invisible

Hello folks,

My wife and I are coming to Phuket for our first visit in Thailand this is our 10th anniversary trip. We have been looking for a quiet place to stay so we choose Surin beach to avoid hastle and bastle of Patong.

Now I am trying to find out useful activity for these three days we will be there. I've spent good amount of time on TripAdvisor and Wikivoyage trying to understand what is available/makes sense for us to do.

We are in fairly fit and like water activities, like kayaking and rafting. After looking at different tour operations, seems that most of them offer the same programs at Phang Nga. Also the same or very similar itinerary across different tour operators could be double an more of the price. I wonder if most of them are just agents subcontracting tours to third parties and while you pay top dollars you eventually end up cramped with dozens of others with mediocre experience at best. This is really I want to avoid.

All of the rafting tours include visit of Monkey cave and elephant trekking - I'd rather avoid to be part of. Also the rafting itself is merely just 45 min, while I am looking for for something at least two hours. So... do you have any company/tour/itinerary to recommend? Moreover - does it actually makes sense to do, considering the travel times to/from Surin?

If rafting\kayaking is not the best option for RoI, what would you recommend? We are interested in nature and activities (trekking, biking, kayaking, rafting), cultural and religious sites. Completely not interested and would like to avoid: parting/drinking, nightlife (unless there is really good Latin music or jazz place), huge crowds, overused tourist spots, forced stops and pressure to buy something at markets and shops.

Thanks in advance, hope to hear useful suggestions soon.