This was my least planned trip ever. We just booked our flight tickets, an Airbnb apartment and left everything else to chance. We had no plan of what we were going to do after landing in Phuket. We just wanted to have some fun time and relax in Phuket.

All I knew about Phuket before arriving was that it has great beaches and islands around it.

Day 1: Hyderabad to Phuket

We had to change our flight (1hr 15mins gap) in Bangkok to reach Phuket. We wanted to go for Visa on arrival (VoA) and just carried enough documentation and cash for that. While getting our boarding passes, we were informed by the airline staff that we really didn’t have much time for the visa process in Bangkok and it would be tough for us to catch our flight to Phuket as the VoA queue will be huge and that it takes lot of time to clear. So, we felt very worried that we would be missing our next flight and decided that we should really run across to get things done on time, once the flight lands.

Though there was a big queue for VoA (costs 2000 THB), we requested the authority there to help us as our next flight is just an hour away. Luckily, the process got done quickly and we could finally land up in our next flight. Also, our flight to Phuket got delayed, as many of its passengers were in the VoA queue. This was a big lesson for us to have a good flight gap when there is some visa process involved.

Keeping these aside, we were on a Thai Airways flight and the flight journey was very good. It was a colorful flight and the seats were very spacious.

I was waiting to see the landing of the flight in Phuket, particularly because it is a beach place. I was expecting great views and luckily got a window seat. YES, I was right, the views were awesome with mountains and beautiful limestone formations.

Mountains + beach = Crazy combination and I didn’t expect a hilly terrain in Phuket, was expecting a plain and the view from the flight excited me a lot.

Our Airbnb apartment was in the middle of Phuket town, in the happening area Patong with all night life around. Initially, we wondered if we should stay in the center or stay somewhere far away from the busy life, but I would say it was a great decision to take a hotel in Patong as everything was within reach and the beach was at a walking distance.

After some rest, we went outside in the night to explore Patong area and found it very interesting, full of shops, people all around with great night life.

We spoke to a tour operator on the way and decided to go to Phi Phi islands after a day.

Day 2: Patong Beach

Patong beach is a great place for swimming and other water activities, the beach is clean with white sand and perfect to play in water even for non-swimmers.

We had a great time at the beach and then had lunch in one of the restaurants on the beach side where the food was great. I could find tasty vegetarian fried rice. My other friend is also a vegetarian, so I had company 🙂

We found an interesting place called Lub.d, one of the finest interiors I’ve ever seen with a design thinking room, co-working space etc. I’ll definitely stay in this hotel/hostel if I come back again to Phuket.

We realized that Phuket is a huge island, exploring all parts of Phuket itself will take a lot of time.

Day 3: Phi Phi island tour

There were so many options for Phi Phi island tour provided to us by various travel operators, most of them are like mix and match of different places on the way.

We took 4 islands 8 point tour which covers Phi Phi Don, Phi Phi Lay, Maiton and Khai islands with 2-3 snorkeling stops. It costed us around 1150 THB/- per person. We met various tour operators before finalizing it. We took the final quote from one operator, then went and bargained with other operator quoting that price and finally came up with this cost. The tour included pickup and drop from our hotel too and it was very convenient.

Our trip started at around 9am from our hotel and we reached a pier (30mins from Patong) which is located close to Maiton island and boarded a speedboat from there.

Before boarding, we were advised to take a pill to avoid vomiting as the speed boat travels very fast and will have a lot of turbulence. Also, we were suggested to buy  walking shoes to avoid fishes biting our feet on Khai island (which was unnecessary).

The speedboat was a very small one, which accommodated around 20 people. It was a closed boat which had no clear external view from inside the speedboat. We started our journey to Maiton island first and there the boat stopped in the middle of water, little away from the shore, for snorkeling and swimming. My friend who knew how to swim  went for snorkeling, but the two of us stayed on the boat as we didn’t want to risk snorkeling in deep waters without instructor’s help. We enjoyed the views from the boat amidst beautiful backdrop and clean, turquoise waters. As per my friend, there were a lot of fishes and it was a good snorkeling experience.

Most of the people on the boat went for snorkeling and I felt bad for missing out on that opportunity due to lack of swimming skills.

From there, we moved on to Maya Bay (very scenic). We just had to view Maya Bay from the boat. We were not allowed to go there as the entry to the island (National Park) is charged extra 500THB and not included in the trip and the maximum time one is allowed to stay on that island is only 30minutes. Maya Bay is very beautiful with a hill and white sand beach, it became a famous tourist place after a Hollywood movie called “The Beach” was filmed there.

From there we moved on to see Viking cave (lime stone formation) on the way. It had beautiful formations all around.

We stopped there briefly and moved on to Phi Phi Don island for our lunch. Finally we got a chance to step down from the boat and walk on the island 🙂 It was very crowded as most of the tourist boats stopped there for lunch. We went to a hotel where buffet lunch was provided for us and it was okay. We just had one vegetarian option there and few fruits, it was more like survival lunch :P. It was a very sunny day, we were hungry by then and had whatever was available.

