World Tour Stop 19 - Phuket, Thailand

Thailand has been on the bucket list for a while (along with about five other key locations and as I travel more the list keeps growing...), so having the opportunity to explore three different cities in Thailand made me the happiest. The first stop was Phuket which is just about an hour flight from Kuala Lumpur. We took a cab from the airport to our hotel for ~400 baht which translates to about $12USD for roughly a one hour commute, so definitely a good exchange for us. We booked the Chanalai Gardens Resort on booking.com and the hotel was amazing. They greeted us with a juice and cookie and cold towels and were so very kind to work with. The resort had two pools, a gym, three bars. two restaurants and just amazing views from our balcony The only downside was if you're not great with stairs we did have to climb about five flights of stairs to get to our room.

Our first night in Thailand I indulged in delicious cashew chicken with rice and Bri had pad thai. I was already in love with the cuisine and knew the next few days would be great.

The hotel staff was also super helpful in booking excursions for us so we booked one day with a trip to Phi Phi Island and the next day we'd be visiting James Bond Island (Phang Na Bay).

Phi Phi island is so well known internationally because it is beautiful with so many cool snorkeling spots and clear blue water (if you throw up, pour out a drink, litter, anything, you are fined 1000 USD so they really work to keep that water pristine), but more importantly the file "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed in Maya Bay in the Phi Phi Islands. This excursion would make a few stops, but Maya Bay was one of them. We were picked up by air conditioned van straight from our hotel and taken to the port where we met our guides for the day and instruction on what we would need. They suggested water shoes and sold underwater phone cases, but honestly I don't think either are necessary. We boarded the motorboat and had about a 45 min ride out to our first snorkel destination. The water was a little rough but Bri and I sat up front and loved every minute of bouncing through the waves while about half of the other passengers experienced a bit of sea sickness which was unfortunate, but still a blast for us!

Our first stop was lovely snorkeling in crystal clear water where I saw a million colorful fish and lots of coral.

From here we made our way to Maya Bay. Maya Bay has been over visited by tourists so the ecosystems is a bit out of whack so we were not able to dock all the way at the beach. We were able to park the boat, get pictures of the beautiful scenery and jump out and swim. to a small cove which was really cool.

One thing to note. the sandy part of the beach wasn't super large, so you are immediately in rocks. This is why the guides recommended water shoes, so if you're prone to cutting your feet perhaps think about taking them up on it. I did not and I did cut my foot...which wasn't bad at all except that I swam past three sharks on the way back to the boat and my anxiety level was through the roof.

From here we went past Viking Cave and then to Monkey Beach. Viking Cave is just rock formations where early settlers built homes in, but the ruins were pretty cool to see. Monkey beach is exactly like it sounds. A beach filled with hundreds of monkeys and dumb tourists that make decisions to feed them. Monkeys are known carriers for a lot of diseases so encouraging them to come near humans isn't the smartest decision. We steered clear but still grabbed a couple of great pictures.

From here we headed to lunch on Phi Phi Don and had some amazing thai food (and randomly spaghetti?) before getting some time to lounge on the beach with a drink in hand.

Our final stop of the day was at Khai Island where we were served cocktails in coconuts and finished out a lovely day of boating. This was a really cool excursion, but definitely plan for 12 hours packed into the day.

That night we walked into town and went to an Italian restaurant for dinner so that Bri could eat some food she would enjoy. I had a slice of pizza and a local beer in this amazing coozie.

Day 2 took us to James Bond Island. If you look at a map of the bay you can see that Phi Phi Island is southeast of Phuket (towards Krabi on the mainland) while James Bond in Phang Na Bay is fully north, so this was a different part that we were able to explore and much smoother waters as it is so far into the bay.

We kicked off the tour early in the morning again and got to enjoy some beautiful sights on the way to our first kayaking stop. We were expecting to be the ones paddling but it turned out that we would have guides paddling and ours was such a nice man (although I'm pretty sure he thought Bri and I were a couple...).

This tour was significantly less crowded that our to Phi Phi and I think they took safety a little more seriously so we were required to where life jackets on the boat.

Our first stop took us into a cave where a ton of bats were sleeping and it was super creepy. We couldn't see anything but the guide did have a flashlight which when it was put on the water made the water glow a bright green. Also, I got pooped on by a bat and was told I couldn't wash it off in the cave because of leeches. All the gross.

Our next stop was to a cove where you could lay flat and see a heart shape in the trees. Everything here is freaking incredibly gorgeous and I love Thailand. Our guide also teased us a bunch but showed us where the mountains made cool shapes like piranha and elephants.

From here we went to James Bond Island which is where Man with the Golden Gun was filmed. The island is actually really small but has some amazing formations which may not actually be able to last long term as storms and erosion tear them away (plus the number of tourists walking through the caves daily doesn't exactly help with sustainability).

we very much enjoyed James Bond Island and then we went and had lunch at a floating city, which was very different than what I expected. A lot of the people living on the floating city work the tourist industry for James Bond Island, but also, it just seems like an island that is built on community love. They have a school where thousands of kids go every year from elementary ages through to high school and it was a very interesting experience. Oh and they had a floating soccer field which was super cool :).

From here we had one more stop where we swam and got a cocktail before heading back to Phuket for the evening.

We had so much fun here and I was super sad to leave the next day. but off to Chiang Mai we go!