Monday, July 7, 2008

Phuket Trip - Island Snorkelling, Sea Canoeing etc.

This is soOOOoo overdue but here goes anyway. Was at Phuket for 6 days during Christmas hols. Went out for excursions and island hopping almost EVERY day, it was sooOOo much fun!!!

My favourite gotta be the Similan Island outing! I'm SOOO glad i went for it and i gotta thank one of the locals for highly recommending the island. Almost gave it a miss because of the long journey to get there. The jetty itself is 1.5 hours drive from Phuket and then another 1.5 hours speedboat ride to reach Similan Island which consists of 9 small islands scattered nearby.


Let's checkout the pics!



Similan Island excursion


My absolute favourite outing in this trip - an island-hopping day which includes Similan Island, Miang Island, Payu Island and Bangu Island.


Taken from longtail boat.. omg, the gorgeous clear water! I feel like packing up and running off to the island again! lol



I climbed up to Similan Island Viewpoint. This is the awesome view you can get from there.



And you get this view of another beach when you turn to the other side



Random shot taken while climbing up to the viewpoint.



.. and another



.. and yet another!



Crystal clear water at Similan Island *dreamy sigh*



Checkout that SPARKLING water



The white sandy beach of Similan Island. Notice the little people beside that one single rock on top? That's the viewpoint which will take about 10-15 mins climb :)



yay! I swam with the turtle! It was spotted near our boat when we stopped at a snorkelling site in Similan.

Snapped this photo before jumping in! It was awesome! Apparently not everyone get to see turtle at that spot so we were really lucky that day to have one swimming on the water surface with us!! On the surface ok!! how cool is that! Fed bananas to the turtle and it must be hungry to wrestle and tug the fruit out of our fingers. Eventhough it's not as HUGE as the giant turtle i saw in Perhentian's sea bed, this one was swimming on the surface with us!!


This is Haad Lek or Honeymoon Beach in Miang Island. There's a private bungalow belongs to a Thai Princess there and when she visits, the Island will have to be closed to tourists.

Love the islands and I'm SO going back here!!

Okay, the next batch of photos are from my James Bond Island + Sea Canoe Outing.


Sea Canoeing at Panak Island & Hong Island


yeah, I went sea-canoeing!! Paddled from the sea, passing through dark bat caves to gorgeous mangrove lagoon inside. We canoed out twice actually, at Panak Island and Hong Island but I can't remember which is which island from the pictures now - having posted this 6 months after the trip :P


You gotta lie down allllll the way to enter the cave!


Took this quick shot before I went horizontal like them


Without our torchlights and occasional camera flashes, it would be pitch black inside. Well, at least we can sit up here :)


Sleeping bats...watch out for bats dropping.. close yer mouth when looking up!!


Emerged from the cave to this gorgeous lagoon!


aaah, so calm and peaceful


Can see monkeys jumping around sometimes


Paddle paddle...


Mangroove tree at the lagoon





Canoeing back and out from the cave... i see the light!!



Out at the sea again. Canoeing to our boats to go off to James Bond Island.


James Bond Island



Our boat for the James Bond Island and Sea-Canoeing excursion


Longtail boat at James Bond Island



This is where James Bond movie was shot... wayyy back when Roger Moore was Bond


Phi Phi Island



Went to the famous Phi Phi Island too but i have very very few pics to show. Read the sidenote at the end of this post *sigh*


Loh Dalum at Phi Phi Island. Snorkelled here too and saw 3 HUGEEE giant squids swimming together here. Too bad i did not have waterproof camera at that time.



Maya Bay, where the film 'The Beach' was shot.


I love this Phuket trip to BITS!!


Sidenote: Just discovered that except the online pics i uploaded on Picasa, all my Phuket pics are GONE!! *burst into tears* I accidentally deleted them on my laptop when i needed hdd space a few weeks ago, thinking that i have another copy on my home desktop but apparently i did NOT copy them over!!! gahhh... Even use DiskInternals' Flash Recovery to recover my deleted pics but it has been overwritten.. sobs

2 comments:

Romantic bed and breakfasts said...

These are the very pleasant and marvelous destinations with all the fresh air and tranquil and serene environment.
This makes a difference in a hustle and bustle urban living in one hand and a soothing, peaceful and unruffled life style on the other hand as well.

ashlight said...

yeah, it was a great getaway from the city. Thanks for dropping by :)