Phang Nga Bay
After a few days of laying on the beach, we’re ready for a little activity (or more accurately, I’m ready, but it is my story after all). While in Patong for dinner last night (Patong is kind of a cesspool, so one evening there was plenty), we arranged for a day trip to Phang Nga Bay. These are mostly sold as tours to James Bond Island, as one of the islands in the bay was used in The Man with the Golden Gun, but the more appealing part to us is kayaking around a few other islands in the bay and through some of the caves there.
We begin at 8 in the morning, with a bus ride to the port, some 60 minutes away. There are some sketchy looking boats in the harbor, but ours seems seaworthy enough (note that in Thailand, the boat you will be on is never the new looking one tied directly to the pier, but one of the much shabbier ones that are in turn tied to it and that you can’t see until you are actually on it), and without too much delay, we are on our way.
Phang Hga Bay looks surprisingly similar to Halong Bay, which we visited in Vietnam a few years back. As we travel further, we are quickly surrounded by dozens of limestone islands towering up out of the ocean. As was the case in Vietnam, the haze takes away some of the impact, as on a clear day I imagine the view would be stunning, but it is impressive nonetheless, and if you ignore the train of tourist-laden boats, quite peaceful.
Our first stop is Panak Island, where we all pile into an inflatable kayak and head for a cave that takes us deeper into the heart of the island. After rounding a few bends, it is pitch black save for the head lamps of the guides paddling the kayaks, and when ours points his toward the ceiling, you can see the groups of bats clinging to the ceiling.
Back on the big boat, people are clearly getting more comfortable as the banana hammocks are coming out. There is an older couple from the UK directly across from us, and I give Angela a warning when the fellow stands up to stretch his legs, but like starring at the sun, you still do it no matter how dangerous you know it is, and she can’t stop herself here. The Beavis in me thinks this is pretty funny, which in turn draws Nick’s attention, and he wants to know why I’m laughing at mom. How she explained that away is a story I leave up to her.
We stop to kayak around a second island before finally heading to James Bond Island (or more specifically, the bigger island right next to it, as James Bond Island is just a tower of rock rising straight up out of the water). There is no pier, so we have to transfer from our boat to the island on a long tail boat. The ride is short and uneventful, but as fate would have it, our British friends step down into the boat in front of us before bending down to take their seats – enough said.
There are acres of tourists here, all doing their secret agent poses, and I finally wear Angela down to the point where she agrees to strike a pose with Nick. She did make me agree to not post it here, but she never said anything about telling people it exists, so be sure to ask her to see it.
This is the biggest of the islands we have been on and it has some cool caves to explore while we are killing time waiting for the long tail to take us back. There are also some interesting rock formations where the limestone has eroded away, and Nick puts on a climbing demonstration that would make Rudy cringe.
By the time we make it back to Phuket, it is close to 5 in the afternoon, so with the traffic, our return drive takes the better part of two hours. We’re pretty beat by the time they drop us off at the hotel, but scuba diving is next on our agenda, so we rally enough to head back into town to make plans for that. One of the shops we stop at has a dive master from the US who tells us all about the different islands and where he thinks Nick would have a good experience. It turns out he is a former rock climbing bum who spent a good part of his life living in a motorhome at Smith Rock, and when Nick tells him he has climbed there it gets him going on that. Small world.