Southern Thailand - Koh Yao Noi, Krabi and Phuket

Hello Everyone!

We have been having a much different experience down "south". After flying into Phuket, we hired a driver ( or I should say Kristin negotiated one) to take us to Bang Rong Pier. It was only a 20 minute drive, but the time passed quickly as we spoke to our very friendly Muslim driver. He was extremely nice and even asked us a bit about American politics and current events. We were dropped off at the pier and found a very small village, with one public bathroom, and a small and old wooden pier. There were only 3 or 4 other locals waiting for this longboat taxi which we heard would take us to the island of Koh Yao Noi. (Unfortunately, Adam had the 24 hour stomach flu and was only about 5 hours into his flu bug. Kristin is convinced it was a bad chicken gizzard in Bangkok, but I still hold that it was the flu.) As we were waiting for the boat, a tribe or flock or whatever you call a group of 30 monkeys came running into this village out of the jungle. They were jumping on cars, on rooftops and going through some of the garbage cans looking for food. I saw one take out some fruit and start eating it. They came within five feet of us and I'm sure I could have pet one of those cute monkeys. We will never know because Kristin told me not to.....

Our longboat arrived and we boarded. It took us about an hour to get to our island, but it was one of the most beautiful and memorable boat rides we have ever taken. It was our first view of the Andamen Sea and the majestic limestone mountains jetting out from the ocean all around us. We arrived an hour later to our island and moved our backpacks to a Tuk Tuk driver. We told him to take us to Sabai Corner which was a bungalow we read about in our Frommer's country guide. The ride was interesting as we noticed everyone was Muslim. The women were covered from head to toe, but that didn't stop them from riding their mopeds on the small streets. As in the past, we received many, many smiles and polite stares from those on the side of the streets which made us feel very comfortable. We arrived as it was getting dusk and their was only one "jungle home bungalow" left for rent. It was about $40 and it looked "ok" especially since we didn't have any other options.

The night was eventful. The insects outside were very loud. We had a water buffalo grazing 50 feet in front of our new pad. All of the "beds" had mosquito nets over them. I was bit by my first several mosquitos (rethinking the malaria pill decision now). As we were settling for bed, Kristin saw what looked like a decoration or a book end on the wall. It wasn't a decoration but some kind of colorful tree frog. We weren't sure how to get it out, so we assigned the task to Adam (our animal expert). He started approaching the frog every so slowly, when suddenly (and I mean with lightning speed) it jumped onto his bare chest and stuck. It was so fast that he screamed, jumped and smacked it off him. We soon discovered these tree frogs can jump 8 feet at a time and stick to the walls. To make a long story short, we couldn't get the frog and so I walked down and got the owner to come get it. He covered his hand with a napkin and it took him about 5 minutes to get the frog. Anna was mad at this point and looked at me and said "Why did YOU get us this dumb bungalow???" We finally got everyone in bed and Kristin and I giggled about where we were and how we got here. Everyone made it through the night with actually a good night sleep. Although Lexi had a few spider bites on her leg.....this was days ago and she is ok. :) We rented two mopeds the next day for $6 each and had a great time exploring this island. The food and views were fabulous.

We took a speedboat the next day from the Thakao pier to Krabi. After a longer commute by public bus and private taxi, we arrived at the Aree Tara hotel. It was a more expensive hotel, but only 2 months old and it had a very nice pool. It was a 5 minute walk from the Aonang Beach. We spent the next three nights at the hotel which had also had a great restaurant. We rented our own longboat driver for the day ($50) and he took us snorkeling and beach hopping. We snorkeled at Chicken Island and then found a great beach at Poda Island.

We hired a driver to take us on a 21/2 drive back to Phuket and we arrived at the JW Marriott Vacation Beach Resort. This place was nicer than we ever imagined as it is a five start resort with private beach and 3 of the best and largest swimming pools we have enjoyed. The kids had a chance to eat some hamburger and fries and our room had all the conveniences of home. We made some good friends from Scotland (John and Mary) and from Spain (Malcolm and Ann). We also attended church here in Phuket and there were only five other members who attended. It was on the second floor of a nice hotel and they only held sacrament service. The people were very nice and very glad we came.

Besides lots of beach and pool time, we left once to take a John Gray sea caving tour via kayaks. It was a lot of fun, as we explored numerous islands and limestone caves with a guide in our kayak. Some of the caves required us to lie down as flat as we could to get into the caves. We also entered very dark caves with hundreds of large bats hanging upside down. We had a chance to kayak on our own and swim which was fun. We also learned about the jellyfish species here and found ourselves holding a few in our hand. Another interesting item to see was a cave that had "glow in the dark" plankton in the water. As we swished our hands in the water at night, the water lit up and looked like underwater fireflies. We had never heard of let alone seen anything like this.

I feel like I am leaving out so many things, but these are the highlights. The beach here at the hotel had great smooth sand, a fun under current to play in, beautiful sunsets and yes Mynah birds. Kristin and I fed some wild Mynah birds on our pation this morning and they made some very peculiar sounds. We also celebrated Lexi's 12th birthday here in Phuket with a brownie cheesecake from the hotel bakery. It was fun and I'm sure one of the "warmest" birthdays she will remember.

We are now changing some of our trip plans as we bought airline tickets yesterday to Singapore. While it was not in our plans, the fact that we are so close was just too tempting. We leave in the morning (Friday) at 10 am and will be in Singapore through next Tuesday before we head back to Bangkok. We hope all of our family and friends are well back home!

(In the picture above, Adam is holding some of the items found in the local supermarket in Phuket....chicken feet, octopus, and some kind of angry looking fish with teeth.)