PHUKET, THAILAND 20 - 23 June 2009
DAY 2
Today is one of the highlights of the trip i.e. Phi Phi Island and everyone is in high spirit! It is very sweet of the ladies to wake up early and prepare breakfast for us and that’s what I called blissfulness. After breakfast, we drive down to the jetty at Au Chalong or Chalong pier. The drive from the hotel to the pier took around 45mins if you know the exact way, otherwise, perhaps 1hr. Usually tour operators would provide pick up service but of course, it is chargeable depending on which side of the island you are staying in. Unfortunately, places like JW Marriott, Marriott Mai Khao and Sheraton commands the highest pick up fees due to its location in the north, which can cost each person up to THB600! Not only that, you are the first to be picked up (Earliest) followed by many others in different locations AND you are the last to be sent back to the hotel, resulting in lots of time wasted in picking/sending others from/to their hotel.
DAY 2
Today is one of the highlights of the trip i.e. Phi Phi Island and everyone is in high spirit! It is very sweet of the ladies to wake up early and prepare breakfast for us and that’s what I called blissfulness. After breakfast, we drive down to the jetty at Au Chalong or Chalong pier. The drive from the hotel to the pier took around 45mins if you know the exact way, otherwise, perhaps 1hr. Usually tour operators would provide pick up service but of course, it is chargeable depending on which side of the island you are staying in. Unfortunately, places like JW Marriott, Marriott Mai Khao and Sheraton commands the highest pick up fees due to its location in the north, which can cost each person up to THB600! Not only that, you are the first to be picked up (Earliest) followed by many others in different locations AND you are the last to be sent back to the hotel, resulting in lots of time wasted in picking/sending others from/to their hotel.
Yours truly behind the wheels.
[Tips 01: Quick calculation – 7 pax x THB600 = THB4,200! That is worth > 2 days rental of our Toyota 3.0CC Fortuner!][Tips 02: Car rental fee per day can be as low as THB650 for a JEEP and diesel prices are not cheap BUT relatively cheap, so it is worth a drive]
[Tips 03: Full day parking fee at the Chalong pier is THB30. Not sure about the other piers though]
Once we reached Chalong pier, we proceeded to the jetty to board our speedboat to Phi Phi. There are some provision shops there that sells beverages, hats, snorkeling gears and stuffs. My wife bought a white hat there but I can’t recall how much it costs. We also got 3 pairs of fins from some peddlers there at THB100 per pair. When we are boarding the boat, there is this lady that kept snapping your photos and stuffs to be made into some kinda souvenir to be sold to you when you return to the mainland later. Since I don’t bother about these stuffs, I didn’t really ask how much it costs.
[Tips 04: Note that the tour operator does provide snorkeling gears excluding fins + drinks + fruits + lunch (sandwich on the beach, which they have included the costs into your tour fees) so don’t have to bring or buy drinks]
[Tips 05:Usually the speedboat comes with a toilet, so please refrain from peeing while you are swimming. As yours truly doesn’t know that, I held nature’s call until I reached the Phi Phi main island, ouch~!]
[Tips 06:The duration of the ride in a twin turbo speedboat takes about 1+ hr, so if you are thinking of taking a cruise, good luck!]
[Tips 07:We asked our tour operator to take out the lunch from the tour fee and instead drove us to the Phi Phi main island for lunch there instead, which is cheaper and better! But of course, you can only do this if you charter the boat to your own group.]
Our Phi Phi island itinerary are as follow:
Maya Bay, Loh Samah, Viking cave, Phi Phi don and Monkey beach.
I had planned to go to more places but due to the tides and the time frame, we could only visit the regular places to most other people did. The only difference is that, we decide when to move on and how long we want to stay in a certain location. We left Maya Bay after reaching there for 5mins as there is nothing much there unless you would like to do trekking to the viewpoint or laze around the beach, which will costs you THB200. Over-rated location due to ‘The beach’! Since we did not land on the beach, we saved THB200 each.
Maya Bay
[Tips 08: Beware of dishonest tour operator charging you more than THB200 per pax for the Maya Bay tax!]
Next we proceeded to Loh Samah. The water is truly beautiful! It is not like those in other islands that I have visited in Malaysia, which is crystal blue. The water at Phi Phi Island ranged from emerald to turquoise colored! It is breath taking. Although the variety of fishes is not as much, the corals variety will definitely excites you! As yours truly doesn’t have an underwater casing or camera, so it is unfortunate that we do not have any shots here. The only fish that caught my attention is a moray eel, which moved from one location to the other for a brief 15secs. We stayed in this location for roughly 45mins and proceeded to the Viking cave. The tour crew served us with fresh fruit platter of watermelon and pineapples.
