Racha Island Phuket Thailand
For some old reason, Westerners call this beautiful island Racha and Thais call it Raya. Either way it is worth a day trip or, better still, a weekend away from the busy roads of Phuket. There’s good snorkelling here and Raya Divers if you want to learn to dive.

Raya has two main bays : Ao Patok where all the speed boats arrive and Ao Siam – a much quieter bay with superb walks and places to just be alone. Ao Patok is currently having a big, new resort built on it. The Racha- a high-class, eco-friendly set of bungalows. Opening mid 2004. Ao Patok has high tide swimming most of the day whereas Ao Siam is only swimable early morning or after 6pm.

Walk behind Ao Patok ( straight through the centre) and follow the sandy path to find Father Bungalows on the right and Raya Resort on AO Teau after that. Turn left at Father Bungalows abd keep on the path until you hit the beach and you’ll be just in time for a drink at the Reggae Bar there. The path literally ends right behind the bar. The chirpy owner, Max, will take care of you and explain where things are and where to get a decent lunch or dinner. At night Max usually has a BBQ going with freshly caught fish and perhaps a bit og fire throwing.

Next to the Reggae bar is Hippy Bar where Woot and Vicky will serve you a nice meal and further down the left hand side of the beach is the wonderful Bamboo Shack Restaurant. The lovely Thai couple who run it do a great masaman curry and are very welcoming. At the very end of the beach you’ll find Jungle and Sea View Bungalows up the hill. A bit precarious while walking at night but great views during the day.

Located around 12km south of Phuket, Raya is accessible via a variety of boats and day trips. If you want to do it yourself a speed boat from Rawai Beach or Chalong Bay will cost approx 1,000 baht per person or a longtail 1,500 baht for the whole boat. Some of the speedboats do special deals for 1,200 baht where you get a packed lunch and the use of snorkelling gear. Speed boats generally leave Raya for Phuket at 3pm daily. Crossing takes 40 min by speed boat and one hour 15 min by longtail.

Days Tours to Phang Nga Bay Thailand
Phang Nga Bay, to the east of Phuket, is one of the most beautiful tourist attractions of the world. But the impression you get of this wonderland depends largely on which tour you choose.

A James Bond Island tour wull cost very little and you won’t even have to look for one, it comes to you: most street touts and agencies will set you up with one straight away. Expect to pay about 400 baht. The trouble with these tours is that they take so long to get to the sights, stopping at a temple along the way and only allowing the visitor to alight at James Bond Island – a war zone of hawkers and cheap tat, and then for lunch at Koh Pannyi, a Muslim village on stilts. Okay, lunch at Koh Pannyi is delicious and the boat trip entertaining. For some, it’s an enjoyable and memorable day out, but what about trying some different?

If you’re travelling in a group there’s not much different in price but an awful lot more adventure if you take a taxi over to Bang Rong ( near the Gibbon Rehabilitation Center) and charter a longtail boat. For a full day its should cost 3,000-4,000 baht, max 6 people. With luck, your guide will procure some fresh seafood along the way. Speaking of food, why not a lunch cruise? June Bahtra Cruise will take you around the same area with a sumptuous meal and a lot of sight-seeing. This’ll set you back around 2,930 baht ( children 1,990 baht). The same company also offers a sunset cruise.

Finally, if you have your own transportation you might want to motor up to Takua Thung, a village up on the mainland on Route 4 towards Phang Nga Town. You can tour the mangrove swamps from there and even make a stop at Jame Bond Island if you wish.

Between Phuket and Krabi are the lovely islands of Koh Yao Noi and Koh Yao Yai. These are not the islands to come if you want to party, sit on deck chairs sunning yourself, watch ladyboys on podiums or spend your cash in markets. Yao Noi and Yao Yai are places to get away from it all. Both the islands are Muslim and the majority of the population are rubber farmers and fishermen. A fair amount of cashew nut farming also goes on.

On Yao Noi, there is around 18kms of road and motobikes or mountain bikes can be hired from most of the resorts mentioned below. There are no marked walking trails but towards the north of the island there are plenty paths off through the trees that cover enough kilometers to build up an appetite for dinner.

Most of the bungalows on Koh Yao Noi run from the southern tip to the northern tip on the eastern side . They start with Lam Sai village Guest House. Run by an Englishman and his Thai wife, this is a great place to unwind and the food is superb. The bungalows are upmarket and the prices reasonable. Then there is Koh Yao Beach Resort – a group of perfectly-situated bungalows facing the beach and magnificent views of Krabi. It is family-run and the food is excellent. Owners Rit and Ron can organize day trips around the island and visits to neighbouring islands. Next is Pasai Cottage with the very hospitable Joop in charge.

