Today, after a beautiful 10 hours of sleep, we had pre-booked a speedboat island hopping excursion. Unfortunately, I neglected to charge my iPhone, so there we have no photos 🙁 After a delicious breakfast spread featuring everything from waffles to dim sum, we were picked up at 8 am to head toward the Phuket Marina. After the typical tourist check in, we received our flippers, goggles and boarded our speed boat with about 20 other travelers from Korea, Argentina, and Australia. Our itinerary included 6 different islands. We approached various colossal and luscious mountains which were beautiful. We saw another dimension of earth’s natural and untouched beauty. You can see these beautiful mountain rocks and how they have changed over the years from water erosion. We arrived at our first stop where we all jumped into the water from the boat. The sun was shining and the water was crystal clear. Josh and I both felt so connected at this moment, we also felt quite small while being surrounding by these massive rocks inside the water. After 20 minutes, we got back on board and were served delicious cold pineapple and water melon that was sweeter than candy. Our next stop was Monkey Beach. We arrived at this island where our boat pulled up to the side of a cliff where trees hung low towards the water. We noticed tons of monkeys swinging around. Our skipper threw bananas at the ones and these cute little things caught them and peeled them. We all started throwing bananas and suddenly there were too many moneys to deal with. Our next stop was Phi Phi island where we stopped for lunch. Josh and I were so hangry (hungry and angry) and were excited to eat. We ran to the buffet area, which was filled with about 50 other tourists and made a few plates of food. There was a young Thai lady preparing fresh papaya salad, Josh’s favorite! We set our plates down at our table right next to the sea and went back for another plate. When we returned, we found about 10 black birds enjoying our meal for us. Gross. So, we moved inside. On our way back to the boat, we saw a photo collage paying tribute to the Tsunami in 2004. this hit us hard and we started thinking of the devastation and the lives that were taken from this tragic natural disaster. Josh and I looked towards the beautiful, crystal clear ocean and closed our eyes to say a silent pray to pay tribute to those that were lost. Then we turned to each other, hugged and felt so thankful to be in that moment together.
We moved on to our last stop; a deserted island filled with the same tourists. Josh and I wandered off to the other side of the island where no one was and played on the rocks. We saw crabs, barnacles, fish and simply enjoyed the beauty of where we were. The moment ended, we got overheated, and took a nap under the trees. On our 1 hour trip back our group of new friends from our trip all sat in the front of the boat outside and closed our eyes as we enjoyed the sun and pleasant sound of the water. It was a perfect day. We headed back to the hotel to chill out for a bit, nurse our sunburns and get ready for dinner and a wild night out in Phuket!!
Our wild night in Phuket. Joshy here as Dane and I both agreed this night should be in my words. After some down time from that sun filled day, Dane and I wanted to experience the local flavors and have some true Phuket fun. We had no real plan so I quickly did some research for restaurants in the gay area and we agreed on a place that featured dinner and “cabaret-ish” show, I say ish because all the performers are ladyboys. So now we’re dressed, we’ve picked a location, we’ve put tons of cream on our extremely red faces and we walked out the door. We have learned from this night that our jet lag is at it’s worst right before dinner time and that mixed with the over stimulating insane in your face at all times way of life in Potong beach added with the sometimes explosive nature of Dane and I resulted in a big, immature fight between the two of us. Dane was mad at me because I hadn’t ‘planned’ the night enough, I was mad at Dane. We got angry with each other, we got sad with each other, we walked on opposites sides of the street from each other, we threatened to go home without the other a few times. Until we finally looked at each other, smiled and said this is ridiculous. Let’s pick a place, sit down, have a shot of Tequila and eat some noodles. We grabbed hands and crossed the street to stop at the first place that had food. We stopped in front of this cute looking place with long tables of people all sharing tables and it was called Thai 6. This is a restaurant that we had been trying to find every night since we had arrived! We must of passed it at least 10 times since our arrival but because of our path of craziness from up and down streets, crossing streets in the midst of fighting we landed in the one place we both wanted to be in the first place. A nice little reminder, in a land rich with these traditions, that you sometimes life takes you where it wants you to be. You just never know how your going to get there. Needless to say, it was one of our favorite nights.
