 A Phuket Canal I had this idea that it would be "easy" to walk to the beach. Look, we could have taken a taxi anywhere, but I didn't know where exactly I wanted to go, to be honest. There were so many choices and so little time. Part of my travel style often involves going on foot. Yes, it saves money on transport, but it also allows you more interaction with the place you are at. If you're always being shuttled from here to there, you may see a lot of things, but you may not *feel* the place you are at. Of course, shuttling of any type is a great option for a lot of people. And if that's what works for you, by all means, please do it. This is just a story about a girl who walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. To a beach that ... sort of never really was... So in the photo above you can see this canal. The water is quite low as you can tell and there are a combination of nicer boats and some shabby ones. We also walked on one side of this canal quite a ways, because surely it would lead out in to the ocean/beach right? Well... sort of. The thing is, we picked the wrong side. (Of course). After walking a really far length, we couldn't really go any further. So we had to literally turn around, walk back for 10-15 minutes, then cross a little bridge to the other side of the canal, and continue walking, in the heat, in the bronchitis, in the desperation to see the picturesque beaches of Thailand with the long tail boats lined up on display in the glistening waters... Well, eventually, and I mean eventually, we made it to a beach. Here it is:  Local Thais take advantage of the low tide to go crabbing at a local beach on Phuket Is it what you expected? It's not what I expected either. lol. This is definitely a local zone, and not a tourist area. Aren't the tides crazy? When the water recedes like this, you can walk quite far out and collect little crabs or other shelled sea creatures for cooking! As neat as this was, it was not exactly the beach I was hoping to lay down on after taking a quick dip in the ocean to refresh after the long walk. So.. We continued on... We walked through this nice park area and passed this recipes group of students.  Phuket students enjoying a picnic in the park! As I am obsessed with saying "Sawatdiikha" to *everyone* I pass ( I do this in US too, well, I say "hello" or similar to everyone, even though most people ignore me) And I love that 99% of the time I received a response in Thailand. The other 1% I'm chalking up to my low-talking or their impaired hearing. ;) When we passed this group, one girl shouted out "suway" which means "beautiful" in Thai. I was so excited to know what the word meant and to quickly retort as we kept walking, "Kun suway!" (You're beautiful - probably not the exact correct way to say that, but... it was understood) The giggles of that circle of students in the background and we carried on made me smile. It was a simple interaction, but one I would have never had if I had stayed at the resort. We saw some other interesting things on our route:  I loved this recycling sign "How long until it's gone!!" Fun facts about how long it takes for various items to decompose. I appreciated this anti-litter sign. It disturbing how long it would take somethings to disintegrate. Its great when we can all be more conscious, don's leave garbage. If you drop something, pick it up. And even if you didn't drop something, if you see something on the ground and you can pick it up safely, just do it! It may not be your fault that it's on the ground, but if you could pick it up and choose not to, then it IS your fault that it's still here. ::steps down off soapbox::  First time I've seen a "Tsunami Hazard Zone" warning sign in person 0.0 Here's a "fun" one (not): Tsunami Hazard Zone! Never saw a sign like this before. I was glad to not experience a Tsunami first hand. How scary!!!  Phuket Mangroves are an important part of the ecosystem There's a really nice walkway through some mangroves that we found. This isn't really the greatest picture, but the walkway was very nice and it was cool to explore the mangroves. Mangroves, in general, are really important for coastal ecosystems. Migratory birds, monkeys, sea turtle, monitor lizards and other creatures may find homes in mangroves in addition to fish, crabs, shrimp, and mollusks! We spotted a number of crabs!! Sadly, many mangroves in Thailand and elsewhere are threatened and destroyed for tourism, general development, charcoal production, and the list goes on. That being said, it's really cool to find a dedicated mangrove walk like this one in Phuket.  Traffic light intersection in Phuket Old Town (Phuket City) I'm now going to fast forward to when we actually made it back to the town area....  We checked out this place as there were some intriguing leather bags that caught our eye. We left empty handed. And you know what else was empty? Our Bellies!!! So we found this cool place:   Doesn't it have great style? And doesn't my Tom Yum Goong look amazing?  Tom Yum Goong - ต้มยำกุ้ง  Pad See Ew - ผัดซีอิ้ว After eating we hustled to find our way back to Royal Phuket Marina and catch the boat back to Coconut Island. Remember, the tides get crazy! We didn't want to be stuck at the Marina!! It had been a long day. It didn't go quite as planned, and it was nothing like I expected. But It was a perfect adventure. <3
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