Travel Diary Days 7 – 11: Phuket, Lanta, Phi Phi, Tao – Thailand Island Hopping

After close to a week of hard volunteer work at Eco-Logic Yoga Retreat Center, Pete and I were ready for some R&R! Due to the scheduling of our trip (the dates we were at the center and the Full Moon party in Koh Phangan on 1/23 that I wanted to go to), we only had a few days in between to explore the various islands. My parents are coming soon so we will be with them in Koh Phangan and Koh Samui for longer periods of time. Prior to the trip, we deliberated with either choosing 1 – 2 islands for the 5 day stretch or trying to see a few of them and hopping around. We chose the latter because we weren’t able to decide what to nix out, and we really wanted to experience all of the popular islands. A few people told us that we were doing it too fast, and in hindsight, I have to agree.

At the end of the island hopping, we were just as exhausted as when we started, and we didn’t get to spend enough time on each island to really experience it. On-line, it appears that getting from island to island is easier than it actually turned out to be. The ferries themselves take 2 hours or so, but by the time you check out of a hotel, get on the taxi (which they schedule an hour earlier than it needs to be), wait at the ferry docks, load and unload all the people, exit and find the hotel/house, check in to the hotel, make plans for the next set of transfers, and make time for food, it was a heavily packed few days with little rest.

En route to the apartment we rented in Bang Tao beach, Phuket Island, Thailand.

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have a blast doing it! We agreed to stay present in each moment and enjoy the traveling as part of the experience. I also suggested we look at the traveling as our “work” for the day, clocking in and out and throughly enjoying the time “off” in between. Now that it’s over, we are happy we did it and we are relaxing for a couple of days.

Trekkin' to our spot in Phuket. — Trekkin’ to our spot in Phuket.

Days 7 – 8 Phuket

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We left off last post on the bus to Phuket during day 6. After the 6 hour ride to town, we found a veggie place in Phuket which was really not that great (King Liew’s). It was recommended to us by a guy we meet at Eco-Logic and we were fairly disappointed, so I really wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to get there. I didn’t bother taking pictures of the food. Vegan and vegetarian food is like all food – some of it is delicious and some of it misses the mark. This place misses the mark.

A Bang Tao Tuk Tuk.

We took an open-air taxi to our home for two nights on Bong Tao beach. It was in a modern building with a rooftop deck where we enjoyed our breakfasts. The area itself (Bong Tao beach) is very quiet compared to Patong Bay (or so we heard). We made it to town in time for the sunset (score!) and hit the beach with Changs in hand. For dinner, we weren’t able to find any vegan places nearby that were open, so we walked around checking menus and asking service staff if their food is vegan-friendly. We ended up at a bar that has Italian food (and miniature golf?) and found some vegan options on their menu. We felt the urge to carbo-load and eating super healthy farm-fresh food at Eco-Logic for 5 days. Flatbread pizza was on the menu without cheese as well as two different pasta dishes. One had garlic, Thai chilis, and olive oil and the other was your basic marinara spaghetti dish. We came back the next day for dinner and ordered the same thing because it totally hit the spot (also, there was little else around us to eat and we didn’t want to continue paying for taxis around the island as they are very expensive in Phuket!).