monkey, sea & monkeys, phu-ket

Thanks for hanging in there friends! I hope you enjoyed part I of our Thailand trip, I know I did! I'm pretty sure that was my most favorite ever! However, keep reading part II. I was totally surprised during this part of our trip and had the most memorable time on one adventure... (FYI, it's pronounced POO-ket)


Day 5
We were off for a very early morning wake up call and went to the airport for our 6:30am flight. In my head it was a great idea because we would be at the beach, ready to explore by 10am. Well, we were at the beach by 10am but we grabbed 2 chairs and passed out from exhaustion for a good part of the day. Ha! There goes a day of exploring outside Patong Beach area! We didn't realize how long it would be in the car almost everywhere we went in Thailand. There's not major "highways" like we may be used to, and the airport was a good 45 minutes away from the beach. Without traffic.

That's another tip I have about traveling to Thailand and going to multiple cities. Probably why our 2 weeks was nowhere near enough time. There is a LOT of time spent traveling by car, bus, van, ferry, you name it. It's a mix of super boring and exhausting. There wasn't a day that we didn't travel at least 1.5 hours out and 1.5 hours back in for a day trip. Well, maybe in Koh Samui, but that's a story for later.

Booking day trips, calling taxis for departure rides, booking ferries for transfers, everything was seamless and we were always assisted extraordinarily by the Thai. I booked as much as I could in advance for plane tickets and transfers, but knew that once we arrived somewhere maybe we wanted to flex a day. Nothing in the middle was booked, (gives my Event Management degree-brain a minor freak out) and everything worked out! All of our hotel staff helped us, even at 10 at night might I add, at booking things for the next morning. (Side-side-note: we were staying in a hotel, not a hostel, that cost less than $35/night... they had such amazing service! Don't let the price fool you!)

Day 6
My second favorite day of the whole trip was this day! And I will say that it was a complete surprise. It felt good to let go of all plans and not worry about anything. We were taken care of from 8am at our hotel where we were picked up through the whole day until we were dropped back off at the hotel. And for lunch, well, that was just the most VIP thing!

Yes, it did start out as another "day in the car." But honestly we had just told our front desk where we were interested in going and they booked it- so we really had no idea what to expect. That was the best part! We were on vacation, after all. Best to relax and enjoy yourself!

Our first stop was to a "monkey cave." Not much here, and we were on a time schedule so we ran in and saw the temple, ran up the caves, saw the monkeys walking around and playing in the trees, and then we were off! About running up the caves, I was in a dress and went barefoot- it was steep and wet! And we're little adventuresome daredevils so you betcha we went straight as high as we could climb!

Back in our little 11-person van, we had some more driving to do. So, there were some more snoozes for me to do. No idea how doing nothing in a car for hours can be so exhausting, but I slept a lot. Helped pass the time too! Anyway, our next stop was a small convenience store that was very unassuming. Walking to the back of the store, we found a river full of the famous colorful longtail boats. It was our time to get in one and we headed out to the open waters. The wind felt amazing, and almost immediately did these sharp dark giants of what looked like inverted sculptures emerge from the sea. Covered in greens and life of all types, it was such a sight! They were everywhere! That ride was when I started feeling like, "wow. I could never have imagined such a thing!" We were traveling through a magical land, part dinosaurs-definitely-lived-here, part the-floating-islands-of-Avatar-definitely-existed-here, mostly amazement at what beauty the earth holds. The day was such a beautiful surprise, and we hadn't had lunch yet!

At one point there was a small gathering of colors off in the distance, at the foot of one of these giants. As we got closer, I realized they were houses! In the middle of the sea! Floating on the water! There was a village built off of one of the cliffs, it was unlike anything I've ever seen. It's called Pan Yee Village. When our boat pulled up to a floating dock, we walked right up and into a large restaurant with (obviously) amazing waterfront views (considering we were floating on it, in the middle of nowhere!) Better than any restaurant I've been to in Florida, that's for sure! The restaurant already had places set for us and included a variety of Thai food options that were ready for us to dig in to. We also had buckets of ice for our water! I mean, that I'm still in disbelief about. It's kind of a "thing" from living in Europe. Where the US gives you 3 ounces of a drink in an entire glass of ice (even in winter,) Europe will give you a bottle of Coke and not even have the option for ice (in 25+C summers.) This floating-in-the-middle-of-nowhere city in Asia had an ice bucket for every table! 5 stars if you ask me!

