Walking back to the guesthouse, we organised a taxi that was nearby and headed to our next destination at Karon Beach. On the way we asked the taxi driver if he would be able to pick up a fare on the way back. But we found out that he is not allowed, nor are those who come from Karon Beach allowed to pick up in Patong. We have heard that cartels have taken over the taxi and tuk tuk trade. This has put fixed pricing on the major routes. But some of them are a bit strange. It's about a 50 minute trip to the airport and that is around 800 baht, but just the 10 - 15 minutes trip to here is 400 baht.
We had a laugh when we arrived as our room is again on the top 4th floor, so we should end up fit by the time we walk all these stairs. The room is really lovely, quite new and very big with a very comfortable king size bed. There is a wall of floor to ceiling windows with a lovely outlook. They have a cafe below and we had lunch here. After getting settled it was time to hit the beach. The water temperature here is so lovely.
After returning and showering we headed out for dinner to a nearby place I had picked out during the afternoon. Lovely cheap meal, with a free salad bar and even a complementary scoop of icecream at the end. After dinner we started walking along the beach road, all the way to Kata. By the time we got back it was after 10 pm.
Wednesday was a very big day. I wanted to do a tour of Phang Nga Bay and researched about all the tours that are available. In the end I settled on what was a more expensive tour, Phuket Sail Tours but it got great reviews and the itinerary sounded excellent. They try and avoid the massive crowds that are out there each day. So this meant we were picked up by 6.40 in the morning. The trip took about 50 minutes which gave us quite a good tour of places we hadn't been to. Once we arrived at the office they had breakfast such as toasted sandwiches ready for us. It was then time to board our boat. One of the reasons for picking this trip was that it was by speed boat so we got to see so much more than the other much slower boats. Even though it is licensed for more, they never take more than twenty on the tour. Our group this day had ten adults and three kids.
We headed to the Krabi Islands and the first stop was snorkelling. Not as good as some we have done, but enjoyable none the less. When we first jumped in there was an enormous school of fish, but we must have scared them away.
Next we ventured into what they call a hong, which means room. You enter through a narrow opening to a hidden pool.
After leaving the first hong we went past a camp in the rock where a man collects birds nest.
The second hong didn't have crowds and we stopped here for a swim.
I kept looking at one of the men on the boat, because he looked familiar somehow. Jim was swimming out further and was talking to him, when suddenly he said - you're Jim aren't you and that's Carolyn. It was a second cousin that I hadn't seen for years. When we were first married he moved out from New Zealand and lived with us for the first six months, but I had only seen him intermittently after that as we had left Melbourne. Such an amazing coincidence to be in another country and choose the same small tour.
Swimming spot
The tour took in some amazing sights with the limestone karst islands rising out of the sea. We were taken by canoe through a mangrove area, saw sea gypsies and their fish farm, had lunch at a floating Muslim village, saw 1500 year old rock paintings, went past the famous James Bond Island (we didn't stop, part of their policy of avoiding the huge crowds), and finally pulled into a lovely beach that had a huge cave that we were given flash lights and were able to walk into.
Our canoe paddler cut a leaf to take this photo
A young chap from the sea gypsy camp with a small shark
1500 year old rock paintings high in the cliff
Leaving the floating village
Going past some of the crowds. This was only a few, there were more on the other side.
Crowded James Bond Island
But it wasn't long before the second speed boat and some of the big boats caught up to us looking to share this great little spot. There were also some wild monkeys on the beach and although they handed out bananas to feed them Jim and I decided to stay well clear. One of the children disobeyed the instructions not to touch them and was nearly bitten.
Our private beach no longer private
Back on the water we flew past the other big boats and long boats back to the port and our mini van ride home.
Returning home
After dinner we decided to head back for an early night after such a long day.
Thursday morning we had breakfast at the cafe. The owner, Mark, who sounded English, was at the desk. We hadn't met him yet as he wasn't there when we arrived and we were out all the day before. After chatting for a few minutes, he asked was I Carolyn. When I said yes, he told me that I had got the bargain of the century. I had only just been telling Jim how after I had booked this place, the price changed dramatically. It seems something went wrong with the system, and he stopped using Wotif after that. No wonder we thought this place was such good value.
We went to a nearby optician that I had spoken to the night before, and ordered prescription sunglasses for me. She had checked and could get the lenses in the next day. She advertises that she specialises in progressive lenses. It was then back by taxi to Patong and Jim's dental appointment. But oops we had messed up and hadn't rechecked the appointment time and when we turned up at 1 discovered it was for midday. They were nice enough to fit us in at 4, so we contacted my long lost cousin Colin and caught up with him again. We also spent some time in the huge JungCeylon shopping centre. We thought we had seen it all, but the taxi in the morning dropped us at the back of it, and we discovered we had only see a tiny bit of it after all.
Cousin Colin with wife Sarah
At four it was time for Jim to face the dentist again to have a rear molar removed. He had had many fillings in this over the years and the last one fell out when we were in Melbourne. A dentist there told him it was past having anything done and should be pulled. This wasn't a very pleasant experience for him, and was far more painful than he was expecting. The dentist had four handmaidens in with her ( so did I when I had my teeth cleaned). It appears one of these was for holding his hand, while another stroked his arm.
After the trauma of the extraction we took a taxi straight back to our accommodation where we took it easy until dark. We did some more walking and ended up with food from the street vendors opposite the rooms, just steamed rice for Jim. We took this back and ate on our verandah.
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