Scott and CJs Travel Blog: Phang-Nga Eco Tour

(2/22/11) Today we woke up early in the morning and walked the beach in the dark. The moon was shining down on the wave making the froth of the wave glow. It was a magical experience. After breakfast we went to the lobby and waited for the van to take us across the island to the Boat Lagoon Marina where we have reserved a tour of Phang-Nga bay. We boarded the speed boat and took off. I mean we really took off! This boat has 2 - 250hp outboard motors and they make this boat fly across the waves. Shortly we arrived at Phang Nga bay where we slowly drove around the islands of Kho Panak and Kho Hong. Here we saw Macaque monkeys jumping through the trees. The land scape of these island is very interesting. These islands are made of limestone and were once part of a mountain range. mostly submerged the water now erodes the sides of the former mountain peeks (now islands) into strange shapes. You can see remnant of caves all through these islands. Next we went to Tapu island also referred to as James Bond island. This island was used in the James Bond movie "The Man With the Golden Gun". Here we were allowed to get off the boat and wonder the island for a little bit. They have a local market here where they sell tourist trinkets. Next to Koh Talu where we got off the boat and went swimming. this was a little of a scam you had to rent chairs for 20 TBH. We were not impressed with that part. It's not a lot of money but they never mentioned anything about this before we took off. The snorkeling was terrible. Net we went to lunch at a floating village on the shores of Koh Panyi island. The food was traditional Thai and very good. Of course they stopped there so we could spend more money at the local markets but we resisted. After lunch we went to Kho Khai island for more snorkeling. Unfortunately we were being chased by a storm now and he had to only let us snorkel for 20 min. Not enough time for anything. CJ went in the water but the sky was already real dark so there was nothing to see. However the island was beautiful and the sand on the beach was very fine. So we walked a little ways up the beach before we had to get back to the boat and race back to the marina. All in all a nice trip.

Islands in Phang-Nga Bay

Typical Thai fishing boat being used for a tourist boat.

Macaque monkey reaching for a snack

Sample of exposed caves

More islands in Phang-Nag bay

Wondering around the islands

Sail boat to provide prospective

Another strange island

CJ holding up an island with one hand (James bond island)

James Bond island

Floating village where we ate lunch

Once we arrived back to the hotel we got ready for dinner. Tonight we are turning Japanese I really think so... OK if you don't know the song reference we went to Kabuki a Japanese restaurant. This was the fanciest Japanese restaurant I have ever been to. We sat at the sushi bar and watched the sushi chefs perform there art. Fantastic food and sake. We had some very nice cold sake while we were there. We have been kind of on this cold sake kick lately. We have found that the cold sake is much better then the hot sake although more expensive. They were having an event outside while we were eating dinner with Thai dancers and elephants. It was absolutely incredible. Something to do with the BMW golfing. It was a very long day for us so after dinner we went to bed.