Red Red Hot Head: #2180 Phang Nga Bay

We'll switch gears today and head out to Phuket to explore Phang Nga Bay. We took a fun excursion on a speed boat to a few different areas of the bay. This was mainly a sight-seeing trip, although we did have a brief chance to get in a bit of a swim.

We got picked up at our hotel and shared a ride with a nice couple from Boston to the Royal Phuket Marina where we were greeted by our guide for the day, Bond. His name was certainly appropriate and easy to remember since one of our stops was James Bond Island.

The Marina was pretty impressive and so was the boat that we were on that day.

The Marina - photo by MT

The boat we were on - photo by MT

The boat was a large speedboat that held probably around 30 people. The crew consisted of the driver, two crew members and the guide, Bond. We sat under the canopy because I wanted to be in the shade. The people sitting up front there got a bit too much sun!

Our first stop was Koh Khai, a small little island with a nice enough beach and a spot for snorkeling.

The water was nice and warm, but not very clear. I took this photo before a bunch of boats pulled up right there and unloaded a hundred other tourists. We weren't here for very long, though. Just long enough to get wet and cool off before we headed to our next stop, James Bond Island.

Do you remember the James Bond film The Man With the Golden Gun? Part of it was filmed on this little island. There is a rock out in the middle of the bay that is called James Bond Rock.

That big karst over on the right is James Bond Rock.

Bond, our guide, helped us recreate the iconic movie image.

whatculture.com

photo by Bond

I'm not sure what I found to be so hilarious here. I might be that I was in the water and it was kinda muddy and my flip-flops were sliding around all over. It could also be that Bond was looking for just the right shot and took 22 photos. It was silly and fun. And crowded. There were sooooo many people there and the island is tiny and the steps from where all the boats were parked to this side of the island were crawling with people. Still, it was a fun stop. There were a bunch of kiosks selling souvenirs. We didn't buy anything. You can read more about James Bond Island here.

The speedboats were parked over to the right out of the photo. I liked these longtail boats. Very Thai.

We got back in the boat and headed over to Panyee Island for lunch. Panyee is a floating village, populated by Muslim people dating back over 200 years. I have not ever seen anything like it.

MT took this photo from the boat

photo by MT

We walked through the village to get a a restaurant where we enjoyed a buffet lunch. There was soup, fried rice, chicken, fish and some other things I don't remember. The food was fine, but I was being tentative because I had been very sick the day before and didn't want to upset my stomach while I was on a boat ride. Here are a couple more photos of the village.

Panyee used to be a fishing village, but now most of the residents either sell souvenirs out in front of their houses or they work at the restaurant or the men might row you around Hong Island. What you're looking at in the photo above is basically the inside of someone's house.

This photo is just outside the restaurant as we are waiting to get back on board our boat.

This is a photo of the restaurant called New Fern where we ate. It's huge.There aren't many other places to eat out there on the bay.

You can read more about Koh Panyee here.

The final stop on the tour that day was Hong Island for a canoe trip through some caves. This was unexpected for me; I didn't realize the tour would include getting into a canoe and going into caves. Everyone has heard the story of the Thai kid's soccer team that got trapped in a cave for a couple of weeks, right? I wasn't thrilled with going into a cave. At. All. Then there's the whole canoe thing. By the time we did this excursion I had already stretched myself and been in a kayak (I haven't told that story here, but it was well-liked when I put it on Facebook), so MT told me that I was an old hand at getting in little tiny boats and floating on the sea. The tide was low and a local guy was going to paddle us around. So I took a deep breath, put on a life jacket, and got my bum into the canoe.

Here we are in the canoe with about 50 other canoes. The water was shallow, but I was still a bit nervous.

You can see that the water was calm and mellow.

Mostly we were just floating along through these arches and checking out the scenery. It wasn't exactly peaceful because there were so many other canoes and people out there, but it was pretty fun and certainly something I had never seen myself doing ever.

Our rowing guy didn't speak much/any English, but he did ask if we had been to James Bond Island. We said yes and after that, he kept shouting "Hollybush!" which I think was his way of saying "Hollywood" but I'm not sure. It was kinda funny the first ten times that he shouted it, and after that it was kind of annoying. He was a nice guy, though, and insisted on taking us to a calm little spot where he jumped out of the boat and took over 50 photos of us in the canoe. Here's just one of those 52 photos:

photo by our boat guy who I will call Hollybush

At this spot the water wouldn't be up to my knees and I am holding that oar simply for the photo. I didn't row at all.

You can read about Koh Hong here.

After that, it was back to the marina. Most people took a little snooze. The sea was calm and the ride took about 40 minutes or so. It's really beautiful out there.