(I was in cleaning up the blog in preparation for the next trip when I found this entry that never got posted, so here it is, better late than never)

Well the time has come for the vacation to end and it is back to Seattle for what we are told has been a very poor summer so far, but I am getting ahead of the story……

Our plan for the last part of the trip was to spend time at the beach and mostly just ‘hang out’ and relax, and we have been doing our best to keep our part of that plan on track.  The weather in Kata has been very co-operative so we have spent most of our last days doing just leisure activities: sleeping in, reading by the pool, hanging out at the beach – well you get the picture.

Our last big adventure here was to go on a tour in Phang Nga Bay.  Phuket hangs down a bit form the mainland and it’s east coast forms a large bay between Phuket and Krabi that contains 100s of small islands and karst outcroppings.  Mrs Columbus and I did a boat tour of the bay last year when we were here and it was one of our favorite tours so I thought that Brooklyn and Russ would really enjoy it also.

We picked a different tour package from the one I did last year and instead of going out only on the bay the tour we selected went up into Phang Nga province by car with a couple of stops at some rather large caves that have eroded themselves in the limestone hills and then out onto the water to see the famous ‘James Bond Island’.

Our first cave stop is at Wat Suwan Kuha – the cave is part of a temple that is sometimes called the Monkey Temple because of the 100s of monkeys running around the grounds.  You can buy some fruit from the vendors, but once you do that you are going to have a lot of new friends until some other tourist comes around with more fruit.  The temple itself is inside what turns out to be a huge cave with several Buddha statues and a number of vast caverns.

After a brief lunch stop we head off to our 2nd cave on the tour.  Phung Chang Cave (Tham Phung Chung), is one of the highlights in the tour brochure and luckily the reality matches the sales pitch.  There is a large foothill that basically blocks off a deep valley and the cave runs through the center of the foothill.  A creek runs through the valley and millions of years of erosion has channeled the creek through the foothill creating the cave.  The water running through the cave  means that our exploration is a little different than the other caves we have been to.  For the first several hundred feet we get into a sea kayak and a Thai guide paddles us in, then the cave narrows so we transfer to a bamboo raft and gudes then walk through shoulder high water pushing us on the raft for a few hundred more feet before we finally get off the raft and then wade our way deeper into the cave.  The locals are trying to keep the cave as natural as possible so there is no external lighting inside the cave, our only source of lighting is LED headlamps that we are all wearing.  Our exploration takes us about 1km (about 0.6miles) into the heart of the foothill and the channel through the cave becomes to difficult for tourists to go much deeper.  Our guide has us turn all off our headlamps and we get a feel for true 100% darkness and we spend a couple of minutes just appreciating the solitude and the gurgle of the water running through the cave.  Then it is time to move on so all the lamps get turned back on and we turn around and make the whole trek in reverse back to the entrance.

From there it is off to the pier in Phang Nga town to get onto a boat for the trip out to Ko Panyi and Koh Tapu (James Bond Island).  As expected the sights in the bay are sensational and I am quickly reminded why this is one of my favorite tours in southern Thailand.

My last trip to Ko Panyi was part of an all day boat trip of the bay and we stopped there for lunch at one of the huge floating restaurants that cater to the day trip crowds.  Unfortunately during that trip we did not have much time to look around after lunch, so we only got to see a small part of the ‘Sea Gypsy Village’.  This time however we are here with plenty of time to look around and it turns out the place is an interesting maze of homes, shops, schools and even a floating soccer field!

After about an hour of looking around and a bit of shopping for Brooklyn and Russ, it is off to James Bond Island.  The little island is busier than the last time I was here, but we have a bit of time to look around and get the standard tourist photos of the island.

Back to our hotel in Kata and we have time for dinner, a massage, and a last walk on the beach.  We have to pack up in the morning and start our journey back home.  It has been a great vacation and a bunch of new memories have been added.  It was fun to travel with the ‘young adults’ and hopefully they will have many more great adventure like this in their future.

