A three-day break in SW Thai islands

We started our trip at Phuket, choosing Karon beach as a relatively quiet one, still not that far away from the city-and thus the pier. The place must have been devastated after the Tsunami, but seems to have been completely reconstructed. Spent some time in the beach,

This is HIF in Karon Beach!

got bitten by mosquitos during sunset,

This photo was shot by The Man himself.

played cards on the beach, and lit a sky lantern. Cause it was the fun and grafic thing to do! Now, for this I will have to show you the process:



the dangerous act was undertaken by who else, but The Man! Finally lit, we let the lantern free.:

it made its way flying too close to some people swimming, but in the end, it went up and far away:

We then walked around a bit, there were more than enough prostitutes, did not bother us, but the vibe of the place was pretty sad. Booths selling strange fruit were lined up across the streets:

Photo by HIF.

Ah, and here is an interesting effort by the authorities to prevent accidents:

Photo by HIF (@ my request!)

Other than that, had a lovely dinner at the Bamboo House restaurant, had some drinks listening to two Philippine girls singing songs in multiple european languages at a bar nearby, and spent the night at an overpriced, noisy, dirty hotel. Conclusion : I would not really go back to Karon beach, but not sure if you can do better around the area.

Next morning, we get in the boat very early to get to Ko Phi Phi Don, an island which had also sadly fallen victim of the 2004 tsunami. A magnificent place, crowded with tourists, but in a much more joyful and lively way than Karon.

I have to admit, was too excited to take too many pictures on this trip... so this post is just a summary, there are so many places to see and hang out here, esp. if you take into account the size of the island!

We took a fishing trip on one of these boats:

(Please, do notice the graficity of the act-we should be getting extra points for this!) the boatman was a bit surprised that we asked this, but nevertheless he got us the baits and all, and probably enjoyed the fishing part more than we did- he did catch fish, that is. The weather was a bit storm-ish, so despite my grandfather having been a fisherman, man of the sea and all, I was super scared! After the wind and rain settled down, we got into this small bay, just next to the island's main port, where we did some snorkeling:

and this is what the Man caught with his bare hands!

Photo by HIF (@ my request!)

Supposedly a delicacy for sushi, as it contains some deadly venom, so the cook (can you say cook for sushi? there is no cooking involved! let's say the chef, then) really needs to know what she's doing! After we threw it back in, poor fish took some time to deflate before returning home... it is alive, though, as far as I know (disclaimer: no fish were hurt-perhaps only emotionally- for the taking of this picture. Lots of fish were hurt during our dinners, though).

We climbed all the way up to the island's viewpoint, observe how thin the strip that connects the two parts is- maybe it's safer to say that it is actually two islands. The strip, as expected, was completely devastated during the tsunami. It was kind of raining when we got there. We even met some greek people at the viewpoint!

Ko Phi Phi Don is actually the only inhabited island among the group, but we did take the boat to go to nearby islands

(better to say rocks in the middle of the sea)

Once again, not too many pictures, were too excited swimming next to the sea turtles, and there was some serious diving involved (not by myself though). Ko Phi Phi Leh is actually THE beach.

Closing this post, there is one thing that made a very strong impression on me: the cable mess!

Photo by HIF (@ my request!)

I suppose all these cables are phone lines.