2 Weeks in Thailand - Tuesday 19th Feb - Phuket

[mitch84]

We were getting picked up quite early today for a trip to James Bond Island. After the previous tours we have done that were completely private, us with a tour guide this was going to be a lot different.

The bus came, an old mini bus with a distinct lack of air con. First of all we were driven to this cave with another smaller reclining Buddha.

I was a bit fed up of buddhas by this point but there were monkeys everywhere which we enjoyed snapping.



There was a German mother and son on this trip and she did not control her child at all, he was trying to climb on peoples knees, knocked one blokes glasses off, terrible behaviour.

We then went to these caves where they started you off in a canoe, paddling you through, then on a bamboo raft, then you have to walk for a bit in knee deep water. Dave said he saw a snake which terrified me. They hadn’t told us about this bit and Dave only had his trainers so had to walk bare foot. Bit scary when you can’t see what you are doing.

It was nice and cool in the caves though which made a change!

We got taken for lunch after this. On the leaflet of the tour we had booked, it clearly stated that there was a snack provided, there was a picture of a sandwich, a few crisps and a bottle of coke. We had packed some Pringles and haribo etc in case it was rubbish.

However there seemed to be 2 trips merged into one, one trip had paid for a full lunch and so there were 2 separate tables. No problem, you know what you paid for surely!?

No, German woman and child made a fuss, wanted to know why one lot got something different and declared that there was nothing her son would eat! If devil child wasn’t so hyper already he could have had some Haribo!

There was a lot of driving and messing about today for one island that we really wanted to see but never mind.

We were soon being driven to an area where we could catch a boat anyway. It was a longtail boat and we travelled on it for about 40 minutes before we approached the James Bond island.

We got off on the beach on one side and had to walk over to the other side of the island to see the big rock.

We had a wander and took lots of photos. We won’t bore you with them all as they were very similar.





We had a while here and just enjoyed the view.


After we had finished here we were taken by boat to a Muslim fishing village called Koh Panyee.

Now this place I did not like. I had heard that it was beautiful etc etc and I have to say Dave did manage to get some pretty good black and white pics but it did smell.

All of the hill tribe villages that were very poor were spotless, everyone was wearing clean, colourful clothes etc but in this place it was dirty.

They had monkeys in nappies to try get you to pay for photos, they were selling bits but touristy plastic tat really instead of the beautiful hand crafted goods of the hill villages.

Whole hoardes of families were sat on dirty floors watching huge TV’s. Something just unsettled me about this place and I wanted to leave.





We went back on the boat back to the bus and had quite a long drive back to our hotel. As we had been picked up so early though we were back at the hotel at a decent time.

We went out to an Italian restaurant which was lovely tonight, it did the best pizzas ever then we inevitably went to the Ska bar!

[Guest]

Hi Mitch

Enjoying your travels... fab photos - well done Dave ! Your gut feeling served you well I feel... off to read the next `un...

Aly

PS - Well done you on those results !

Loving the sound of that ska bar...

[Strommie]

Gorgeous photos

[Jaydee]

Cracking pictures

[brody-maddison]

Lovely photos. From what you've said I don't like the sound of that place at all.

[Guest]

Photos are amazing!

[ariel2006]

OMG Mitch that brings back some memories. We did a trip to the James Bond island from Phuket too and stopped at the Muslim fishing village. We had to walk around it and were left there for some time, with very little to do. We were constantly followed by little children trying to sell postcards and things and like you said, people with monkeys. I am glad to see it is still there though as when we went it was just before the Tsunami. The village was floating on what looked like polystyrene crates (some of which people lived on), so I thought that due to the Tsunami this village may have disappeared.

Anyway great reports, its bringing back some good memories.

[DIBBadmin]

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