Island Hopping

Asia, International, Thailand 2011

24 December, Christmas Eve

We made our flight arrangements into Phuket before realizing the distance to Koh Lipe and that Hat Yai is the closer airport; although the 6.5 hour ferry ride took a whole day of beach time we were actually glad to have the opportunity to do a little island hopping.  We made our way through the Andaman Sea passing fishing farm houses, admiring the thick treed islands with jutting rock walls and now understand why these islands have been the set of several movies.  We sat on top of the boat and saw the most amazing flying fish that skipped across the water while bald eagles flew overhead.  The sea breeze kept us cool but the sun was hot and we were really glad when we finally pulled into the bay.  We were picked up by the longtail boat and brought into shore.  After making our way down the walking street, through the path of trees and past some local homes we found Castaway.  Our little bungalow right on the beach and the lovely restaurant and bar area was a welcoming place to settle into.

We spent Christmas lounging on the amazing white sand beach looking out to water that seemed as if the color had been photoshopped.  We had a nice Christmas dinner at Sunrise Cafe, a mellow little place right on the beach just down from our resort.  On our way to dinner we stopped into the dive shop and made our reservation to dive.  Feeling much better about diving after our refresher course we were glad to get on the books.