Come along the road a bit and pass Coconut Corner then around the bend to the popular Saibai Corner. On the road again and you come to the cosy Reggae Bar. Next it’s Tabeak View Point, Holiday resort, Koh Yao Noi Island resort and finally, Namtok Bungalows in the north. Tabeak View Point is in a prime spot up a hillside and gives stunning views over Phan Nga Bay. Namtok is run by the enigmatic Yeah and is set in a quaint little garden. Here you make your own breakfast and join in the family dinner in the evening.

Another way to have a family dinner is to support the Koh Yao Noi Eco-tourism club and stay in a ‘home stay’.For a relatively small price you can live and eat with a Thai family on the island. The project also runs several day trips ro promote awareness of the environment – tours through the mangroves, rubber plantations and fishing areas etc.To get to Koh Yao Noi, take the bus oe a ride to Bang Rong Pier in the north of Phuket to the right of Talang. Take the ferry ( see the map). Journey -1 hour. On the island take a tuk tuk and make your way up to the east side of the island. From Krabi boats leave Ta Lain pier at 12 noon daily. From Phang Nga boats leave from Customs Office Pier at 12 noon – check a day before. There is 24 electricity and internet access in a few shop houses. Tuk tusk are available if you don’t want to rent a bike.

Khao Sok National Park
Khao Sok is home to a vast variety of natural wonders. It has 4,000 sqkm of tropical rainforest, caves and some of the rarest animals and plants in Thailand. It’s also the location of the largest flower in Thailand, the rafflesia kerri. There are several sections of the park to explore but the main ones are at :1/ Khao Sok National Park Headquarters just off Highway 401, where a selection of treks and inexpensive bungalows are available and 2/ Ratcha Prapha Dam and Lake ,here you can hire a boat with or without a guide.

Khao Sok is about 140km northeast Phuket and 120km west of Surat Thani on highway 401. To get to the dam and lake, turn off the highway between km 57 & 78 at Baan Takhun. The road to the dam is 14km so you need a vehicle. For the park headquarters turn off at km 109 and drive past the guesthouse that line is 1.5km track. If driving from Phuket, head north to Tukua Pa on highway 4, then take the turn for Sunrat Thani on highway 401. Or take a right at Koh Kloi ( also on highway 4), then turn off for highway 415. This is the fastest route to the dam. Buses from Phuket Town also go there.

Within Rocky Mountain National Park, you’ll find what I consider to be the greatest variety of hiking trails in Colorado. You can hike to lakes, waterfalls, through autumn color and lots more. You always have a good chance of seeing wildlife here, especially elk. Other residents of the park include mule deer, bighorn sheep, moose, mountain lions, black bears, coyotes, foxes, and marmots among others.

Before heading into the national park, you might be interested in checking out one of the five visitor centers. Three of them are open all year and those are: Beaver Meadows Visitor Center, (Estes Park side of the park), Fall River Visitor Center, (near Fall River entrance to the park), and the Kawuneeche Visitor Center, on the Grand Lake side of the park. For more information about them, go here.

The Beaver Meadows visitor center is located on Hwy. 36, just outside the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s only about three miles from the town of Estes Park. If you’re going into the park from the town of Grand Lake, you can stop in at the Kawuneeche visitor center. You’ll find it at about one mile north of Grand Lake on Hwy. 34 just outside the park.

To start you in the right direction, here’s how you get to Rocky Mountain National Park from the town of Estes Park: follow E. Elkhorn Ave. (U.S. Hwy. 36), to Moraine Ave. Turn left on Moraine Ave. and follow Hwy. 36 west all the way to the park. Or, you can go this way instead: from the intersection of Hwy. 36 and Hwy. 34 in Estes Park, take Hwy. 34 west, (Fall River Rd.), and follow it all the way to the park.

One more thing you might find useful to know before driving into Rocky Mountain National Park is the entrance fee. If you’ll be in the Estes Park area for seven days or less, you can get a pass for $20.00. Otherwise, if you’ll be around for longer than that, you can get an annual pass for $40.00.

So, are you ready for a hike? If you are, click here to see my collection of Rocky Mountain National Park trails. These are all waterfall hikes. After you’ve seen a few of them, please let us know here, which one you think is the best. You can also go here to see what other people think is the best one. If you’d rather hike up to a lake, go here instead.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, you always have a good chance of seeing wildlife in Rocky Mountain National Park. So I’ll start adding pictures of some of the animals that you might see, along with a short description of where I saw them.

