Beach time!! I debated a lot about where to stay when I was planning this portion of my trip, considering if I should split the days between mainland and island - and which one. In the end, I didn’t want to lose time transferring to different places, so I made Kata Beach my base and did island day trips from there.
No longer in my 20s, I wanted to avoid Phuket spring break-iness and instead settled on the Kata Beach area. Kata is nice but very family-oriented. I still haven’t figured out why families travel over a thousand miles to never leave the hotel pool ... isn’t it cheaper to have pool play dates without leaving the country and save on airfare? I suppose if you have money to burn, you can do whatever you like. Other things I noticed about the area were that sidewalks don’t exist and there are a ton of hills and switchbacks. This makes walking down roads at night very ... adventurous ... sometimes the fleeting thought, "Is today the day I’ll be roadkill?" would quickly pass through my head, but then you just answer to yourself, "No" and keep going. Self-assurance!
Kata gave me a new travelling first, and that was the first time I came down with food poisoning. Yum. If you travel a lot, especially in Asia or other areas where the water is undrinkable due to poor quality, it's bound to happen no matter what precautions you take. Sadly, it was salmon curry from a nice restaurant that did me in. I was out for the count the entire following day wondering if I was going to be well enough to handle a boat trip the day after. Luckily it was not a multi-day bout of misery, and although weak, I was able to shuffle myself successfully onto the boat and just made sure to stay away from lunch as the smell of food still made my stomach turn.
During the week, I went on two different Simba Sea boat trips and in those two days, saw a glowing sunrise on the water, explored at least seven different islands, including a floating village, and snorkeled a few times while trying not to freak out about the fish following me in the water. The Simba Sea boat crews were impressive and had such good senses of humor. Although the ticket price was more than other boats, there were never more than 16 visitors on the boat, and they take you out yawning early in the morning to beat the giant boats herding other tourists in and out like cows. It was interesting to see where "The Beach" was filmed, but honestly, my favorite spot was Pileh Lagoon. One can never be 100 percent sure if the boat will be able to go to into the lagoon as it is tide dependent but luck was on our side! The lagoon was a very rich sapphire color surrounded by tall limestone cliffs on three sides. To make it even more leisurely, the crew handed out foam noodles to us so we were able to expel practically no energy and lazily float about in the lagoon for 45 minutes ... ahh bliss.
On the other Simba tour, the cherry on top was during a final swim at a very quiet beach. We were the only boat, and the tour guide put a plate of cut-up fruit on a life vest and pushed it out into the water for us to enjoy as we socialized in the warm water. Umm ... spoiled? Absolutely!
