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.