The rumbling started after our last dinner in Bangkok. I ordered minced catfish and I think they forgot the fish part! Our flight to Phuket was uneventful and the taxi ride through Phukett City and Patong made us glad we did not choose either of those locations…way too busy. When we arrived at our lovely resort in Karon, it too, is in a busy place. We had laid back beach in mind but ended up getting NJ beaches on steroids! The hotel was lovely…this is what you get for $35 per night.

The rumblings turned into full blown diarrhea on Wednesday which led us on a search for Immodium.  Unfortunately much of Wednesday and Thursday had me hopping between bed and bathroom. Poor Buzz ended up having to go out each evening for a bit by himself because he was going stir crazy. We did manage a walk to the beach which is very pretty. Buzz had wanted to try parasailing so we checked it out and a 3 minute ride was $45! Maybe in Cabo in January!

Breakfast came with our room and I was not able to eat so Buzz asked if he could bring some toast up for me. They said he was not allowed to bring food out but they would send some up to our room. The cute waiter also brought a dose of the Thai version of Pepto Bismol. So sweet! We searched out “safe” food for my meals. The largest number of tourists here by far are Russians, so there is alot of hearty foods. I ate tomato soup and rice for 2 days. By Friday I was feeling much better and we ventured out. We took a sangtao (basically a small truck with the back roofed and plank seats put along the sides) to the Big Buddha which was much cooler than we thought it was going to be. We can see it on the hill behind our hotel but there is only one road up and it took an hour to get to it. It is a fairly new addition to the thousands of Buddhas in Thailand and so far has cost 30 million baht which is roughly $850,000 US, which is a very large amount for Thailand. They have been working on it for 7 years and are nowhere near done. People buy bells and metal leaves and write their intentions on them and hang them around the Buddha. I bought a bell ad am keeping it!

We then headed to the beach for the afternoon. There is the long way and the short way to get there. We took both the other day and the short way is about 1/4 mile of a pathway alongside a stinking creek and the other way is about 1.5 miles. So the short way it is:

The beach is on the Andaman Sea which empties into the Indian Ocean. It has nice sand and is fairly clean. The water is a little above bath water temperature and is a little cloudy because of the high limestone content.

There was lots of stuff floating in the water but 80% of it was natural: huge pieces of seaweed of all types. We found ourselves a little spot under the trees where everyone seemed to gravitate. About every 10 minutes someone was trying to sell you something: hammocks, bathing suits (shouldn’t you already have one if you are at the beach and where the hell are you supposed to try it on???) Rolexes (ha), henna tattoos, popsicles, sarongs, etc. It gets pretty tiring but it is everywhere. Walking down the street you are being hit up to eat at their restaurant, get their massage, etc. but in a very nice way. They come into the restaurants while you are eating to try to sell you stuff. They even sent in an adorable little girl selling flowers (I sent that little hussy on her way!! ;.)

Saturday was the whole reason we came to Phuket. We had looked at many different islands but Buzz said he wanted to see Phing Kan Island (James Bond Island). So we went there. We booked a tour for Saturday. The van came to get us at about 7:15 and we had about a 90 minute ride to the pier. We boarded the “big boat” with about 20 other people (Chinese, Iranian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Kuwaitis, Brits, Aussies, Palestinians). We motored along for about 45 minutes to James Bond Island featured in the Man with the Golden Gun and again in Tomorrow Never Dies. It was craziness. We transferred from the big boat to a long tail boat and he took us to the pier. Because it was high tide, the pier was under about 6 inches of water as was the whole front half of the Island. Vendors sold lots of trinkets and we did end up buying a T-shirt. You can climb some stairs to get a clearer view of the karst (Weathered and eroded limestone rock formations) and climb around a bit in some of the spaces that have been “carved” out of the rock. Then after about 40 minutes you hop back into the long tail boat and get ferried back to the big boat. As we were leaving, there was a traffic jam of long tails and it was like rush hour in downtown Bangkok!

Once back onboard, we motored to Hong Island. There we boarded inflatable canoes with a guide and they paddled us through some of the rocks into a lagoon in the middle. Our guide pointed out Scooby Doo rock (at the top of the hill) and a couple of other named formations. We paddled around there for about 30 minutes.

Next was a delicious buffet lunch served on the big boat: sweet and sour whole fish, deep fried onions, carrots and pineapples, stir fried chicken and rice and spaghetti! The young Chinese China Doll went directly to the fish and plucked out the eyeball and put it on her plate!!

Then was the coolest thing of the day. We got back in the canoes and it immediately started pouring. No worries; we paddled 100 yards through a small opening in a cave. Because the tide was pretty high we had to lay down part of the way or get our heads bonked on rocks. We went through the cave about 100 yards and emerged in a lagoon completely enclosed with karst formations about 30 stories high. The water in the lagoon was only a couple of feet deep and many people got out and waded around. We saw “walking” fish, they climb up the mangrove tree roots about a foot or so and feed; if you splash them, they jump back into the water and swim away. The whole thing was so fabulous and beautiful. On the way back out, the tide had fallen so much that it was unnecessary to lie back, and all in about 20 minutes.

The last stop was to a little beach that people could paddle their own kayaks or swim or whatever.  Our guide, Mann, was part owner of the company with his sister, spoke beautiful English and took a liking to us and hung out with us and the Palestinians (who were very nice). We arrived back at the resort very tired and extremely happy.

The next morning we left for Bangkok to get ready for our next adventure – India!