Monday, January 5, 2015

Virkler/Horton Adventure Continues - Phuket, Thailand

From Chiang Mai we flew to Phuket in southern Thailand.  This was the last stop on our adventure and despite everyone being a little tired and some under the weather (various family members fought a stomach bug over our travels - it just seemed to pass from one person to another slowly), we still managed to see some great places and have a fun time.

Our first day we were scheduled to visit the Phi Phi islands.  We were on a boat with 35 of our closest friends, ALL of whom spoke Russian along with our guide.  Somehow or another we ended up on a tour where everything was said in Russian.  Our guide would go on talking in detail about each island we were seeing and stories about how places got their names and the sort - he would talk for 10 minutes and then walk over to us and say, "Ahhhh, Phi Phi island, Ahhh one hour".  We would then know the name of the island and that we had an hour to be there (or maybe he meant we would be there in an hour - who knows!).  Needless to say, it took away from the experience a little (a lot) as did the fact that we were visiting at high season so each place we stopped had THOUSANDS of people standing around.  A little harder to appreciate the natural beauty with that many people standing in crowds.

Regardless we did get to see some beautiful islands and we did decide how we would have done it if we could do it over - on a private boat visiting islands where the tourists didn't want to go, enjoying lunch on the boat in a quiet bay and that sort of thing - sounds expensive!  In our dreams....



Lobby of our hotel

Checking in - Papa chilling

Waiting for our rooms to be ready

Very cool pools





Waiting for our boat to Phi Phi (smiles all around!)

On the boat


Phi Phi island



Our closest friends are arriving.....
... and boy are there a lot of them!




At another stop that day we decide to leave the crowd in go in search of a more secluded area


The kids found a space and had fun exploring the rocks




Of course, we eventually had to return to the main beach - that's a lot of boats!



Back at our hotel pool ....

... to enjoy a cocktail in peace!




No comments:

Post a Comment