Thailand - Phi Phi, FantaSea, Phuket Town

Recognise this beach? It is "The Beach" from the film with the same title. Better known as Ao Maya on Koh Phi Phi Ley.

More of the island Phi Phi Ley. Phi Phi Don is where everyone stays but was completely devistated by the Tsunami at the end of 2004. The damage is still very much visable when compared to Patong. Remembering that 2000 people lost their lives there in one day on what is a very small place.

This is the "Disneyland" of Phuket, a sort of theme park open in the evenings with a show at the end. Lots of light shows, shops and obviously a lot of money spent on it. It was visually impressive however but relatively expensive. The show promised big thing until the animals were brought out. My feeling is that animals should have no place in a stage show like this and felt somewhat ashamed that I had spend $50 supporting such an act. As the guide book said, the baby elephant show was "depressing" and would recommend to others giving this a miss for that reason.

Another day we went into the town of Phuket to have a look around. We were doing a walk around the town and walked into this guy's place. It looked like a shop and this guy had a nice collection of music memorabilia, he asked us if we would like lunch, so we ended up joining him and his family as well as a couple of local workers he knew. How hospitable! It was really an experience no tour could have provided.