READY to head into our last day of the vacation and head off on one of the island tours, we were disappointed to discover that it would have actually required some prior planning for us to be able to book ourselves on one.
The two most popular destinations are Maya Bay which is where ‘The Beach’ was filmed and ‘James’ Bond Island’ which is close to the Phi Phi Islands, near mainland Thailand. Sadly both these tours set off at very un-vacation like times , in fact much earlier than I even get up for work so we decided to spend the day taking in a final twenty four hours of sunshine before returning to Suwon tomorrow.
Although I was disappointed that we missed out on an adventure it turned out to be a nice quiet day which fitted in very well with the rest of the time we’ve spent in Phuket.
We headed out towards Kata beach after discovering that most of the tours had already left and grabbed some food at a restaurant in the main town. We headed back to the main stretch of beach where we’d spent the first day and lounged around in the water and laying on a sun lounger for a couple of hours before deciding to be adventurous.
Although we’ve visited most of the beaches in Phuket during our stay we decided to head to one more before we left, heading towards Bang Thao beach which is just north of Surin and Kamala and about a 45 minute ride away on the bike. Well it only takes that long when like most other places it’s signposted for psycic people who realise that the turnoff is about ten minutes back in the direction they just came from.
After winding our way down a couple of small roads and being able to see the beach through the trees we decided to make a break for it through a hotel car park which seemed to lead to the beach. Luckily there was no-one there to stop us from reaching the beach and we walked down a fair bit of the 8km stretch of beach before deciding that we needed an ice cream and a sit down.
Bang Thao beach might just be the largest one in Phuket and it certainly was one of the prettiest. The water was fairly cold but the sand was perfect and as usual there were plenty of places to grab a seat as we virtually had a km of beach to ourselves. After a rest and a tasty cornetto we hopped back on the bikes and tried to find the invisible waterfall that we were unable to seek out the other afternoon.
Heading down a few narrow streets we figured we were getting somewhere until every single road we decided to go down led back onto the original road that we’d turned off. Deciding to cut our losses and head back towards the beach before the sunset we decided to stop in at Patong to get some dinner and then take one last walk on the beach in the dark. As it turned out by the time we’d had a little bit of a dip in the water and had some food it was still pretty early so we made a beeline for a bar near the shooping mall which had a few pool tables in.
Throwing 200 Baht at the waitresses we managed to get ourselves eleven games of pool and spend about an hour and a half entertaining ourselves before it was time to come back to the room. Well, that’s pretty much all as far as Thailand goes for me but I have to say that this might just be one of the best places I have ever visited and it was an excellent decision to come here as I have loved every second.
It’s always nice to get out of the city and leaving the concrete jungle of Suwon behind for a little while was a wise decision. Sure a week off from work would have been great had we stayed in Korea but it was fantastic to get out and see a different part of the world. I’m sure not all of Thailand is as glorious as Phuket but it truely is a wonderful place to spend sometime and I urge anyone with the opportunity to visit to come here and check this place out.
The beaches are wonderful, the food is fantastic, the weather is unbelieveable and the people are friendly and speak English so you’d be a fool not to. I’m pretty much sure I will be making a return visit in the near future because I have enjoyed it that much and although during our Christmas vacation it’d be cool if we could go somewhere different, I wouldn’t at all be disappointed if we ended up back here because it’s cheap but a great place to be and I consider myself very lucky to be here.
I guess that’s the week gone though and on Monday it will be a return to normallacy and a return to teaching English. It’s strange to be heading back ‘home’ by that I mean that I consider Korea to be my temporary home for the time being and while it’s nice to go away it’s always good to come back, just a bit wierd that I won’t be able to share my experiences with all my friends as I’ll only be a little bit closer to them.
We head out from Phuket airport between 6-8 tomorrow (Kevin still needs to check the ticket!) so most of tomorrow will be spent killing time before we return to Incheon via Hong Kong. I can only hope that things are as smooth in transitioning us back home as they were coming here!
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