Day 7 & 8: Ferry From Koh Lipe to Phuket

Today I am leaving the island of Koh Lipe.  I booked a ticket from Koh Lipe to Phuket airport from Tigerline. (Cost: 2340 bhat)  They have an option for the full transport all in one ticket.  This is very convenient to get me right to the airport.

The ferry arrives basically on time and it is big, quite a bit bigger then I expected.  Because of the size of the ferry, I need to pay 50 baht to get a transfer from Pattaya beach to the ferry since there is no pier in Koh Lipe.

This is the first ferry of the season and there is tons of free space.  Later in the season it may not typically be this empty but I don’t know that for sure. I sleep for awhile and we arrive at some unknown-to-me port. Here, everyone is forced off and we get herded onto other smaller speed boats according to our destination. The entire process is so unorganized and no one knows what is going on. It’s a miracle we all got on the right boats.

The rest of the journey is not nearly as smooth as the big ferry was.  The speedboats are quite rough as they hit the ocean chop and we are getting wet. I would suggest sitting as close to the front of the boat as you can to avoid the almost constant spray of water.

I transfer boats once again with the same confusion and finally end up at the pier in Phuket. From here, most people go their own way but I get in a van with one other girl.  She gets dropped off at her hostel in Phuket Town and I continue onto the airport.

I booked the Holiday Inn Phuket Mai Khao Beach, which is somewhat near the airport, on Point Breaks for just 5k per night.  The hotel is nice and the beach is great.  The sand is not powder soft and its raining on and off so its hard to really judge the sand.  The best part is the beach stretches far and there are almost no people.  Its beautiful and relaxing.

The next day, Nens and I checkout and leave our things at the hotel lobby.  We spend the day at the beach even though its raining on and off.  It doesn’t matter because the air and rain are warm.  Later, we retrieve our things and are able to take a shower in the spa.  The hotel staff are very accommodating to us even though we have already checked out.

We take a taxi to our hotel (Sino Imperial Phuket) in Phuket Town.  The taxi from the Holiday Inn Phuket Mai Khao Beach to Phuket Town was 1000 bhat.  Maybe a bit on the pricey side, but its a long drive; almost an hour.  The taxi driver offers to take us to the pier to get our ferry tickets for the next morning so we take him up on his offer.  The ticket from Phuket to Phi Phi then to Ao Nang is 1000 baht per person.  Seems like a good deal and they even give us an open date to leave Phi Phi.  However, later we find out in Phuket Town we can get the tickets cheaper.  I believe they had offers of 350 bhat to Phi Phi from Phuket and Phi Phi to Ao Nang was 400 baht.  We ended up paying about 150 baht per person more.  Lesson learned; shop around.

Apologies for the lack of photos.  It was raining so there wasn’t much opportunity to take nice photos.