then a couple of small dishes of lotus root with okra and some other green things.  And then another main dish of what I call grilled fish face  – which we got to pick out ourselves.

Fortunately, I know how to say sake which I’ve learned can wash down just about anything.

Then back to our tiny room for a great night’s sleep.