After travelling for 2 months via bus, train, and motorbike, we arrived in Phuket, Thailand by air - our first flight of many for the remainder of our journey. Although we hadn't planned on staying in Phuket, we decided to spend a night in Kata beach, south of the island. The beach was everything you would expect of Phuket - beautiful white sand beach, luke warm turquoise water, and long tail boats lining the beach. Unfortunately, it was also lined with beach chairs for as far as you could see and packed with people. So, we quickly decided 1 day was enough...
The next day we left for Koh Yai, a small island close to Phang Na, which is the area where the karsts are located, most famously known for James Bond Island. This place was beautiful - quiet, peaceful, and although beaches not as white & blue as Phuket, the surrounding nature won us over. We stayed at a small bungalow on the beach with a giant porch and to this day, we haven't experienced a better porch than that and wish we could have spent more time sitting overlooking the water.
Lounging on the porch:
We rented a 2-person kayak and decided to take a day trip out to the nearby karsts. We headed off to the farthest karst, which had a small cave we could kayak through to a beach, thinking the trip would only take us about an hr and a half. Well, 30 minutes into the trip, our kayak was not anywhere near to the karst, so we changed direction and headed to a closer one. After a good hr of kayaking, we were exhausted and finally made it to land. We washed up on a small beach to cool off from the mid day sun. It felt like we were the only people on this island, so we took some time, had a snack and recharged before heading to the next. The next karst we found was something out of a postcard! Although not isolated as the other, since there were a few long tail boat visitors, this beach was spectacular.
Finding some shade under a tree:
We spent our whole afternoon there until we were forced to head back to shore, afraid that we would not make back before dark. The kayak back was long and difficult, but the views of the sunset over Koh Yai were unforgettable (check out the pics). We made it back to shore just before dark! Unfortunately we had to head out the next day to Koh Lanta, but next time will definitely spend more than 2 days on Koh Yai.
Sunset kayaking:
Our next island hop was Koh Lanta. We stayed in the south part of the island for the first few nights at Bamboo Bay beach. We hadn't heard much about Koh Lanta and where to stay, but we sure did luck out with Bamboo Bay. This is the southernmost beach of Koh Lanta and access via dirt road does not make it easy to get to. However, once we arrived, we were in paradise. There were only 3 small resorts on the beach and endless white sand to walk on. We spent our first day enjoying the sun and sunset over the water. Our next day was the day we finally rented a motorbike! We wanted to cruise up to some of the northern beaches on the island and there is no better way than by motorbike. We stopped off at Long Beach, another beautiful beach, and posted up at Friendly' Bar, where we quickly became friends with the waiter, Big, enjoyed some food, drinks, and soaked the afternoon away. We ended the day catching the sunset from a bar alongside the road at a viewpoint. Our last few days in Koh Lanta, we spent relaxing on the beach and snorkeling, because there isn't much else to do there and why not!?
Finally deciding to move on from Lanta, we boarded the ferry to Koh Mook. This was where we were doing our "vacation from our vacation". We booked four nights at a gorgeous resort on Koh Mook, Sivalai Resort. The resort was spectacular and was located on the western point of the island, definitely the prettiest beach on the island. The pictures speak for themselves, but you can imagine how we spent our days. We walked along the beach every day, snapping pictures of any sea life we encountered, mostly crabs and some scary looking spiky starfish. Shaun was brave enough to pick them up off the ground.
We made sure to visit the well known Emerald Cave, a small cave located on the side of the island that you have to swim through to reach a beach inside. We rented some kayaks & snorkel gear and made our way around the island to check out the local coral and fish. Our 4 days at Koh Mook went by too fast and we even discussed extending our visas to be able to spend more time on the islands. There are far too many islands to visit but we will have to save that for our next visit to Thailand!
Have finally been able to load pictures so please take a look!
https://picasaweb.google.com/rayann.torres/ThaiIslands#
amazing pics
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