TD member Spin asked me on another thread to post pics of my trip yesterday on the speedboat that goes from Phuket to Ao Nang.

I haven't posted photos before, so I hope they post OK - (TD, it was hard going to find your thread explaining how to post pics in a thread - you should sticky it at the top of your forum home page)

Background:

Yesterday morning I was in Ao Nang at my hostel, and had to return a car to my other hotel in north Phuket. So I drove the car at 9am around Phang Nga bay,arriving at my Phuket hotel at 11am, but then choose to make the return leg to Ao Nang by speedboat directly across the bay.

A taxi from Phuket Airport to Ao Nang costs about 1,800 baht, whilst the speedboat costs 950 baht. I actually got the price at 850 baht, since the boat company pays 100 baht commission to hotels whose guests book the speedboat.

The speedboat leaves at 3pm from Bang Rong pier in north Phuket, about 20 minutes drive from the airport. This boat goes via Koh Yao Yai and Noi. There are also various slow boats that ply between Bang rong and Koh Yao.



The speedboat company is called Green Planet. The boat holds about 30 people, although when I took the trip there were only about 15 people travelling to Koh Yao. most of them were elderly Muslims, with a couple of western tourists.

Although the boat looked very new, there was no sign of any life-jackets, although I'm sure they were available. I actually wore my own life-jacket during the trip, not because I am a wimp who cannot swim, but because the unexpected can happen even on a calm day, and I prefer to casually swim away to safety whilst the other passengers are fighting for their life-jackets.



After leaving Bang Rong, we headed out to open sea and soon were moving along at a fast pace. The first port of call was the small jetty at Koh Yao Yai, which we reached after about 30 minutes. A few people got off at this relatively untouristy island, but most stayed on board for the short trip across to Koh Yao Noi



There were more people waiting at koh Yao Noi to greet friends who were arriving by our speedboat. Only a couple of tourists got on board for the trip to Ao Nang, and I think there were only about 6 passengers for this last part of the journey.



As we pulled away from Koh Yao Noi, we passed the long spit of land on Yao Yai that stretches out into the sea towards Yao Noi. It was a beautiful sight on a hot day, and hard to believe that such a quiet place lay only a few km from Phuket and Ao Nang.



The final leg over to Ao Nang, and the speedboat docked at the pier near to Nopparat beach. I took a 100 baht motorcycle taxi through Ao Nang and was back at my hostel by 4.15pm.

Thoughts - well what a fun trip! The price seemed OK considering the short time to cross over the bay, and especially since the taxi fare was double! I think in the low (LOW) season that this speedboat maybe does not operate, or operates according to how rough the sea is - in which case, please take your vomit bags.

Simon

PS - just uploaded this post and FCK! I see the photo links ok but no automatic display of the photos! TD, where did I screw up?