James Bond Island
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2007
1
44
54
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
Phangnga,
Thailand
Friday, December 7, 2007
We originally booked the trip for the day before but Bob came down with severe food poisoning and so we had to postpone it. This is where the excellent service started because on the ticket it actually states that there were no refunds or transfers, but once I explained to the driver our situation, everybody changed the dates for us.
After consuming the left-overs from the previous night's seven eleven trip for breakfast, we were greeted in the lobby by our English speaking mini bus driver. We had fancy green James Bond Island tickets stuck to our T-shirts and embarked on a 45 minute drive (there abouts) to the jetty. During the interim, we sampled the complementary tea and biscuits before our green sticker group was called rounded up and bundled onto what can only be described as a raft with an engine. This in turn allowed us to board the most over powered barge in existence - one of four located off shore. We don't know what the 400 meant on the engine but it made one hell of a noise. Once all the drinks and fruit was dished out, accompanied by the safety talk and briefing, we set out towards James Bond island.
Phang Nga Bay is one of the most beautiful places. In our opinion it stands out from Halong Bay in that while it doesn't have as many islands, they appear to be far more spectacular. These uniquely intricate rock formations jettison out of the crystal clear ocean, coated in lush green vegetation with a sprinkling of stalagmites and stalactites.
After about an hour and a half we arrived at James Bond Island.
National Park
It was a bit overcrowded and had stalls selling tat on the island near it - but this is Thailand and we'd be worried if there wasn't. All of us were transported from our boats to the Island by long fishing boats converted for tourism - requiring us to scramble out of the boats and onto the beaches whilst dodging half submerged rocks. Avoiding the stalls, we headed straight to the shore line to grab the best pics before the view got obscured by people. We followed a short trail up the side of the cliff to get a broader view of the area before descending back to the beach to join the tour group. We walked away from the crowds to get a better view of the rock formation that had sheered in two. Weeble found this fascinating. Bob thought Weeble was weird and so proceeded to take photos of him instead. Koh Tapu was nicknamed 'James Bond Island' because it was the location for Scaremonger's HQ in the Bond movie 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. It is on the small side to be honest and we will have to watch the movie when we get back to remind ourselves of it's exact role.After looking round and waiting for 'Barbie and Ken' to find the boat again (if you had seen them you would understand) we departed for the first tour by inflatable sea canoe. This small island we arrived at was full of caves, lagoons and crevasses we could of paddled through but by the time we had arrived the tide had changed do parts of it were unreachable.
National Park
We paddled around the island and then through a small hole no bigger than the canoe for some fun. I forgot to mention that during this canoing tour we had a guide who did all the hard work - Its just as well because the last time we tried Weeble ended up paddling while Bob checked out the view and got a tan. Back on board the big boat, we made our way back to an Island which was more accessible.We arrived, jumped on the canoes and made our way into the bat cave. Role the Batman theme tune! Although we couldn't see anything (even with the torch!) we pointed the cameras up and began snapping. You can see the results on our photos, they are apparently bats. The best way to confirm this though was the smell. It was horrendous! We emerged from the cave and it was beautiful! In amongst the mangrove was hundreds of boxer crabs and mud skippers (the little creatures off the Guinness advert) all converging on the mud flats in between the trees. To our surprise, we also observed several monkeys swimming about and chasing the canoes (for food no doubt).
Lunch consisted of an excellent buffet - fresh BBQ fish, pineapple fritters, sweat & sour chicken, beef in black bean sauce - the list is endless. This was all accompanied with drinks and topped off with fresh melon for dessert.
On our way back to the jetty we stopped off at a fantastic beach. It was almost totally empty before other boats arrived. The water was so shallow you could almost walk the entire way to the boats before it became deep. The was plenty of trees for shade and a few wooden chalets that the park rangers occupied. We had the opportunity to paddle the canoes our selves but neither of us was very successful when it came to steering them.
We returned to the jetty and driven back to our hotel. All the food, drink and transportation was included in the price of our tickets so we had no need to worry about taking extra cash with us. It was so refreshing not to have to worry about anything and just being able to enjoy the sights without trying to keep up with everyone else's canoing abilities. It was a amazing experience and I have no doubt that if we return to Thailand, we will definitely return there. James Bond Island tours were fantastic!
Comments
Really nice photos
I love the photos of the caves and kayaking. I hope you had fun on the rest of your trip.
Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager
Re: Really nice photos
Thank you. Were already planning a return trip in the near future.