Phuket

We’ve migrated down to the west coast beach islands of Thailand.  Yes, the area the tsunami hit.  I’ve been keeping my eye on the evacuation route signage.  This is a pretty touristy area, but we’ve managed to find most of the quiet corners and had a very relaxing time.  We started out on the southeast mangrove side of the island away from the beach crowds.  Our reasoning being that there were over a dozen dive shops in a three block radius and the boats left 200m from us. 

We took a boat and did three dives near Phi Phi Island.  The visibility was meh, but there were plenty of pretty fish and coral to admire.  Several poisonous fauna joined us underwater, including this scary sea snake and not very scary lionfish.

Then we moved to the western beach side of the island, to Karon Beach.  We stayed south of the club-crazy beach to the north.  It’s still the off season here, so we enjoyed our beach walks with spitting rain.  This area is notable for the volume of Russian tourists.  We're told they do not like Thai food.  They are missing out!  We enjoyed our usual Thai food and massages.