January 20, 2013 - Rawai, Phrom Thep Cape, Yanui Beach, and Nai Harn Beach

Today we got hold of a map, with a little subsection that showed Rawai, Phrom Thep Cape, Yanui Beach, and Nai Harn Beach. The thing about little sub-maps? They make big areas look small. This is why every decent mapmaker, and, frankly, every decent human being includes a scale on their map.

I told Lucky over breakfast, as I studied what appeared to be a rather little peninsula of Phuket, that it'd be entirely do-able to walk to Nai Harn. Mark those words, by the way. They were the words of a fool.

We left early--around nine, I believe--to avoid the worst of the day's heat. This was wise. Six or seven would have been wiser.

Somehow less scary, now.

Viset road isn't quite as busy in the mornings, and we weren't particularly terrified of them by this point. Desensitization, I suppose.

We wandered downhill, toward Rawai Beach, past the Seashell Museum (again). We went there on our first day, as LuckyStar mentioned in her last entry. It's okay, I guess--a truly incredible collection of seashells, but unless you really, really love seashells, it's not the most entertaining museum in the world. It's 200 baht to get in, but it is air-conditioned (it has a serious mould problem, but...air conditioning).

Seashell Museum. The gift shop is pretty okay, but damn. Sea shell lose their coolness fast.

Further down, we hit the first turn in our path, as Viset road curves east to follow the shoreline of Rawai Beach. This is a lovely beach, despite its unsuitability for swimming. It's fairly silt-laden, a relic of Phuket's tin mining operations. There's a kite-boarding school there, which doesn't appeal to me much, but the parachutes make for great photos.

Kite boarders and long boats!

If you want to visit any of the many islands offshore (you can see them from the beach!), there's a man with a longboat who'd love to take you. Many men with many longboats, to tell the truth. But Lucky and I had a goal in mind--Nai Harn, and so politely refused their offers. Near the end of the beach, the road split, with a second, smaller road that continued following the coast, running through a marketplace.

The market was closed that early in the morning, but it looked like a fascinating place to visit, At the end of the road, we crossed over a bridge, the river barely more than a stagnant pool now, the dry season leaving it with little water. There were wrecked boats lying along the river bottom, still beautiful despite rotting in the mud.

It was a boat.

The road after the bridge split, and we chose the left-hand path--it looked less traveled-by, and though I'm not sure if it made a difference, we certainly ended up on an interesting path. The road rose abruptly, winding through the hills, past a few small restaurants, boarding houses, and hotels. Then, abruptly, civilization disappeared.

The jungle in Phuket is thick. I say this from an Albertan perspective, where 'thick vegetation' refers to a clump of birch trees, huddled over a plot of land, white trunks growing side-by-side, so dense that undergrowth doesn't have a chance. The birch tree groves cut off sharply, giving way to thick grass, brambles, and weeds. In Phuket, thick vegetation means something different. The trees soar into the sky, and the ground below them is covered in a carpet of green, a tangled and wild mass of plants fighting for the sun's light. The trees don't grow as close together as the birch trees do--you can see the sun--and it's all amazingly green.

We walked on. And on. And on.

At some point, LuckyStar's glare began burning a hole in my spine. "Short walk?" her glare seemed to say, "Ha! LIAR." I didn't find it too bad myself, but she was certain that we were hopelessly lost (I knew where we were, but she refused to believe me), and, being Lucky, was certain that this was going to lead to our horrific death. It didn't, in case you had any doubts, which leads me to what I think the really important lesson here is: I was right.

Another branch in the road, and I chose the left-hand path again, knowing it was sort of south-ish, and that there was a lighthouse down there somewhere. We walked again. My ankle ached horribly, but I called it physical therapy and kept going.

Lucky was still convinced of our imminent death due to lost-ness (personally, I've never heard of anyone dying of being lost, but that's just me), when finally, up yet another massive hill, we found it--the Phrom Thep Lighthouse!

Phrom Thep Lighthouse. Prettier now that I'm not dying of heat stroke.

Phrom Thep Lighthouse is an impressively ornate structure, but it's not the real draw to this place--no. The real draw is the view. On my soul, I've never seen anything so glorious. The ocean stretches out forever, spotted by beautiful islands, and you can see Nai Harn from here (it looked so close, can you really blame us for continuing?).

See that white beach in the distance? Nai Harn. NOT AS CLOSE AS IT LOOKS.