Next we proceeded to Loh Samah. The water is truly beautiful! It is not like those in other islands that I have visited in Malaysia, which is crystal blue. The water at Phi Phi Island ranged from emerald to turquoise colored! It is breath taking. Although the variety of fishes is not as much, the corals variety will definitely excites you! As yours truly doesn’t have an underwater casing or camera, so it is unfortunate that we do not have any shots here. The only fish that caught my attention is a moray eel, which moved from one location to the other for a brief 15secs. We stayed in this location for roughly 45mins and proceeded to the Viking cave. The tour crew served us with fresh fruit platter of watermelon and pineapples.
Loh Samah
Plenty has been written about the history and story of the Viking caves, so you can easily Wiki it to get the facts. There are still people living there and the question you might ask is, where do they disposed off their cooking residues and nature’s call… don’t ask, don’t think. Anyway, with the Qs already in our mind, we asked our skipper to move up current a bit so that we could snorkel there with more peace of mind. The tide is low, so we could not swim near the shore, which is filled with sea urchins. The water visibility level is higher here compared to Loh Samah so… that more or less increased the snorkeling quality and enjoyment here. Jeff started to experience some dizzy spell here and thus opted out from snorkeling altogether. Fishes variety is pretty good. We saw a lionfish and plenty of clown fish here, which is rare in Loh Samah. Snorkeled here for around 45mins then we proceeded to Phi Phi Don i.e. the main island.
Viking cave
The main island is bustling with people, mostly Caucasians and business seems brisk around here. The first thing on my mind upon reaching this location is… WHERE IS THE REST ROOM??!?! We walked a bit until we reached the Banyan Hotel (Not Banyan Tree) and used their rest room. But in order to do that, you have to be a resident in that hotel, which ironically is under construction so we just use it anyway. We chose to eat at the Tonsai Village Seafood restaurant, which co-incidentally belongs to the Banyan Hotel J. Well I must say that this is the best meal I had thus far! 3 of us shared ala Carte while the rest ordered set meal. The portions are BIG and the quality is not compromised. Best of all, the price is cheap. The 3 of us ordered a glass of fresh mandarin orange juice each, Thai seafood salad, stir-fry kangkong and crab in chili oil. The total bill for the 3 of us is THB660 (S$28+ or US$19). I highly recommend Tonsai village seafood restaurant to those that are planning to lunch in Phi Phi Don!
We linger around a bit in the island and guess what? They have an ATM here and for those running out of cash or forgotten to bring your cash, you can withdraw money here. Note that there is a service charge though, depending on which banking institution your account belonged to. As we do not have a lot of time on our side, we have to leave the island. For my next trip, I would love to stay in Phi Phi Island for a night or two. The next location is Monkey beach and once again, the tide is low thus preventing us from reaching the beach, no thanks to the guardian sea urchins. We snorkeled here for a while with nothing much to show except for a table sized grouper, emmm~
Monkey beach
We left Phi Phi to Phuket and endured another 45-60mins sea ride. When we reached Chalong pier, it is about 1630. Yeaps, we met that lady that took our photos earlier but none of us purchased any. There are no bathing/shower facilities here except for a rest room at a nearby restaurant. They charged us THB20 for toilet use and THB70 for shower, which is a ripped off (I have not thought of how to counter this issue, maybe you guys can advice).
Next, we head to Phuket town for sightseeing… really, there is nothing to sight see here let alone shopping. If you are staying in other location and thought of coming here by taxi, forget it BUT if you are driving, it is worth exploring as our exploration brought us to a cheap and good BBQ steamboat buffet. I am not sure what is the exact location, so apologies for that. Anyway, the buffet only costs us THB105 (S$4.50+ or US$3) each excluding drinks (THB50 for 1L coke) and ice-cream (THB15). This is the location where the locals eat and the BBQ is interesting because the waitress would place a chunk of pork lard on top of the BBQ plate and kept replacing them as we dine. Overall, it was pretty good and if you could find this place, try it! By this time, Jeff most likely has accumulated plenty of solar energy in him as he is totally out for the next 3 days.
We wrapped up the day around 2230hr and anxiously awaits for the next day’s program… White water rafting!
Click here for for earlier postings:
Phuket Island trip Pt 01
Phuket Island trip Pt 03
Phuket Island trip Pt 01
Phuket Island trip Pt 03
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