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Aaahhhhhh Phuket....once the gem of Thailand....and parts of it still are but I must admit I was definitely disappointed with parts of Phuket. The wrath, aka "the Beast," of tourism has definitely take over part of Phuket. After our 5 hour layover in the Bangkok airport (which was not planned) we arrive in Phuket. We avoided Patong Beach at all possible costs because we heard it was just awful with tourists. At the airport their were buses of Eurotrash getting on their buses headed to such places as Patong. No thank you! Instead we chose to stay on Bang Tao Beach. We had no idea what to expect. We pulled into our cute little hotel, put our stuff down in our bungalow and headed straight for the beach. It was amazing. By the time we arrived it was 5ish so the sun had already started to set. Looking out into the lagoon it was 4 km of Paradise. It was exactly what I was looking for. Amidst the high tourism of Phuket, we seemed to esape it and found beauty on the island. We immediately jumped into the ocean...finally we made it to the beach!!!

Phuket: Beauty meets the Beast

Casey Lary
2006-02-20 15:16:09

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and smaller, and smaller, to the point Leah, Liz, and I were lying flat on our backs, heads pressed between each others crotches trying to prevent losing a nostril on the ceiling 5 inches from our face in the pitch black dark cave. quote from leah "Now I know what childbirth feels like," referring to Liz's head placed so close to her crotch. Of course, to top things off, our paddler forgot his flashlight. Now, I never get clausterphobic. I definitely felt short of breath in these little caves! At one point the boat was just too big to go through the little hole. I was ready to turn around! What I thought at first was one of the boats popping was the paddler letting out air so that the boat could fit. I honestly thought I was not going to have a face after this experience. Once inside the rock there was a beautiful lagoon with tall trees that had the most amazing roots. The cave was definitely worth it. It was amazing...until we had to go back through the cave.

Turquoise water...incrediblerock formations and paddled around, including a skinny rock that is now called the "James Bond Rock" because it was used in one of the James Bond movies. Which one? I have no idea. Also, our boat had a Japanese couple on it so me, jeff, and jason got to test out our Japanese once again. We ended the day going to a nice beach. Although the day was over, the night was young...it was New Years!

After a New Year's Banquet at our hotel we headed to Patong for the night festivities. Bang Tao was great for daytime beach and good atmosphere, but the nightlife was kind of non-existant. Other Hiroshima JETs were in Phuket. We had no idea if we would see them but we were going to try. 5 minutes along the main drag we ran into them! I thought that all of Thailand would be one huge beach party. To my surprise it was not. We headed to the main strip of bars on a street perpendicular to the beach. The atmosphere of Patong was sooo different. We could have been anywhere in the world. There were so many different people and westernized restaurants and shops. Yet,

Our Boat Driverit was fun to be there for New Years! We hopped into a Irish Pub (it seems wherever I go I somehow end up in an Irish pub!). It was actually really fun because they had live music and were playing stuff we could all sing to, including Summer of '69 (yeah pi phi) so leah and I were very excited about that. For part of the night Hiroshima JET Jen and I stepped out to go to the ATM. There were fireworks going off EVERYWHERE. I felt like I was in a battlefield. I kept my head turned away from the streetfireworks for fear of something hitting my eye. After the ATM we also picked up a cheaper kombini beer and chugged that. It was turning into a night of debauchery. We all celebrated a wonderful count down and began the New Year with a shot. Most people get kissed at midnight. This year lets just say I was not kissing anyone! The rest of the night got a little crazy....random people were running to the beach and lets just say there were more than 3 pairs of shoes outside our bungalow in the morning.....it was out of control

Our private beachand we all had some fun stories to tell the next morning. Way to bring in the New Year with a bang!

So this concludes our Phuket experience. Has tourism destroyed the island? No...there are some great spots like Bang Tao Beach. I definitely enjoyed Phuket and Phang Nga Bay more. We had an incredible time and there were some great memories.