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lunedì 13 dicembre 2010

PHI PHI and PHANG NGA, THAILAND

I'm already in New Zealand but I had not time for writing at all so I'm very late in my updates. This post has some pictures and comments about the beautiful places I visited in the Phuket area.

Phi Phi islands...a real Paradise on Earth.
The islands have been totally devastated by the tsunami, and there are signs everywhere that remind you of that tragic moment, like i.e. the best directions for escaping in case it happens again...
The island Phi Phi Don has been totally reconstructed and you could not even imagine that it has suffered so hardly from the consequences of the tsunami. It is really a shame that the opportunity to rebuild the village of Phi Phi Don following the principles of sustainable tourism and making it an eco-village, that would be an example for the World, was not used and it was preferred to choose a strategy of fast reconstruction to restart immediately the huge tourist industry. Tours and rooms are offered everywhere, at quite affordable prices (even if more expensive then the rest of the area) and the place is full of restaurants and small shops.
The guy on the pic is taking the luggage to a hotel. This is the only way to do it on the island since there are no cars or other veicles except from bicicles. They come to pic you up from the hotel...walking :-).
I rented out a bungalow at Godlen hill, a cheap but nice accomodation (some places are very expensive)
Lots of frogs at night in the fresh water in front of it (plus an incredible number of mosquitos!) and a small cute froggy in my bathroom :-).  I really enjoyed the place and I was only 5 minutes walk from Long beach, where I went directly the first day and relaxed listerning to the music from the bar (very happy to hear the whole cd of Jack Johnson) where I enjoyed some nice fruit shakes, decorated with orchids.
 
You can take a boat tour and go to visit the most famous beaches and snorkle on the coral reef or do something more adventurous as dive with the sharks, jump from an 18 m cliff, climb the limestone rocks, camp on the beach..... And there are many bars that gets crowded at night. I decided to relax and went on a longtail boat tour.
The first destination was "The beach" from the movie with Leonardo di Caprio. It is in Maya bay, a quiet bay closed by hilly land so very protected from waves and a wonderful place for snorkeling becouse of the coral reef and a million of colourful fish.
Another lovely place where we stopped was Monkey beach, where you can meet a lot of monkeys and they come close to you as they are so used to people.

After Phi Phi, I decided to visit PHANG NGA, in the Krabi province (about 90 minutes by bus from Phuket). Another great place to see and another great tour by boat.
I first visited the attraction of the land and I couldn't believe the beauty of the temple in a cave with a lieing Budda. It was really special.

Another thing that I couldn't believe is the fortune telling machine, with sounds and light more suitable for a casino in Las Vegas, that crazy Thais have placed there just opposite to the Budda. You insert a coin and the wheel of fortune starts going and stop to a number. That's the number of the message for you, that you pick from the wall full of different messages. I had very interesting prophecies ;-).
By boat, we went to see the mangrove forest. It was really amazing to see that dense forest of trees with their flying roots
It seems that Thai people like movies a lot so we went to James Bond island, the island from an old JB movie, that is very popular now even if the movie is from the '70. Try to imagine (or remember) a missile coming our of this small island to destroy the planet :-)
The area is famous for the limestones and the geomorphological conformations. I really liked that one.
To end the tour in this beautiful archipelago we went to the muslim fisherman's village, where you can just take a walk in the small bazar or even stay fot the night. It was definitely worth seeing.

 

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