Day 12: Phang Nga Bay

Today we got up early and went on another trip. A boat trip to Phang Nga Bay.

The trip started at Laem Sai pier. which was a one and a half hour drive from our hotel (!). Then, we drove for about an hour on a fairly big diesel powered boat with about 30 other passengers, then hopped out onto inflatable canoes, and went into some sea caves at Panak Island.

The caves were very short in height, so for part of the trip we needed to lie down in the boats to even make it any further, but then, the caves opened up again inside the island to a beautiful mangrove lagoon. I didn’t get great pictures today as I was too busy enjoying the view!

We couldn’t stay too long as the tide was going out (meaning the caves would be dry and we wouldn’t be able to canoe out), but it was interesting to see anyway. Then we went through a similar sea cave to get to something they called the diamond cave which had very sparkly rocks inside of it.

Then back on board the big boat and over to Hong island, where we saw some more caves. Then we went to James Bond island which was weird. To get from the big boat onto James Bond island, you take a sort of long boat powered by an angled motor. When you arrive on the island, you are met by young men in full camo gear with sunglasses, hats and bandanas over their mouths – a bit startling, but practical given the fumes from the boats.

On the island were many sellers of knick knacks and small touristy items. Thankfully that part of the trip wasn’t too long and then we were back on board the big boat and over to Lawa Island for some swimming which was nice.

I was reminded today about how lucky we are to have the pristine Ottawa River to play in. While today’s was a lovely trip, it was very crowded everywhere we went. Hard to believe that it is the low season for tourists right now – I can’t imagine doing that trip in the busy season.

It was a very long day doing this trip from our hotel, so tomorrow we are taking the day off. Wahoo.

Random thoughts on vehicles:

I wanted to write somewhere about vehicles. We learned from one of our drivers in Cambodia that it is common when purchasing a used vehicle to have it blessed. This is done because you don’t really know the past of the vehicle, you want to make sure that it has good karma and will not be accident-prone.

We also noticed that now that we are in Thailand, many vehicles have dash-cams. Derek says this is for insurance purposes – so that after an accident, if enough vehicles have dash-cams, someone’s will have recorded the accident and then people can see if it truly was an accident or some sort of insurance fraud.

Phuket doesn’t seem to have tuk-tuks, which means it’s slightly harder to get around as a tourist. They really made Siem Reap so easy!

Last comment on vehicles: It seems completely normal to load up the back of a half-ton with people and drive around on the highway. When it’s rainy, everyone just wears a plastic rain coat (same on motorcycles and scooters).