After lunch, there was another snorkeling point nearby where people got down for swimming. Later we moved on to Khai island (the most awaited island), where the fishes will be seen close to the shore. We got down there and spent sometime in the beach. It was a very small and beautiful island.

We felt very refreshed after being in water with a cool evening breeze. We could spot a lot of yellow/black striped fishes near the shore and more fishes came in when we put in a piece of bread in water, it was a wonderful sight.

We didn’t feel like coming back from that island. It was so peaceful and beautiful and it added the magic feel at the end of the trip 🙂

From Khai island, we headed back to Phuket and then to our hotel. After a great day in waters, we went out for dinner to a colorful food court nearby, where my health conscious friend had fruits, my experimental friend tried out dangerous looking charcoal ice cream and the not-so-experimental me had vegetable soup for dinner 🙂

The best part of food in Phuket was fruits. There were a lot of varieties of fresh and juicy tropical fruits and most importantly MANGOES. I loved having fruits for dinner. They sell freshly cut fruits in a plastic container.

Day 4: James Bond Island Tour

Today was the longest of our day trips, to the famous James Bond island. It costed us around 1450THB per person and this time it was a bigger boat which is a kind of cruise (more luxurious one). Many operators recommended this trip (Sea Angel). Only two of us went on this trip as my other friend stayed back in Phuket for some work. We started very early by around 8am from our hotel as the harbour or Pier was located very far from Patong (northern Phuket). It took us around 2hrs to reach Phang Nga Bay View point from where we could watch stunning views over the limestone islets of the bay.

From there we reached a private pier, from where our boat started.

We loved the boat, it was very spacious and had good seating structure. It had seats on the deck with a roof along with some bean bags where people can sleep and relax watching the views. It also had seats below the deck with windows. Luckily we got seats on the deck and that was the best thing to happen.

It was not a very sunny day and the breeze on the boat was amazing. There were magnificent limestone formations all over. I could not resist clicking photos and of course posting them here too 🙂

I was reminded of Halong Bay in Vietnam looking at these formations and if one observed carefully, this is not a sea with waves, but a bay with calm waters and so the journey on the boat is also peaceful. We had fruit juices and cookies on the boat. The experience on the boat was just awesome.

After around an hour’s journey, we got down at James Bond island, which became famous after the James Bond movie “Man with the Golden Gun” was shot there. Ever since then, it became a famous tourist spot and here comes the iconic shot of the James Bond island.

It was a very small island full of shops. We tried various poses here and had good fun time. We were supposed to take this shot here, but ended up with this one 😛 😀 LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

After visiting James Bond island, we had a very tasty buffet lunch on the boat amidst beautiful rocks and trees in the bay.

We slowly moved on to Hong island, one of the famous canoeing sites in Phang Nga. Hong in Thai means room and here at Koh Hong, big and small limestone mountains gave you a feeling of being surrounded in a large room with two doors. We were sent in teams of two in a canoe along with a local canoe rider.

It was a very lovely experience of driving in between the rock formations and my first ever canoeing experience was real fun amidst the nature’s wonderful rock creation. Swimming option was also available at this point near the boat.

After Canoeing, we reached back to the Khlong Khien Pier from where we started our journey and it was just an AWESOME trip. Will definitely recommend this trip to anyone planning to visit Phuket. In fact, we crossed Phuket island to take this trip.

James Bond island (Phang Nga Bay) was close to the north most tip of Phuket and Phi Phi islands were on the southern part of Phuket and these can be reached from Phuket and Krabi both.

We reached back to our hotel after a long journey from the Pier and relaxed for the day.

Day 5: Phuket Local tour

We started around 11am in the morning and went on Phuket expedition on our own.

We hired a local taxi for 1300 THB, to take us around the main points of Phuket town. We first headed to Karon view point, from where views of beautiful mountains surrounding the clear Phuket beaches are seen.  Karon view point is locally known as ‘Khao Saam Haad’, which means Three Beaches Hill.

Then we moved on to Big Buddha statue (still under construction), which is situated on top of a hill. I would say it was gigantic, more than big 🙂 It had spectacular views from all angles.

There is a meditation hall near the statue inside the temple like structure, where the history of Buddhism is beautifully presented in pictures. We meditated there for a while and a Buddhist monk appreciated us (Indians) for our high energy levels generated during meditation.

Later, we visited the famous Buddhist temple in Phuket, Wat Chalong temple with great architecture and bright golden colors.

It was very sunny and we couldn’t spend more time outside. So, reached our hotel after having lunch.

We later went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner and then got the famous Thai head and foot massage done (definitely worth it), before leaving Thailand.

Day 6: Bye Bye Phuket, See you again

We did some souvenir shopping in the morning and started to airport amidst lush green trees.

Felt so excited to find these cute Buddha toys in the airport and purchased one with my remaining Thai Bahts 🙂

We had a great time in Phuket and would love to come back to this place again. We got used to the town and started feeling like our own place, to the extent that we bought many groceries from 24/7 and cooked food in the kitchen couple of times.

Miss you Phuket, Bye bye..See you again.