Phuket

Friday, December 15, another day in Phuket Thailand

We were berthed today, beside what looked like an enormous ship called Mein Schiff, a German cruise line, but when I looked it up on the Internet, I found it only had 2500 passengers compared to our 490. I thought it would be interesting to compare the size against the Royal Caribbean ship that we had seen previously, that held 4,900 passengers had they been side by side. After researching further, I learned that the ship line was a joint venture between Royal Caribbean and the German owned TUI cruises, who were about to launch the inaugural cruise of their Icon of the Seas, the largest cruise vessel in the world, holding, wait for it……. 5,610 passengers and 2350 crew/staff.

Up at 6 AM for 8 AM departure for an 8 ½ hour tour to Phang Nga National Park for our cruise around Phang Nga Bay. We took this boat tour in 1993 and it was spectacular so we were hoping it would be the same today for Peter and Heather. Unfortunately, because of where the boat was, compared to where we stayed previously, it came with a 2 hour drive, which we didn’t expect. Fortunately, the bus was very modern and comfortable. The traffic was quite bad leaving the core, but after that, it returned to normal. One of the fun things we saw along the way was pickup trucks on the way to work, with up to 15 workers sitting all crammed together in the truck bed.

Remembering that Phuket is an Island that is only 21km long, we had to cross the half mile long Thep Krasettree Causway to get to mainland Thailand and the National Park. The park includes more than 42 limestone islands formed over 300 M years ago, jutting straight up from the ocean, to heights of up to 350 feet, and in every imaginable shape and form. Just when you think you have the best possible picture, you round another island only to see an even better view. It is a photographer’s dream.
The boats are powered by outboard motors that have very long drive shafts which extend out behind the boat, rather than the traditional straight down into the water type. They are very noisy, but besides requiring a fair amount of physicality to control them, allow the boats to move right along while at the same time making them quite maneuverable, a real benefit when in shallow water. Along the way there was a cave/tunnel through the bottom of one of the islands and our driver carefully negotiated our way through the cave that had only about 10’ of headroom at the entrance.
Another interesting deviation was to slowly motor through narrow channels, lined by up to 30 varieties of mangrove trees with their exposed roots. Mangroves are tropical trees that thrive in conditions most timber could never tolerate — salty, coastal waters, and the interminable ebb and flow of the tide. With the ability to store vast amounts of carbon, mangrove forests are key weapons in the fight against climate change. The largest amount of mangrove coverage in the world is Indonesia where mangrove trees cover some 12,000 square miles which is more than twice the size of Jamaica.

The most popular island is Kao Ping-Gan, the James Bond Island, with its iconic limestone karst rising straight up between two islands, featured in the James Bond movie “The Man with the Golden Gun” from 1974. Another striking feature of the island is a huge slab of rock that many thousands of years ago, sheered away from the cliff and slid down onto the beach forming a wedge-shaped passage (it housed the entrance to Scaramanga's lair in the movie)

The next stop was at Muslim Gypsy village on Koh Panyi. This 200-year-old community was amongst the first to be settled in the bay. They built their village on stilts above the water. During the day, the tour boats bring hordes of tourists to see the village and the temple and have lunch. They are totally self sufficient and have a school, public health center as well as a large floating football stadium that is listed as one of the most fascinating football stadiums around the world. In the middle of the island was an incredibly beautiful Mosque which stood in marked contrast to the rudimentary buildings on the rest of the island.
The entertainment for tonight was a movie which we had seen before and decided to leave after about the first 15 minutes.Read more