Okay, moving on. There's so much more than ice to talk about, but it was obviously noted. We had some time after lunch to wander around the little floating city and explore. We saw a school in session, a floating soccer field, and an entire mosque. The people here are Thai-Muslim, which was interesting to learn. The village was built on the fishing industry, which should have been apparent because the only way to travel to and from was by boat. Soon enough, we had to get back on our longtail to our next destination, James Bond Island!

So, let's take a second to LOL at me... I am only now adding this part in after I finished the post and realized I totally forgot to write about it. Does that give you any idea how exciting it was to go there? Oh man. I'm all about checking off that bucketlist but sometimes, you just have to laugh when you realize what exactly the hype is about... and it just doesn't do it justice to what you imagined. That's James Bond Island. Comparable to the Mona Lisa (sorry! But I mean, you don't realize it's like a 2 foot painting until you see it in person and are like "what?!? I thought she would be bigger?!?") James Bond Island got a little giggle out of me when I first saw it. It is nowhere near the size of any of its neighboring islands, and has a gaggle of tourists taking the same photo across the beach (notice second photo below.) I mean, I def took one too for the 'gram, but hey! I was there, so, photos or it didn't happen, right? 

There were also souvenir stands fully stocked with all sorts of touristy stuff on this little island... in the middle of the ocean! I mean, that was a whole other level of tourist trap to me. Insert shrug shoulders emoji here. I wouldn't know unless I went, and the whole day's trip was just beautiful- being on the water and seeing the amazing little village- so in that sense, it was worth it. Would I take a trip solely to see James Bond Island? Eh, probably not IMO. Don't let my opinion be your final decision! I think everything is worth seeing- at least once! It is a unique island because of it's shape, which was interesting to see how it "balances" up close.

We're tourists!

We were only there for a short visit, as you are on an island there is not much to do, before we got back in the boat. Heading for our last stop of the day, we went sea kayaking! Going through some caves and seeing unique rock formations was also a kind of relaxing. We saw some small sea creatures on the cave walls and even saw a walking fish!

Look closely! The walking fish is in the bottom middle

The day concluded with a delicious cold tea before boarding the van to travel back to Phuket. That evening, we still had a few good hours left in us so we walked down Bangla Road for some food and drinks. Talk about a tourist destination! A little Mexico, a little Daytona, Key West, and Las Vegas, there were plenty of blazing tunes, bright flashing lights, and lots of good people watching. Definitely not my favorite place, but again with a "check" off the tourist must-do "been" list.

Day 7
After booking our next mode of transportation (at 10pm the night before no less,) we got to sleep in a little! It wasn't a 6am departure, so we were happy to enjoy breakfast before hitting the road. We took a van to a bus to a ferry to a an island to a ferry to another beach to a van to our hotel. That about sums up our day, quick and easy commute right? Ha! This actually wasn't so bad. For some silly reason, there is no direct ferry from Phuket's Rassada Pier on the west directly over to anywhere near Krabi. Instead, there is a 6 hour trip from Phuket to the Phi Phi Islands with a "layover" then on to Krabi. We decided to take this route to see Phi Phi and make another "check!" We arrived Phi Phi with our bags (not our desired option, but we didn't have any others) and couldn't find the luggage storage that is rumored to be right there by the ferry port. We basically paid the guy at the ticket counter for the ferries to hold our bags under his desk for 2 hours. Win for everyone!

Had to snap a pic of how the luggage is stored on the ferry. It's a madhouse to get your bags when you are departing.

