Phuket is our only stop in Thailand and thankfully the current trouble in the area is mainly around Bangkok.

While we would normally do our own thing, we decided that we would do the ship tour that involved going out to the Phi Phi islands for some swimming and sightseeing . Overall the tour was ok but due to the distances involved we didn't get to snorkel as much as we would have liked and there was a strong focus on 'shopping’.

For the tour, we caught a speedboat from Phuket City out to the islands. With 40 people on the tour, it was a little cramped on the boat and personal space was at a premium.

First stop was the island where ‘The Beach’ was filmed. To say that is a popular beach is an understatement. Our guide said that it wasn’t very busy; however there was a constant flow of boats coming and going. You are supposed to be able to swim; however with the amount of boat traffic, swimming outside the small ‘swimming area’ is not the safest. To get people to move out of the way, the boat drivers rev their motors and cause them to spray water on whoever may be in the way. Also most of the time, speedboats were side by side. That said I could see the potential of the beach and it looked pretty.

The boat then took us for a little more sightseeing. We were suppose to stop at a little lagoon area for another swim however most of the people on board wanted to spend more time snorkelling, so we opted to just have a quick look. The lagoon area was surrounded by very high limestone cliffs, with a little bit of foliage clinging to them.

Finally it was time to snorkel . We hoped in and saw not much. Unfortunately the area where the boat had anchored was a mix of coral debris and coral that was fighting to overcome a covering of sand and algae. There was however lots of small fish and some clams. Oh yeah, there was also a healthy population of sea lice.

After our snorkel it was time for lunch. As part of the tour we got a lovely Thai buffet. There were noodles, soups, a seafood platter and various curries. All were tasty.

Fed and watered it was time for the journey back to Phuket on the speedboat again. When we got back to shore we hopped of the boat, unfortunately it was into knee/thigh height water so our dry clothes got wet. I was less than impressed, as were quite a few other passengers.

Final stop on the tour was a tourist trap of a shopping complex. Whoever owns the complex must have made a bucket of money yesterday as when our bus arrived there were seven other buses with people from the ship. About half the bus protested us stopping there and didn’t get off. Those who did get off the bus said that most things were extremely expensive. I took the opportunity to take some photos.

Back at the ship (about half an hour earlier than we should be), we checked out the markets. After purchasing a couple of items, we were herded back on the ship – crew members were sent into the market to hurry people along, we were all still shopping 5 minutes before it was ‘all aboard time’.

After a quick desalting, we headed upstairs to watch Thailand sail away.

As we were a little bit over eating in the restaurant (after a while taking 90 minutes to eat dinner gets a little old), we opted to have pizza in the pizzeria. Very tasty, can’t believe we waited so long to check it out.

After setting our clocks back an hour again, it was time for bed. I think we’re in the same time zone as Kathmandu.

Fun fact:
Antiques and Buddha images are not allowed out of Thailand.