Phuket, Thailand – March 21

Phuket, Thailand – March 21

We had to set an alarm for 5:30 this morning as our tour met at 7:00 – ack, but after one cup of coffee – that's my limit when I have a morning tour- it was ok. We headed off through Phuket city and then north across the whole island – then we crossed a bridge to the mainland and we were in Phang-Nga Province. Our first stop was at Wat Tham Suwan Kuha which has a temple in a cave. While the temple was interesting the real attraction was the monkeys – hundreds of them lived on the very steep hill outside of the temple. Cute little guys and since you could buy corn and bananas to feed them, they were very tame (and very well fed!). Then it was back onto the bus and on to Phang Nga bay for our boat tour.

By now it is beyond hot and we are all hoping that at least the breeze on the boat will help – it did and we all survived. We rode along through the bay just sightseeing – out and back was about 2 hours. I loved all the steep mountain islands that we passed – too bad the haze didn't make for very good pics. We also circled around James Bond Island – I'm not sure which film was shot there, but the guide said it was in 1977. Since our guide looked to be maybe 30 that must have seemed like an ancient movie to him. We stopped at the Muslim Fishing Village; it has a long Thai name, but the guide said no one uses it. It was almost destroyed by the tsunami in 2009 so most of the houses are rebuilt and they are just now rebuilding the mosque. Then it was back to the little dock and to a hotel for lunch. We were all looking forward to a nice cool air conditioned hotel... nope, no air conditioning, but it was outside on a shaded patio area and the food was great. Thank heavens the bus was nice and cool for our ride back to the ship.

We arrived about 30 minutes before we were to sail so instead of browsing through the large area of shopping stalls, we went back onboard. It was soooo nice to put on cool clothes and lie flat! Jim went to the movie at 6:00 but other than a quick dinner in the buffet I hardly moved off the bed the rest of the night. Totally pooped! Next we have 2 sea days before Colombo, Sri Lanka – that's where we have our second Ensemble Experience tour.