Glad I snapped this too, I would have forgotten to mention to have some money with you when entering the Phi Phi Islands

We ate a touristy seafood and frozen drink seaside lunch and walked the island to see the shops. Unfortunately the tide was going out so when we walked to the beach it wasn't as picturesque as we had well- pictured in our minds. The town was cute, smaller and nicer than Bangla Road. It was more reminiscent of Key West or New Orleans with a large tourist aim (read: college town with lots of bars.) Beside our frozen pina coladas at lunch or a local Chang beer while walking, we didn't get to experience this area as intended. Chris also wanted to go snorkeling and we heard around these islands was a great place to go. Sadly, even though our GoPro was ready for a swim in the waterproof case,  we didn't have the time and had to go back to the ferry to make it to our final destination for the day- Ao Nang Beach in Krabi.

We finally made it to Ao Nang Cliff View Resort just as the sun was setting. Make sure you remember the name correctly- there are like 4 different hotels with super similar names. Confusing! Anyway, THIS was my favorite place we stayed. It was like a summer camp in the jungle! There were individual bungalows of all sizes among all natural foliage, like the rooms were part of the environment. It was peaceful, beautiful, and such a unique experience! Doesn't hurt that the price was amazing too. We actually got a deal through booking.com for a "basic" room. We wound up in this cute cabin-like bungalow perfect for two people- but without air conditioning. (Plenty of units have A/C, for a little more $$.) Chris and I love to sleep cold so I was a little nervous about this, but there was a fan and with the windows open the natural breeze was so comforting. We only had issues sleeping the first night when the neighbors decided to have loud music on until 3am and I could hear every word they were saying... but that's not the property's fault. No idea how or why they thought that was necessary when staying in this beautiful nature reserve...

Thai Durian fruit growing just outside our door! Love it or hate it, you must try it!

Day 8
This was the part of our trip where the goal was to relax and enjoy the beach life a bit more. So after breakfast and a self tour of our property's cute pool, we took the free shuttle to the beach and caught a longtail over to Railay Beach.

We pretty much threw our stuff down on the sand and continued exploring the water for hours. Chris had his snorkel on looking for little fish and I was just acting like a mermaid, nbd. When we got hungry, we ate at one of the little restaurants on the beach and got drinks in a coconut. #CocoLoco time! We actually relaxed and sat there for a while, through a 5 minute "Florida rain" where the sky quickly turns dark grey and pours for a short time, then stops and clears up again.

Rare footage of me working on vacay. #content

We enjoyed finally relaxing and not spending an entire day traveling until we heard  few loud "BANG" sounds on the roof. People were gathering outside where we were sitting and started pointing, I thought oh no there was lightning that knocked something over, something bad! Nope! It was a family of monkeys jumping across all the roofs from the treetops! The restaurant we were sitting under had a metal roof and it made a scary excessive noise when they landed, but it was a sight to see! So fun!

As we were walking to the east side of Railay we came across more monkeys just casually walking along fence posts and on the sidewalks along with us. We also saw a few large monitors or dragons, whichever you prefer!

Low tide? Or just the season? Not sure this was the blue water I imagined for a Thai vacation

A sort of art install in the caves during the walk from one side to the other

On the East side we took a path towards Ao Phra Nang Beach. This beach was a little more crowded, with handfuls of people taking their chance at rock climbing. We also noticed the uniquely shaped offerings at Princess Cave... yes they are exactly what you are thinking!

We cooled off in the water a bit, walked the beach some more, and eventually made our way back over to the other side. Here we caught the sunset and a boat back to Ao Nang. This was another popular beach area, again so similar to my Florida experiences, like a Cocoa Beach area. We enjoyed a rooftop dinner and then had amazing drinks at a cocktail bar. I would tell you more, but again, ~not paid~ (shameless plug) so I'll keep my advice to myself. The bar was small but so fun, and we had great service. I mean, the bartender was a great mixologist and made me 2 AMAZING drinks based off what I said I dis/liked. I mean, nail-on-the-head kind of delicious drinks. I can be kind of picky (not sweet, not floral, not oaked/vanilla-y, definitely no scotch but whiskey is okay, not a superfan of bitters, no juice, etc.) and I like orange slices in my vodka which was extremely difficult to explain. I don't think I translated "orange" correctly so I was about to give up. Glad I didn't!

Not food trucks, food boats! 

Be on the look out for monkeys & my last post of Thailand!