The Second 10 days.

Im starting to lose track of where we have been etc, so thought I better get cracking and do another report. Its really hard to get motivated and it feels like we have already been away for months, the first month here is up next Wednesday and Angie & Brett leave then, so it will be sad to see them go (but I need to dry out haha).

We have been totally spoilt having Richards 4x4, originally we only booked it for 2 weeks but then extended it for another week and next month we will have it for another 2 weeks.

Khao Khad, Cape Panwa & Phuket Aquarium

I needed to go to Wat Chalong to buy a statue so we decided to do the Cape Panwa drive as well, normally Brett is our navigator but this time Angie and I gave directions, given our great map reading skills it was a good move as we didn’t get lost.

The drive to Cape Panwa is lovely, lots of nice little viewpoints along the way but the best one is Khao Khad Viewpoint. As you get closer to Cape Panwa you can see the viewpoint up on top of the mountain. We never saw any signs leading to this so just picked a small road that looked like it might go up and hoped for the best. After passing many rubber plantations (surprise, surprise) and lots of winding bends we made it.
The area is beautiful with a huge carpark, toilets and a couple of food stalls.

To reach the top of the tower you have to climb up 100 steps – not a problem for our finely tuned athletic bodies. (Piece of cake for me and Gary, whats a 100 steps when we climbed 490 at Oudong in Cambodia) Though have to say Angies quads were sore for 2 days, to sore even to have a massage.

The 360 degree views from the summit are spectacular, probably the best in Phuket and it was so cool up there, you can see Phuket town, Chalong Bay, Koh Sirea, Cape Panwa, Koh Yao and Phi Phi.

After all that fresh air and exercise we are getting hungry so off we go to Cape Panwa, we stopped at the first restaurant overlooking the beach, I cant remember the name but the restaurant has huge chunky timber furniture and its opposite the Navy Base. (Of course Angie and I wanted photos of the 2 sailors standing guard outside the base so we asked them and they were happy for us to take pictures). Lunch was delicious and cheap. Cape Panwa is beautiful and we could have sat there all day but decided to go to the Aquarium.

The Phuket Aquarium was another nice surprise it cost 100baht to go in and the displays and tanks were worth seeing. They have a couple of the biggest, fattest old gropers I have ever seen, probably 6ft long. After that it was time to head back for a drive around Phuket Town.

Then comes the part of the day I did not like. While we were in town it started to rain quite heavily, now its bad enough going over the hill from Phuket to Patong, but when its blinding rain and 5pm peak hour traffic (and Im a nervous passenger, I hate hills and mountains haha). Time for me to start panicking. We are in the right lane nearly at the top and a ute has broken down about 4 cars up in front of us, Gary noticed it early enough so had time to quickly pull over to the left, but theres cars going left, right and centre to avoid hitting the broken down car, its pouring, the traffic has crawled virtually to a stop, whoops second gear is to high Gary changes to first, the wheels spin and that’s it. I want out, apparently I yelled I hate Phuket and Im never coming back haha. Still cant figure out why Gary, Brett & Angie were laughing at me!!! So that’s our Cape Panwa day.

Baan Chang
After a huge buffet brekky at Karon Café and a quick look at a few shops we decided to go see the elephants and Charley and Lum Yai at Kata. This is the first time we have been back since May last year. Charley and Lum Yai are off in the trees playing and look like they have no intentions of coming down so we did a 45 min elephant trek which was fantastic, did not see any cruelty to the elephants etc whatsoever. Once we came out of the jungle at the summit it started pouring, Gary and I were drenched but Angie & Bretts mahout kept them under the trees – wimps.

Angies mahout was there last year while we were there and spoke a bit of English so after the trek I asked lots of questions. The original elephants there use to be logging elephants, then he said now they have a good life. They are happy, well fed and looked after and not mistreated. There is a new male who was bought from Siam Safari and the baby male who is now 9 was bought late last year.

We probably stayed here for about 3 hours watching the mahouts with the elephants, there was an incident with the baby male while he was having a bath, the mahout wanted him to lay down so he could wash around his ears etc and the baby got very angry and lashed out with his trunk and a huge roar. At no time did the mahout belt into him etc, he yelled at him and all was well.

Eventually, after waiting for ages Charley and Lum Yai came down for a visit. Charley stayed with us for quite a while and was very taken with a little spot under Angies arm. After much grooming and scratching I wanted a nice photo of him, it was so funny he laid down flat on his back, legs in the air and started – now Im trying to say this nicely - he was playing and got very excited, definitely not a photo opportunity.

Waterfalls & Floating Restaurants

We started off by driving to Surin & Bang Thao beaches, just beautiful and lots of lovely restaurants, we have been back since and had meals there which I will cover later.
Then it was time to head for the Tonsai Waterfall at Khao Phra national park. There is a charge of 200baht to enter the park, this money helps in education and upkeep of the park etc. Its not a huge waterfall and theres no swimming hole but if you do the jungle walk up to the top its fantastic. The pathway is dark, narrow, slippery in places, steep, some sections we had to climb over fallen trees so its not something you would do with very young kids etc. It was also extremely humid in the jungle, make sure you take water. We all loved this jungle trail to the top. Next week we will see what the Bang Pae waterfalls are like.

Once again we have worked up an appetite so we head for Laem Hin port on the east coast as we want to go to the floating restaurants at Maphrao Island. The longtail boats provide free transfers over and back to the restaurants.
We went to Kru Surit and this would be one of the best meals we have had and the setting was brilliant. The whole pontoon is moving, all the seafood is alive and fresh and you wont see many tourists there. There are lots of photos of the food we had here on the link below. The bill for the four of us was 1400baht and that included drinks.
When you arrive at Laem Hin port, walk past the Laem Hin seafood restaurant (another restaurant I want to try) and you will see the boats. It took us awhile to find this place as there are no signs in English, we actually ended up in a huge cemetery, but its worth looking for.

Others things we have done are, fishing trip, tattoo’s, girls day out shopping, our fourth bbq, more restaurants to recommend, sailing with Captain Mark – the ultimate tour. So I will try and get those reports up along with their photos tomorrow.
Monday we are doing the Phang Nga 3hr Atv tour with Richard, so that should be fun!!!

Sorry this is so long, its hard to condense so hope I havent bored you to much haha, heres photos from these activities
Picasa Web Albums - Cathy
Cathy

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http://www.cathyandgarystravelpages.com

Great Report's and fantastic photos.While everyone else is probably drooling over the food photos i'm drooling over the handbag photos!
You look as if you are having a real fun time .Thanks for taking time out to share .
Cheers laurs

you sound like you are having a great time.
Been thinking about you and wondering how you were going on.
Thanks for the intrim report. Enjoy the rest of it.

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.

I just love the bit about the "biggest fattest old gropers" as it makes me think of certain places on a Saturday night!!!

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Alison

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It's Better to Burn Out than just to Fade Away!

Where is that then give me the address at once. LOL

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Kiss
God laughs at people who make plans.