Thailand

Thai lettering

Long tail boats on beach - not much room for swimming!

Karst  island formations on way to Ko Phi Phi

Ko Phi Phi main harbour - interesting rock formations

Dramatic rock faces on Ko Phi Phi

Fishing markers of some kind - a challenge to avoid!

Entering Ao Chalong harbour - Phuket

Tour boat negotiating shallow water at low tide

Thailand

March 9 2016

Before leaving Malaysia we heard news of a 7.8 earthquake SW of Pedang. That is the city in Sumatra where we will be leaving from to cross the Indian Ocean. There was a brief tsunami warning that was later cancelled. But the fishermen came in that night and some sailors were considering leaving the harbour. They had so much destruction in this area in 2004.

We travelled for 4 days through the first Thai islands to Phuket and have been here since the 7th. The first half day's sail took us to our first island in Thailand, Ko Lipe. It is a small island that is a part of the larger Butang group of islands, similar to Langkawi. But we could tell that it was a different country. The Thais are more oriental looking. The language on the signs uses an alphabet closer to the Chinese characters. Although many locals try to learn English it is very difficult to understand them. Tourism is a much bigger business than in Malaysia or Indonesia. We have been disappointed by how crowded it is most places. The unit of currency is the Baht. We tried the 3 ATMs to get cash but none were working. Fortunately the second money changer we tried converted a bit of our leftover Malaysian $ to baht. It was a treat to be able to have a beer ashore.

We cleared in to immigration there but still needed to do customs and harbour master in Phuket. It was coincidental that Blue Wind pulled in while we were doing that chore. They had been out at some other anchorages in Langkawi for a few days. Ko Lipe looked to me like a backpackers vacation spot. Lots of interesting low key spots and accommodations, and nice beaches. We rowed the dinghy in from a quiet bay to a beach on the opposite side to town and walked across. The surrounding islands are marine parks with good diving and hiking. The second night we took a mooring ball at another national park island, Ko Rok Nok, but didn't go ashore.

The third night we decided to take a bit of a detour to see the Phi Phi islands, pronounced "pee pee". (As Phuket is called "puket'). They are considered one of the most beautiful islands in the world. The movie "The Beach' was filmed there. It was very dramatic, but it seemed like everyone in the world was visiting. It is a day trip outing from Phuket so all sizes of tour boats were coming and going. What was called an anchorage in our guide book is now filled with private mooring balls. We found another anchorage along with a handful of other sailboats. But the shoreline was shallow with coral so no way to take a dinghy to shore. Lots of loud music from different venues until 2 am.

It was only a morning's sail to Ao Chalong Bay where you need to check in to Phuket. Again the bay is quite full with sailboats and many mooring balls. We got that job done as well as a new sim card for the phone and local cash. It is interesting to just walk around and get your bearings. We found a small yacht club as well as a chandlery. There are lots of diving operations on this side of the island, where you take a boat out to a good location from the pier in the bay. The beaches are on the west coast. The bays on this side get shallow for a long way from shore at low tide. Being a new moon today the tide is particularly low. Some tour boats are struggling through the mud to the dock and dinghies are left high and dry.

We have switched from reading the Malaysian guide book to Lonely Planet's Thailand. I thought it was interesting in the religion chapter about Malaysia that Islam is a state religion with its tenets part of the law. The government says it wants to protect the "moral fabric" of the country. But it is Sunni-no Shia's allowed. Thailand is 80% Buddhist.

Yesterday was spent getting the arrangements made for our trip to Bangkok. We are going to leave the boat at anchor and pull the dinghy up onto the dock and lock it. There are others doing that here. The weather forecast is identical for every day this week, 10 to 20 km/hr, ENE and sunny. We are going to fly as we are short of time to take a train or bus the 500 miles. We fly out Thurs and Dave and Ben arrive there Fri. We have bought tickets to return on Sunday afternoon. It will be a busy but fun week.