Phuket Thailand

Cel got up before the alarm at 6 as our tour time was 7:15.  Down early as we did not want to be on the last bus.  Our guide was quite good and told us that Phuket Island is now 90% owned by foreigners.  The population of Phuket town is 400,000.  We took an hour and a half drive to the Phang-nga Bay.  From there we boarded an open boat that took us first too Koh Panyi Island which is a traditional Muslim fishing village built on stilts.  We walked through the shops to the school where the soccer field is concrete, hard on the knees.  We then walked to the the back of the village.  Most of the homes are one room with a mattress on the middle of the floor.  Eating happens outside on the front porch.  We saw a couple of women with some gibbon monkeys and I am not sure of their purpose of having the monkeys.  We also saw some well fed cats, the advantage of living in a fishing village.  The houses are all crammed together with potted plants providing gardens and lots of singing birds in bamboo cages.  Beautiful birds.  A rather intimate living place with people just opening their doors as they are dressing.  We then returned to the boat to travel to James Bond Island so named after the movie "Man With The Golden Gun".  After the movie came out in 1974, about 5000 tourists a day travelled to the island.  It became such a popular destination for tourists that not only did they give it its unofficial new name of James Bond Island, they also built a shopping centre on the beach!  Thankfully we did not land but rather circled the island twice getting a great view of nail island, a pinnacle of limestone a short distance offshore from James Bond Shopping Centre.
The limestone islands and cliffs are truly spectacular, adorned with stalactites and stalagmites that you normally only see inside caves,    not on the exterior of islands.  The rock colours and formations were stunning.  The other interesting site was all the different types of boats on the water especailly the long tailed fishing and tour boats.  A big thing to do in the islands is to canoe or sea kayak.  There are numerous companies offering services.  We then went through a sea cave along with many canoeists and I was surprised to see no crashes given the number of vessels in the cave.   After our boat ride it was a Thai buffet lunch.  Gotta love Thai food and beer and then back to the ship after the obligatory shopping stop.  It would appear that the new hated tourist in this part of the world is the Russians which does not seem too surprising given our experience with toothpick man.  Next stop India.