We spotted this coyote along the road to Bear Lake. He was actually with a couple of other coyotes and they were eating berries from the bushes next to the road. As you see here, they can partially blend in with their surroundings, so do keep an eye out for them.

This bighorn sheep was with a small herd of sheep a short ways outside the Fall River entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. The best place to look for them is usually anyplace from the Sheep Lakes area, (inside the park), to McGregor Mountain Lodge, (outside the park), and beyond, along Fall River Road.

Elk are the most common animals that you will see in Rocky Mountain National Park. They can be seen almost anywhere in the park but you’re more likely to see them in the Moraine Park area of the park, especially during the fall. We saw this one near the Horseshoe Park area of the park. If you’re looking to see bull elk, the best time of year to find them is during the fall rutting season. That’s when they challenge each other for the female elk.

Although you might see mule deer in Rocky Mountain National Park, they are less commonly seen here than elk. We spotted this one outside the park along Fall River Road, not far from the park entrance. I’ve heard that one of the better places to look for them is on Deer Mountain. I haven’t yet hiked that trail but when I do, I’ll let you know whether or not I found any deer along the way.

Ground squirrels are commonly seen throughout the park during the warm months. We saw this one near Mills Lake. He came right up to me looking for a handout, but it’s best not to feed them. Other places in the park that I’ve seen these little critters include: along the Fern Lake trail, along the trail to Alberta Falls, and along the trail to Nymph, Dream, and Emerald Lakes.

The Grand Canyon is spectacular! It is not just a simple canyon but rather a whole maze of canyons, fissures and gorges worn into the rock with unusual buttes, mesas and rock spires standing between them. The exposed multicolored sedimentary layers take on varying hues as the angle of the sun and shadow change throughout the day. It is truly one of the great natural wonders of the world.

The Grand Canyon is immense. It is almost 200 miles long and about 10 to 15 miles wide. Its deepest parts along the Colorado River channel lie over one vertical mile (1.6 km) below the plateau at its rims.

The Grand Canyon is nearly a mile deep
The rock layers were created at the bottom of a vast sea millions of years ago when sedimentary deposits accumulated to a thickness of nearly a mile. Later, a collision of tectonic plates raised the entire region thousands of feet to form the great Colorado plateau that now lies 7000 to 9000 feet (2100 to 2750 meters) above sea level. The Colorado River slowly formed a basin to carry away water from this region and over the millennia it eroded down through the numerous sedimentary layers. Eventually the river cut this mile-deep channel that we have named the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon National Park is located in northern Arizona about 75 miles (125 km) north of Flagstaff Arizona. The South Rim Visitor’s Center can be reached via an hour-and-half-hour drive from Flagstaff or a five-hour drive from Las Vegas. The North Rim Visitor’s Center is a mere 10 miles (15 km) from the South Rim Visitor’s Center “as the crow flies” but you must drive over 200 miles (320 km) to get from one to the other.

The South Rim Visitor’s Center
The South Rim Visitor Center is the most popular destination for tourists. It offers the best views, has the most facilities and is the most accessible. The North Rim Visitor Center has fewer viewpoints, has fewer facilities, is less accessible and closes from late October to mid May. Many backpackers, hikers and wilderness campers prefer the North Rim due to its isolation and lack of tourist crowds. The West Rim is actually the western end of the canyon located on the Havasupai Indian Reservation. It is not as deep and is a bit less spectacular, but is favored by many Las Vegas tour operators, as it is only a three-hour drive from the Vegas Strip.

Commercial airline services operate flights between Las Vegas, Flagstaff or Phoenix and the Grand Canyon airport situated a few miles south of the South Rim Visitor Center. Airplane Tours and Helicopter Tours of the canyon depart from this small airfield. The Grand Canyon Railroad operates steam engine excursion trains between Williams Arizona and the South Rim Visitor’s Center.

Most people view the canyon from the South Rim Trail. Part of it is closed to automobile traffic from May to October, but free shuttle busses take tourists to all the vantage points. The road east to Desert View is normally open and offers many scenic overlooks into the canyon. The airplane tours and helicopter tours departing from the airport near Tusayan are great ways to appreciate the grand scale of the canyon. For a unique experience, you can take a mule ride down into the canyon. Half day, and overnight rides are available, but you must book your reservations many months in advance.

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