Ao Chalong
We arrived in Thailand about two weeks ago, and are anchored in Ao Chalong bay, the best anchorage in Phuket. This is a big bay, well protected from all sides, and quite shallow, in fact you have to be careful not to go aground on sand banks and can’t get very close to shore. The holding is good, mud mostly, and it is a pretty good place even to leave a boat for the long term- there is a yacht near us which seems to have been here for ages.
To get to land we have to go about 1/2 a kilometer, which isn’t really too bad because the water is quite smooth most of the time, but Oren has built a dingy anyway. It won’t really move without a motor, unfortunately- it took us ages to paddle it to shore on its maiden voyage. It does stay a bit drier than the kayak, though!
On shore there is a kind of touristy road, with lots of bars and a rather active “bar girl” population. After that, there is a roundabout and the real Phuket starts, with prices about 10 times lower. The problem is that it is so hot that some cruisers never get to the end of the road ( well, thats their excuse, anyway!). So we have bought a little scooter, and are free to get to all the interesting places on the island, or farther if we want, although long distance buses are cheap and good here.
The best thing about Thailand has to be the food, which is cheap, plentiful and very very good. The pork and shrimps are really outstanding, and there are lots of different kinds of noodles, vegetables and fruit which we have never seen before. Every meal we try something new, although I have got stuck several times on pat see you moo, which is a kind of wide, sticky rice noodle in soup with pork and vegetables. It is extremely tasty. Restaurants here range from the ordinary kind where you sit inside, to stalls with tables outside ( often the best value for money, since you get a glass filled with ice and a big jug of water with the meal) to market stalls selling kebabs and other finger foods for about 1 shekel each, to mobile sidecar stalls, which sell all kinds of food. One thing we haven’t tried yet is oysters- we have seen mobile oyster stalls with big heaps of huge oysters, but haven’t had a chance to buy any. The average meal in Thailand costs 40 baht, which is about 5 shekels, but if you are really hungry, you can go to a buffet, where there are lots of big pans with different kinds of stews and curries. You get a plate of rice, and depending on what you take, you pay between 60-80 baht. The one we go to has very very hot dishes though, and you need plenty of green leaves to ease the burning. The leaves are part of the meal, a side dish.
The other incredible thing here is the shopping. The malls are huge, and they are everywhere. There are expensive ones, but also cheap ones, like Big C, which has a huge supermarket, a food hall with good prices, and lots of computer shops, mobile phone stands, clothes shops and so on. A laptop here costs from 15000 baht, much cheaper than Israel, and clothes too are very cheap and good.
So I have to admit- we have been here more than two weeks and so far have only seen restaurants of all kinds and shopping malls. However, that is because we haven’t seen any of these for months and months! We hope to get around to see some islands, hongs and so on soon. Also we will take some pictures eventually, keep posted!