The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free"
- Murray Head
Actually, it was more like one hour in Bangkok, where we had a layover on our way to Phuket. Last week was a holiday here in China so we decided to go to Thailand for a few days. Phuket is an island off the west coast of the Thai mainland. It got hit pretty hard by the tsunami back in December 2004. Many of the resorts, hotels, and restaurants were damaged and about 10,000 people died. The resort we stayed at - Ban Thai Resort - had to pull approximately 50 cars out of their three pools and rebuild everything on the ground floor. All is pretty much back to normal now and you can't tell that anything ever happened.
We took it easy Monday and Tuesday, just moving back and forth between the pool and the 
beach. The waves were big (7-8 feet) and the weather was hot, with afternoon temperatures in the low-90's. On Wednesday we got a little more energetic and went on a sea canoe tour of some of the small islands between Phuket and the mainland. We've all seen on TV these little limestone islands that look like they just popped up out of the water. Well, it turns out that many of these have small lagoons inside them. However, the only way to get to them is paddling a sea canoe thru a cave. The only catch is that the caves are only accessible during short periods between high tide and low tide. At high tide, the cave entrances are under water. And at low tide, the water is too shallow for the canoes. Some of the caves we passed thru were pretty big. One in particular had a high ceiling covered with thousands of bats. We were lucky and got thru without getting crapped on but some in our party weren't as fortunate. Other caves though were pretty tight and we had to lay in the bottom of the canoes to pass under the rocks.
beach. The waves were big (7-8 feet) and the weather was hot, with afternoon temperatures in the low-90's. On Wednesday we got a little more energetic and went on a sea canoe tour of some of the small islands between Phuket and the mainland. We've all seen on TV these little limestone islands that look like they just popped up out of the water. Well, it turns out that many of these have small lagoons inside them. However, the only way to get to them is paddling a sea canoe thru a cave. The only catch is that the caves are only accessible during short periods between high tide and low tide. At high tide, the cave entrances are under water. And at low tide, the water is too shallow for the canoes. Some of the caves we passed thru were pretty big. One in particular had a high ceiling covered with thousands of bats. We were lucky and got thru without getting crapped on but some in our party weren't as fortunate. Other caves though were pretty tight and we had to lay in the bottom of the canoes to pass under the rocks. 
Once thru the caves, the water opened up into these lagoons surrounded by sheer cliffs. We saw all kinds of birds, a couple of monkeys, walking fish, snails - all kinds of critters. The water had some type of luminescent plankton in it. After dark, you could shake your hand in the water and they would light up like lightning bugs. It was an amazing day. Definitely one of the coolest things we've ever done. More pictures can be found here http://picasaweb.google.com/baamick/Phuket
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