Phuket

The weather was less than ideal, owing to successive tropical cyclones, one of which battered Vietnam prior to passing through.  Luckily it was mostly overcast with the threat of rain, rather than an outright downpour.  At least we could head to the beach where the sand was a golden silk and the ocean calm as a pool.  Any waves making it ashore were barely high enough for bodysurfing. 

We stayed away from Patong, which has a reputation for hedonism and development gone wild.  Nonetheless, the smaller Kata Beach had its share of girly bars and pounding nocturnal bass.  I didn’t know so many Scandinavians visited here.  From all the menu appearances, I inferred that this must have been a good place to try Swedish meatballs and other Northern European specialties.    And every other shop advertised several suits, shirts, and even throw in a silk kimono, all for the too good to believe price of $199…  I thought the price of accommodations and food was expensive, given that it wasn’t all that crowded around.  But it was supposedly “high season.”   

Nearly met my match with the spicy red curry over snapper.  Spicy is good, but this was fiery!  I could barely taste the food anymore and my eyes were starting to water.

Working girls and trolling tourists aside, the highlight was the snorkeling trip to the Similan islands.  After two hours in a car and little more than one hour on a speedboat, we made it to the beautiful chain of small islands in the Andaman Sea, just off the Western Coast.  The green palms atop large granite boulders on perfect crescent beaches reminded me of the Seychelles, or at least what I imagined it from pictures (don’t think we’ll make it there due to the high cost).  A ten minute walk through the bush on one of the islands resulted in at least that many mosquito bites for both of us.  We saw monitor lizards and a few flying foxes, but the snorkeling was world class.  It was mostly hard coral, but the fish species and sheer numbers were a joy to see.  I’d never seen so many foot-and-a-half long parrotfish and wrasses feeding on the coral buffet in clear 1-meter deep water.  Even to 10 meters down the visibility was amazing.