Scooting through Phuket, Ladyboys, James Bond Island and Elephant Kisses

Phuket is, of course, more than a beautiful beach.

There are, of course, beautiful ladyboys.

Yes indeed it made more sense to see a cabaret show in Patong, full of ladyboys, instead of a muay thai boxing match.

We thought we ought to scoot ourselves around Phuket, so ...

Yes, Karen fit on the seat too, functioning as a great passenger/navigator.
Gasoline was delivered via old beer bottles and a funnel.

We scooted over to a pier on the island's east side to hire a longtail boat to take us out into Phang Nga Bay.

After darting between countless small islands, our first stop was at a small cove, with a tight little fit through a cave entrance to see a wonderfully isolated 'hong', or collapsed cave, on the other side.

Monkeys!  Karen had a bit of fun tossing banana bits to these monkeys, so used to human contact.

It was nice to have a private boat to see all of the harbor's sights.

A large pile-up of longtail and group excursion boats indicated that, yup, we had arrived at James Bond Island, locally known as Ko Tapu, which gained fame as the scene of the showdown between Roger Moore's Bond and Christopher Lee's Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun.

Loads of people were there, but...

we hustled to get our photos with the iconic image in the background.

Our yogi, in action!

Our boat brought us to a very nice beach.

Back on the scooters, we arrived at our hotel, and...

Hey, it's an elephant ... a youngster, three years old! A wedding had just concluded and the elephant had been there for some photos with the bride and groom.


And, look at that wonderful smile on this youngster's face, as the elephant blew into her ear. (She loves elephants if you  can't tell.)

Oh, and he hugged her!

He wants more cucumbers, Karen, more!

What a delightful end to our time in Phuket, and our Laos and Thailand adventure.

Oh, almost forgot to mention the wonderful fish spa treatment we both got.  The cuticles of our toes have never looked better, nibbled on as they were by so many little fish! 
They just love callused skin, the little biters!

We have so many adventures and activities on our trips that we always wind up finishing the blog entries upon our return.  Hope you enjoyed these images and thoughts from our journey.

Phuket Beach, Boutique Hotel Bliss, and Broken English

Our lodging in Phuket was the Indigo Pearl Resort.

Though not located on the beach, as few hotels are, it had three great pool areas, and a marvelous restaurant, the Black Ginger, which we entered via a raft that was pulled along a rope to fetch us on one side of a moat around the restaurant, and we floated to the other side of the moat to the restaurant.  The dining was indeed 'fine'.

When Karen stepped into the room, she entered a state of bliss.
Gorgeous bedroom, great shower and bath, big bathtub, two outside decks set amid a jungle-like atmosphere.

We saw little signs of the tsunami's destruction nine years ago, but some properties, it seemed, were just too expensive to rebuild.

There were French, German, Aussie, Kiwi, British, and loads of Scandinavian tourists in our area of Nai Yang Beach. I was taken aback to see some Norwegian newspapers displayed outside a market.

In Patong town, we passed a tailor, obviously geared towards his Nordic or 'Viking,' clients, as Danish flags and a Norwegian scarf hung in his window.

A great decision was to stay on the northern end of the beaches in Phuket, for Nai Yang is part of a 10-mile uninterrupted stretch of pristine beach.


While many people liked to sit in the sun loungers on the beach, but ...

... we preferred to rent a tandem kayak to venture away from the crowds, to our own unspoiled patches of the beach.

We paddled right next to Phuket International Airport, and jets and prop planes flew right overhead as they descended to the runways.

Honest restaurateurs are so nice to find.  As we were strolling the only street in Nai Yang, we perused a menu, and heard someone say, "Eat here, good food, broken English good too."


We were chuckling as we were seated.  Mr. Kobi was honest, and served honest-to-goodness great food, featuring red, yellow and green curries, whole grilled fish, tasty noodle and rice dishes, and nice cool bottles of Singha. His restaurant included a tribute to the tsunami of 2004.  Mr. Kobi's restaurant is located right on the beach, and he opened his restaurant alone that morning in 2004.  The story goes that a local dog was staring at the ocean, barking furiously as the water receded.  The dog then turned and headed away from the beach to higher ground, and Mr. Kobi followed.  The entire beach was submerged in water but Mr. Kobi and the dog survived.  Mr. Kobi re-opened 7 days later and adopted the dog.

Always remember, No Money, No Fun.

Capital Vientiane, Rice Beers, and Riverweed

Vientiane, a nicely compact, rather small capital city, was pleasant.  Nothing really special, but we could definitely feel its "Frenchness", as it was an administrative center for the French colonial activities in southeast Asia.

Perhaps not too many people know that Vientiane was a real hot spot for espionage during the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict eras.  Lots of skullduggery and plotting, pitting East versus West for influence in the region, occurred there.

Yet, life simply goes on for the average Vientiane citizen.

What, no incense????

'Real' beer is made from barley, water, yeast, and hops.  Rice is used by some brewers, such as Budweiser, to replace a portion of the barley malt content, and make the beer cheaper to create and, thusly, cheaper to sell.   And, consequently, hook its drinkers on the unique rice beer 'flavor'.

In Laos, of course, there isn't a whole lot of barley grown, so Beerlao, as are most Asian beers, is a rice beer.  Though I prefer to eat, rather than drink, my rice, these beers, designed to provide a refreshing quaff of chill during hot beach days, work well.

The best thing about beer in Laos are the omnipresent large bottles, yea!

Namkhong is a rather unknown, yet highly quaffable, local beer.

Of course, there are other spirits available.

On the streets of Vientiane, Karen salivated as she discovered a streetside sushi purveyor.

Yet, for dinner, she had to try the local riverweed, a sort of dried and salted seaweed.

The wonderfully fresh fruits and vegetables available everywhere were so good.

One clever thing we noted at a market was the attachment of white plastic bags on the ends of the armature of a fan motor, that whirred around to keep the flies off the freshly grilled and seasoned skewers of meats and vegetables.

Our landlocked Laotian adventure ends, as the beaches of Phuket, Thailand beckon.