Thailand

Thailand:

So far, Thailand is still the cheapest place I’ve traveled to thus far. Flying in from Hong Kong, we minimized our cost using one of the many discount Asian airlines. Canada is just crazy with the amount of taxes and fuel surcharges they charge in comparison to this part of the world. A flight from Phuket to Bangkok (3hrs flight) will run you about $50CAD give or take. Other airlines to checkout in this vicinity are Nok Airlines, Pacific Airlines, One-two-go Airlines, Air Asia, Korean Air, and Singapore Air. All these companies are much cheaper to fly indo-china vs. the more commercialized (and much more expensive) companies. Last time I came to this part of the world, I missed the island that I wanted to see the most, Koh Phi Phi. A small remote island where the movie “The Beach” was filmed, it has now been overruled by tourists and many dive shops around the island. Still, the island does possess a beauty like no other. The island is so small you can literally walk from one end to the other in about 5 to 10 mins. A steep hike up to the “viewpoint” or the Tsunami high ground as the locals call it and you will be able to see both sides of the island quite well. I wish I had a wide angle SLR camera as the view was quite surreal. This island is marginally more expensive than other islands like Koh Tao or Ko Samuai, however you can save some cash if you stay near the center of the island instead of the beach front. Between 500 to 1000 Bhat (1 CAD = 32BHAT) and you can get a decent double bed room. We stayed right beside the Rimley beach side and ended up paying around 2500Bhat a night (as justified by my own lifetime experience!). There are many tourist agents around the island offering longboat tours around many of the surrounding island.

For the most part, they are all the same tour so rest assured you can negotiate rates to try and get the best price available. We ended up booking through a company that had quite a considerably larger boat (with a Washroom and enough space to lie down) for the same price as a long-boat tour. I should advise that if you are on a boat all day (for the one day trip experience), go for the bigger boat! Having more space for you individually will make a difference vs. sharing a tight seat with some wet, soggy, and hairy European. Snorkeling through the ocean while on the tour was my highlight of Phi Phi for me! The visibility was excellent the day we all went on the tour. I could see so many foreign but intriguing creatures. At points, the water was so low (about 10 inches deep), that my face was whisking by live coral reef, schools of fish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers (black like slugs that are the size of the vegetable). Word of advice, apparently live coral is quite dirty and filled with bacteria, clean it well if you cut yourself as I did on my foot and it can get pretty nasty! We stayed around 5 days which is more than enough to see on this island, you can either take a ferry from Krabi or Phuket, so there is some flexibility dpending on how you look at it.

Be warned of all the dirty Caucasian men and their local and "hired" girlfriends from Phuket though... I've had friends who have been through this part of the world warn me, but until you see it, its something like no other... I tried keeping a running count in my head of all the Westerners and their "hired" girlfriends, but lost count after waiting in the airport for about an hour....lol.


Snorkling while feeding the local fish:



Local Fire Dancer: