I watched the ship backing in to the berth and soon the "Ship is cleared by the local authorities and you are free to go off the ship" message was given by our cruise director. Our little shore excursion group gathered later in the Ocean Bar and headed off the ship to meet our replacement Tours by Locals guide, Weera. It seems that our original guide couldn't suddenly fulfill his obligation and Weera stepped in to help. Our little group of 11 easily fit in the Toyota van and soon we were off on a 1/2 drive into the old city of Phuket.
The streets here are narrow and follow the British design (drive on the left). There are hundreds of scooters that weave their way through the traffic, and at every light they inch their way to the front of the queue. When the light changes, they're off like being shot out of a cannon. In the downtown area we were dropped off to do a little walking tour of the old downtown area.
In this area, sidewalks are a mere suggestion as they are either 1. Nonexistent or 2. Occupied by something else like commercial goods for sale, restaurant seating, or even a judiciously parked scooter or car. So much of one's walking is in the street where one has to dodge moving traffic or double parked vehicles. All in all, it's a friendly dance and nobody seems to get hurt.
We saw lots goods for sale, food stalls, street art, jumbled wiring, a fresh market, a shrine and even a temple. And all of this was done in over 85°f temperatures. After our temple visit, we drove a few minutes to a cashew nut factory where we were all fascinated by how they hand split the shells to get the nut. Apparently it's done by hand as too many nuts get broken using automated machinery. We got to sample lots of nuts and in the end purchased a bag of them. It was then time to go to a nice restaurant on the bay, Parlai Seafood. We all thought it important to have Thai food in Thailand. My dish of Phad Sie Euw was pretty bland, but Angela's salad and soup were quite spicy.
After lunch we drove up to the big Buddha which was located on a peak of the Nakkerd Hills. It's probably the highest rated attraction in Puket. On the way up, we saw elephants which was pretty cool. The Buddha is some 150 feet tall, constructed of concrete and clad in ceramic tile.
Our last stop of the day was a Karon Point where we could see three tourist beaches. This west side of the island is where the psunami hit, and it is literally teeming with western tourists.
Our Evening Insight presentation was on Zodiacs by Jason Kelly who has been driving them for many years. One thing that I learned was that they had to replace the Yamaha gasoline outboard motors with diesel motors. It seems that the storage of gasoline on the deck of a cruise ship was not an acceptable risk Holland America was willing to assume. I'm looking forward to my first ride in one in a few weeks.
That's about it from Thailand. We depart at 11pm tonight and finally we have three sea days ahead of us. Our Cruise Critic gathering is tomorrow morning.
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