The view from the lighthouse. Totally worth the walk.

There's a shrine here, heavy on the elephants. I don't know what it means and I don't know what it's for. I think it's Buddhist, but I'm just not sure. It's so pretty, though. Mysterious.

Elephant Shrine!

For people more adventurous than us (we were pretty tired at this point, okay), there's a short hike to Phrom Thep Lookout Point, supposedly the best place to watch a sunset on the entire island.

Someday Lucky and I might come back to check that out, but we arrived there at about noon and weren't interested in waiting.

The path down to Phrom Thep lookout point.

You have to remove your shoes to enter the lighthouse, but it's worth it (air-conditioned!). There's a mini-museum of the history of lighthouse technology inside, but it was all in Thai. We really need to learn Thai...

Anyway, there's this tight staircase up, and then you walk out on this balcony surrounding the lighthouse, and you get some entirely new spectacular views!

The view! The jungle seems to go on forever.

Down at the base of the hill, where all the tour buses park, there's a restaurant and a couple of stalls selling tourist stuff and sweet, delicious water. We got some water, and then decided that we'd recovered enough to walk to Nai Harn. After all, we could see it from the lighthouse--how far could it be?

With that question in mind (I always regret questions like that...), we strode off down the road.

In related news, Nai Harn is actually something like five kilometres from Phrom Thep. The more you know, right?

We walked on, and on, and on...and on. LuckyStar appeared ready to stab me in the back out of sheer rage, and so I made her walk in front of me. Then I drank some of her water because I'd finished my bottle. I'm kind of a terrible BFF some days.

Yanai Beach. It's so pretty.

Presently, we came upon Yanui Beach. This is a lovely little cove, with white sand and pretty turquoise water. See these rocks? They're really fun to climb! Lucky was less enthused, but she followed me up.

The view was pretty good from up there.

The rocks stretching out to the south are filled with tidal pools, tiny little fish, and cute red crabs swarming in them.

The beach loungers here are 100 baht to rent, and there's an interesting looking restaurant here as well. We didn't go eat, as we were slightly nauseated from the heat, but again, we could see Nai Harn from the beach. It was so close.

We took to the streets again. The road away from Yanui goes straight up, very steeply. It's quite difficult to walk up, but we persevered. It was a classic example of the sunk-cost fallacy, and now that it's over, my memories of the horror are fading rapidly, leaving only a vague sense of 'what an interesting adventure that was!' I write this as a reminder to myself, but I know that I'd do it again. LuckyStar will probably follow me, too. We're kind of dumb like that.

At the peak of the hill, there is a single windmill. I have no idea why. What could it be powering? Why was there only one? What do all those Thai signs say? We paused here, catching our breath, standing in the scant shade afforded by the jungle surrounding us. The foliage rustled mysteriously, tiny things scurrying through it, hidden from our sight.






Thus rested, we continued. It is a strange thing, to be a pedestrian in Thailand. You are alone, only the road and speeding drivers on scooters as company. And LuckyStar, if you're me, but you probably won't be me.

The road here wound back and forth, the slope too steep to pave straight up it, and it was here that I fell. My bad foot (my right foot has betrayed me far too often to be forgiven and is now forever known as the ‘bad’ foot) slid off the edge of the pavement, dropping into the concrete runoff ditch to the side, and my other leg collapsed. I did not fall particularly hard, but my knee--well. Good leg was hurt.

This is after it was cleaned up. At first I bled like a stuck pig. It was not particularly painful, but it was extremely annoying, considering that we were headed to Nai Harn to swim in the beach. It also looked awful, which was damaging to my fragile self-esteem.

The look of joy on Lucky's face as she realized that this was her chance to use the first-aid kit she'd lugged all the way from Canada--well that redeemed the experience. Slightly. She was properly horrified at first, of course--Lucky isn't a total ghoul--but she was understandably excited to use her fancy first-aid training.

The rest of the walk passed in a bit of a blur, but I can assure you that Nai Harn is a truly lovely beach. It is very nice there, though truthfully, we only explored a tiny bit of it. There's a Buddhist monastery right along it, and several restaurants.

Nai Harn. I claim this single photo that we took as a symbol of our victory over the cruel and unusual adventure I accidentally set us upon.

Exhausted, and with my leg still slowly bleeding, we hired a taxi and headed back to Le Piman, defeated by my leg's weakness yet again.

We shall visit Nai Harn some other day.

-Geogirl