Phuket

We closed our Thailand vacation with 3 days on the very popular southern island of Phuket. The island's landscape is beautiful with mountains coming out of the ocean and great beaches. Unfortunately, parts of it were quite a bit nastier than the rest of Thailand because of excessive tourism, but on the whole it was still beautiful.

Phuket was HOT. I mean really really HOT. Constant sweating was a given during the day, but even late at night it was still sweat-while-standing-still hot.

We stayed at a great resort. This is a picture of the breakfast "room."

And here is the pool and the view:

We spent a limited amount of time at our resort and went on two nice excursions. The first excursion was a day trip to see the main parts of the island. We went to a hill with a nice view, a rubber plantation, a cashew plantation, a Chinese mansion, the main Phuket temple, and a touristy elephant camp.

I had no idea natural rubber came from trees. They cut a slit in the bark every evening and about a pound comes out.

The elephant camp wasn't nearly as nice as the one in Chang Mai and the elephants were noticeably less happy, but it was still fun and Erin got to ride on the elephant's head. She also held a big snake.

The highlight of Phuket was the sea kayak tour. We drove across the island to the bay of Phuket and took a boat into the cove. In this area there are hundreds of limestone islands that come right out of the water in all kinds of cool shapes.

When we got near the limestone islands we jumped in a kayak and our guide paddled us around them. They islands were awesome with their stalactites and steep walls rising about 200 feet out of the water. It was also fun to jump off the boat (video) and swim in a part of the Indian Ocean.

The constant barrage of waves and tides has carved caves into the limestone and we could paddle into the caves.

Some of the caves were really tight. Our guide would have us fully recline, let a lot of air out of the kayak and still just barely be able to squeeze us through an opening with about an inch clearance above us.

Inside the islands were beautiful and peaceful mangroves. We could leisurely paddle around and see the wildlife in the quite atmosphere.

Finally, the tour ended with a beautiful sunset.

We stayed at Patong Beach which seemed like a big spring break hot spot. The main street had a wide array of night life so we spent a couple ours people-watching and saying goodbye to Thailand.