We left Anantara Resort with some regret given the excellent service we enjoyed while staying there. The resort ordered us a very nice zircon van which took us to the airport. Samui has the only fully open-air airport in the world. Given that, insects thrive and the billiontude of small ants is amazing. The flight to Phuket was about one hour and not very eventful. When we arrived we noticed an over abundance of police and military personnel at the airport. The driver who met us and took us to the dock to catch our speedboat to Phi Phi told us that the Thai Prime Minister was in Phuket on official business and the police and military needed to demonstrate how busy and efficient they are. (Side note: whenever one of the Royal family travels by road, the police close the entire route off to all traffic until they've passed by.) Once at the dock, about an hour from the airport, we boarded a speed boat which took us across the Adanman Sea to the Holiday Inn on Phi Phi Island (a one hour trip). We saw many fishing boats and numerous ferries during the crossing which was very calm for the most part.
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| Leaving the pier in Phuket |
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| One of the many fishing boats we saw while crossing |
When we arrived at the resort it was low tide so the boat could not get that close to shore. This is the first time we have ever had to wade in water up to our knees to register at a hotel. Numerous hotel staff waded out to the boat to ferry our luggage into shore. The water is a beautiful aquamarine colour and perfectly clear and as warm as bathwater! When we were in Samui, the ocean temperature was about 28C - I think it's even warmer here!
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| Phil & Linda wading into shore from the speed boat. Resort staff following behind with our luggage. |
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| Lots of Long Tail Boats moored in front of this resort |
The rooms we were assigned were at the far end of the resort and you had to be part billy goat to climb the hill to get to them (they took us up in a 6-man golf cart). Well, we didn't bother unpacking.... Linda and Danny were on the phone pretty quick to let the front desk know that this wouldn't do. While we did have a bit of a "sea view", these units were nowhere near close enough to anything and required climbing several flights of stairs to even get to the one pool that was supposed to be "close by". They promised to move us the next morning.
Had dinner at a little restaurant next to the resort - Jasmin's - had an excellent write up in TripAdvisor. Well deserved. We had some cold drinks and a bunch of appy's. The food, especially the shrimp, was excellent. While we were sitting there, there was suddenly a very loud buzzing noise which seemed to surround us. When we asked our waitress about it, she smiled and repeated "no good" "bad". Obviously, her english wasn't strong enough to explain further so we just smiled and carried on. Caught the golf cart back to our bungalows and we cooled off by taking an outdoor shower (another first!) before calling it a night.
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