The 4th day promised so much and we were not disappointed at all. We sailed again with Simba Sea Trips - this time to the Phang Nga Bay (pronounced Pang Na) bay and had an extremely adventurous day. We were picked up from the hotel and transferred to Royal Phuket Marin from where the tour began. We sailed over the lovely green water, explored two caves on foot, visited James Bond Island, had lunch at the Floating village followed by a tour of the village, explored caves in canoes and saw breath-taking picture-postacard views throughout the day.

Breakfast on the boat

The first cave - Mangrove Cave (you will see why the name). It was completely dark in the cave, we carried flashlights - the pictures have the camera flash. And then came the water - waist high!

Is that the other end of the cave? No, it opens into a clearing with a mangrove! At high tide, you’d get stuck in here!

The cave opened to this view.

A lovely sight

The second cave  - Ice Cream Cave. Stalactites and Stalagmites - cave formations.

The formations look like ice cream. And again, it was pitch dark, this is only the camera flash.

The cave does not ‘open up’ to anything. Only a tiny opening in the wall with water behind.

The opening without us blocking the view. And the smaller stalagmites which Sanika called ‘Dinosaur Nails’.

James Bond Island - featured in ‘Man with the Golden Gun’. A very touristy place after the rest of the seemingly untouched bay. We only stayed there for a short time, took kitschy pictures and left for more beautiful spots.

Continued in Part 2 - Too many pictures this day to stuff in one post.

Ever since we laid our eyes on the fabulous property of the Amari Coral Beach Resort online and read the details on their website, we had decided to keep aside some time to explore the resort. The 3rd day was the perfect time to do it as the day was for relaxing between two excursions.

This is the Rim Talay restaurant - one of the most scenic setting ever seen. Buffet breakfast was served here and I really miss the experience of having a fabulous breakfast in this gorgeous setting.

 After breakfast, we set off to the ‘Jetty’. Amari has its own jetty and the road to the jetty is a little excursion in itself. From the Rim Talay, we stepped on to the resort’s private beach.

The private beach. The fenced path in the distance is the road to jetty and the resort spa.

That’s the jetty as seen from the beach or from our rooms.

The picturesque winding road to Amari’s Jetty with the national forest on the left.

That’s it - the lovely jetty! You can take the steps down the front and start snorkeling right away. Or relax and tan on the sun beds here. Or come here for a romantic dinner in the evening right above the waters of the Andamans!

The jetty gave us the full view of our wonderful resort with all sea-facing rooms. And think about this - we are still on the hotel property!

Once  we had explored theresort, we took off for Patong again for our Thai massage at Patong Synergy Massage in the Post Office lane on Patong beach road (opposite Siam Ceramics). The ladies kept our daughter busy with hair braiding and nail art and the little Disney Princessfan was on cloud nine.

The lovely road to Patong from Amari resort.

Patong Beach

After the massage, we strolled to the other side of the Patong Beach Road - the Rat-U-Thit road famous for shopping. We did not shop since we were to go to Bangkok which is much cheaper. We stepped into Jungceylon mall and bought some Phuket souvenirs (sand art candles) and had homemade ice-cream.

Jungceylon mall on Rat-U-Thit Road

We had lunch on Rat-U-Thit road, shopped at one of the ‘Family Mart’ stores for water and some other stuff and returned to the resort in a Tuk-Tuk. Dinner was room service Pizza from La Gritta that we had become addicted to. La Gritta and the Jetty (turned into a diner in the evenings) glowed with beautiful lights and we could see them from our room every day.

‘La Gritta’ Italian restaurant - and Jetty seen far behind