Phang-Nga Bay

Phang-Nga Bay is a big place, and there's a lot of possibilities. Our plan was to take a small guided tour one day to hit the "sights", and then spend a few days each on the islands of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta, and finally do some caving around Krabi. Danny's knee looked like it was doing pretty well at this point, but we didn't want to risk a relapse due to contamination from the ocean water, so he had to keep dry for another couple days.


Dec 11

Phang-Nga Bay is a big place, and there's a lot of possibilities. Our plan was to take a small guided tour one day to hit the "sights", and then spend a few days each on the islands of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta, and finally do some caving around Krabi. Danny's knee looked like it was doing pretty well at this point, but we didn't want to risk a relapse due to contamination from the ocean water, so he had to keep dry for another couple days.

For the tour, we chose Simba Sea Trips, because it got high reviews on TripAdvisor, used a fast powerboat, and kept the group size small. With this tour, we were able to see a lot of things in the bay without having to get more than shin wet.

We started out by boating by a couple of the islands in the bay, just to get a look at the fantastic formations made by the limestone due to the heavy rains and the tidal action. In many places, it looked like a cave turned inside out. Our first destination was a "hong", an internal area of the island accessible from the water that used to be a cave, but was now collapsed and open to the sky. The first one we visited we got to by walking through a short cave with a stream in it. This opened into a muddy floored area with no ceiling that contained the beginnings of a mangrove forest, some rocks that had been weathered by the rain to become nearly razor sharp (we would later see very similar formations on Mount Owen in New Zealand), and a number of cute mudskippers.

[Quick Thai lesson: The Thai word for "bathroom" is "hong nam", meaning "room (for) water". Nam means water, and a hong is a room, so there you have it. Of course, I won't tell you how to pronounce it, since I don't know how to write in Thai. For that, you're on your own. --Danny]

Cave to the hong, from Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket

Next we stopped at the mother of all kayak rental spots. Boats come here from Phuket, Phang-Nga, Krabi, and who knows where else to a set of motherships which each manage about a hundred kayaks. You get in a kayak, and a guide paddles you around the island to another, more mature hong. This one was just under an archway, and had a thick mangrove forest in it. In addition to the mudskippers, we spotted a monitor lizard, stalking it way through the swamp. Our guide said they were good eating.

Kayaking, from Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket

At this, and the subsequent high tourism spots, it was apparent that these places would get really crowded, but I think we were there just before the high season, and always arrived a little bit before the crowds that did come.

After the kayaking, we got back into the power boat and headed to James Bond Island, a well known tourist trap. It's called James Bond Island because it featured prominently in "The Man with the Golden Gun" as bad guy Scaramanga's hideout. Despite the crowds that its fame brings, it's still a pretty place, especially if you can avoid the crowds.

James Bond Island, from Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket

For lunch, we went to the Panyi Village, a unique village that's built on stilts over the water next to an island. The village exists on fishing, shrimp paste, and tourism. Again, it was a big tourist destination - the huge restaurants that served all the tourist boats coming were a significant fraction of the size of the village. The food was good, but only about average for Thailand.

Panyi Village, from Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket

The final stop was a private island that the company had permission to use during the day. We stopped for some coconuts and a swim. Danny was still land-bound, so he investigated the patterns in the sand that these tiny crabs made, while I swam out to a tiny island that got swallowed by the tide as I poked around on it.

Swimming spot, from Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket