Part II- the road to James Bond Island
| 04 July 2009
Gearing up to enter the caves... where this was going to lead I had no clue... but all about the adventure! I told the staff on the boat I was a travel writter.. so they gave me a guide to paddle so I could take pictures! hahaha! I threw them 100 baht at the end of the day.. they were thrilled (3 bucks!)
Here I am just going to post photos- To read about the trip to James Bond Island read "Shaken Not Stirred"
Kayaking through limestone caves
just love this photo!
natural beauty
limestone cliff from a side of a uninhabited island
Many natural Elephant formations in the limestone.. Elephants are prominent in Buddhist culture, see the legs and trunk hanging down, its just wild, all natural- and I saw about 5 of them throughout the day!
my nice 3 dollar haircut I got the night before! (head massage included!)
"Shaken not Stirred"
| 03 July 2009
The more I read and discover Thailand there seems to be many movies filmed on location here- and the southern islands have been inspiration to many fashion photography shoots, movies, art, etc. Rightfully so, it is beautiful here! The most famous of landmark here is James Bond Island or the real name of Ko Tapu.
I was most fasinated by the actual limestone formation... the tourist part for me was of no interest... but in order to get there you have to take a private guide boat (which would land up costing about 500 dollars) or you join one of these tourist boats that do the A-Z type stuff and you pay about 35 dollars. well I opted for the latter!
The trip turned out to be much more than I expected! It was no question one of the highlights of the Journey, not for the food, but for the scenery! We kayaked in two different places through limestone caves, were up close and mere feet away from wild monkeys, and the staff on the boat was first class- I landed up having such a great time with them, I would take the 10 hour trip again, just for the good laughs I had along the way!
Do Your Homework before you play...remember those famous words from your parents...
| 03 July 2009
I booked this guest house on www.hostels.com which has turned out to be a great site with a network of hotels, apartments, guest houses, and hostels. I should have done a little more homework on Southern Fried Rice (name of guest house)! I can not blame anyone but myself and of course like about 80% of this trip everything is just kind of happening and I am only planning a day or two in advance (at best 
)
I am not here to discuss the actual guest house, because for the most part it was very nice, clean, hot showers, full maid service (daily).. free internet (but the computers and connection are about as modern as a horse and buggy), aside from that the staff is very helpful and kind.. and the food really is outstanding there! I am not one for eating at guest houses or hotels but I will say the flavors were fantastic!
Here was my BIG issue when I booked this guest house- I saw that it was blocks from some of the nicest beaches on Phuket Island, had great reviews on hostels.com, and the basic web site looks great! There is one thing that doesn't seem to get mentioned ANYWHERE... the guest house is located in the middle of the Kata Night Bazaar. Which like every other great Thai town/city/village means to me, local, local, local at your finger tips! I was very excited... welllllllll, I quickly came to find out that the "Bazaar" is the "Ladie Bar" district of the town.. that's right, the whole place is filled with hooker bars... I quickly got away from that area and just started following the Western people walking, I figured I was safe then.. and sure enough they led me right to the middle of TOURIST-VILLE! But hey, I was okay with that, it sure did beat the "lady bar area"!!!!
Looks innocent, right...
I knew that I needed to find a better accomodation as soon as possible! I wanted to go to James Bond Island and see some of the islands a little bit further South, so I was going to have to put up with the location for 48 hours... I survived, but WOW, not my thing... and by the way those that are not familiar with the "lady scene" here, I suggest you do some google searching... it is crazy, yet more importantly a very sad situation for the people.
Be smarter than I was and do your fair amount of research- guest houses are not rated on the "star system" but I think location is key, especially in foriegn lands!
