Phuket and Breathtaking Moments

Our favorite smoothie bar

We woke up in our hotel bright and early (we always wake up early) and both of us were feeling much better. Lacey slept much better and I was ready to restart and get cracking on our travel plans for the day. We got the breakfast buffet again. It was the same pretty good food and same amazing view of the beach. After breakfast, we got another smoothie from our favorite stand.

Our main morning concern was figuring out how to get across the bay to the big island of Phuket for the next leg of our journey. There were 3 options for us to choose between: a short boat ride/loooooong minivan ride in the morning, a medium speedboat ride and short van ride in the morning, or a short boat and van ride in the afternoon. We had discussed doing an island boat tour in the morning and then doing the afternoon boat and van but the cost of those combined was very, very steep. We also didn't want to spend all day in a minivan so we chose the speedboat option. It ended up being great.

Goodbye Railay!

We said our goodbyes to our awesome hotel room and beautiful Railay beach. It wasn't what we had wanted for our time there but it's still very spectacular. We made our way to the pier on East Railay. The speed boat's first stop was Railay and we were a little early so we got our pick of where to sit. We decided to sit in the very front of the boat on some bench seats that were outside. The journey across the bay was incredibly fun. I love love love being on the water and feeling the wind in my face. It was like a mini island tour. We met an older couple from California who had been island hopping up from Malaysia. They were tanner than just about anyone I've ever seen. The boat stopped a few different places to drop off/pick up people.

Cramped back of the minivan to Phuket

The boat landed on the east side of big Phuket island and everyone got into large passenger vans and drove across the island. We were the first people to be dropped off at our hotel which was great because we were squished into the back. Our hotel here is called "The Sixteenth Naiyang Beach Hotel". I don't know if it's because it's the 16th hotel to be built in this area or a different reason. We picked this hotel because it's so close to both the Elephant Sanctuary we're going to tomorrow and because we have a 6am flight to Cambodia on Tuesday.

Awesome 7th floor Phuket Hotel

The hotel looked awesome from the outside and was even cooler on the inside. Somehow we lucked out and got a junior suite on the very top (7th) floor on the hotel. The views across the airport and our part of the island were really something. The bed is super hard again (that's just the way things are around here) but it has a super comfy, soft couch. For the price, it was really great.

It was around lunch time so we looked up some food options and decided on one just down the road. It was called "The Diary Cafe" and had fun decorations. The 2 younger women working were very nice and the service was the best we'd had for a few days. I had some stir-fried chicken with basil leaves which was AWESOME. Lacey had stir-fried chicken with vegetables which had a bad ratio of chicken to vegetables but still tasted good.

Stir-fried chicken with basil leaves

We spent the afternoon at Naiyang Beach (about 10-minute walk from hotel). The beach is part of a national park so it's very unspoiled and much more local than the super touristy Railay we had been at. It was a breath of fresh air to not see hotels and boats and loads of people everywhere. The beach is super cool too because it's next to the airport so you can see planes landing every so often. I really think my favorite thing in the world is walking along a beach with my feet in the water so this was heaven for me.

Jeremy in his element

I could tell Lacey was getting a little antsy to leave so I offered to leave (even though I didn't want to haha). She was nice and said we could stay for a little while longer. The sunset started out gorgeous and then it was incredible and then the sun actually set below the horizon and it was like the whole sky burst into flame. Every cloud was illuminated and there was a rainbow of oranges, reds, and purples. I've seen many sunsets and I don't think one has ever truly taken my breath away like this one (my breath seriously stopped). It was an amazing moment and I'll never forget it. Check out the picture of Lacey below and you'll see what I mean.

Sunset at Naiyang Beach

It's moments like that sunset that make all the struggles (work, saving money, long flights, sickness) worth it. It's moments like that sunset that remind me why I am so deeply in love with traveling. So yeah, it was a fantastic, amazing day today.

I spent the evening working on the blog post from the day before and Lacey spent the evening napping on the comfy couch (she misses our couch at home). We see elephants tomorrow!!!!