Until next year (I hope)……

Phuket Island is about 60km long and sort of juts down off the western side of southern Thailand as the mainland veers off a bit towards the east.  This creates a fairly large bay between the eastern side of Phuket and the mainland that is littered with hundreds of islands varying in size from too small for anything but a few trees, to several hundred acres and populated.  The bay is known Phang Nga Bay and touches 3 Thai provinces: Phuket, Phang Nga, and Krabi and because it ‘hides’ behind Phuket, the water is quite calm and they are able to run tours there even when the Andaman Sea is a little on the choppy side.

There are 2 fairly common tours that the travel vendors try and promote to all the tourists – one is the tour to Koh Phi Phi, a large island group in the south of the bay that is very scenic, has a couple of nice beaches, and some hotels and guesthouse that people can stay at.  There is apparently good diving there, and a lot of people come to the south just to go there.  The other well promoted tour goes to the north end of the bay and is known as the ‘James Bond Island’ tour.  The James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun was filmed in the bay in the 70’s, and anyone who has seen the film will recognize the distinctive tower like island that rises out of the water and looks like it is so narrow at the base that it will fall over any time.

I have seen the tour advertised many times on every trip here, but always thought it would be a little ‘cheesy’ and never paid it much attention.  After doing a bit of reading, and looking for a new adventure Mrs. Columbus and I decided to give the James Bond tour a try, and were very pleasantly surprised!

After haggling a generous discount to the high season price we were all set for our hotel pick-up the next day.  The tour includes transfer to/from your hotel, and then basically a full day out on the water.  The boat stops at 4 different islands in the bay for various sightseeing, snorkeling, sea kayaking, and some beach time.

Our first stop is at Hong Island in Krabi province.  In Thai, hong means an area that is like a cave, but open at the top and connected to the sea – over time the ‘tunnel’ opening that connects it to the sea will erode further, and it will turn into a little bay.  Hong Island in Krabi has already eroded away and what was once a lagoon connected to the sea by a tunnel is now a big ‘hidden’ bay in the middle of the island.  When the tide is low the bay drains almost completely to become a beach and small pond.  We arrive when the tide is high enough to go into the lagoon and look around, and then go out and around to another side of the island where the is a secluded beach for us to do some snorkeling and feed the fish.

Our next stop is at Panyee Island, this is at the top of the bay, and is mostly a floating village that is anchored on one side to a big limestone cliff that rises out of the bay.  I am not exactly certain as to why this was ever built here, but the village houses several hundred people who live and work there, mostly running restaurants that serve the tour boats.  Supposedly the seafood is caught locally and served fresh, but Mrs. Columbus will eat no fish that still has a head attached (as most fish here is served) so we don’t partake of anything too fancy.  Almost as impressive as the floating village itself is the orchestra of tour boats, speed boats, and long-tail boats jockeying for position at the dock to load and unload the 100s of tourists that are here for lunch at any given time – this is during the low season mind you, so during the high season it is even busier!

Our guide, through either skillful planning or sheer luck, has managed to slot us into the village for lunch at about the same time as the sky opens up for a brief rainy season cloud burst.  No bother to us as we enjoy our lunch and watch the storm roll in, and then about 40 minutes later roll back out – net impact to us basically nil 🙂

After lunch we get back onto the boat for our next destination – Koh Ping An and the infamous James Bond Island.  The tour route we have take thus far is actually the reverse of what many of the other tours are doing, so this allows us to get to certain stops ahead of or after the bulk of the other tour groups, and we pull up to Koh Ping An to have the small island almost to ourselves (our guide does warn us that if we stay for much longer than about 1/2 hour, the other tours will catch up, and we will be swarmed).  The little island and it’s direct view of the smaller ‘James Bond Island’ is actually quite impressive and as you look at the geology and the features of what has been carved out of the stone by natural forces it is quite inspiring, and not at all ‘cheesy’ as I thought it might be.

Back into the boat and off to our next stop – Hong Island.  Those that are paying attention will say, wait, did they not go to Hong Island as the first stop?  Well only in Thailand can you have 2 islands named Hong Island and be less than 50 miles apart – the first island was in Krabi province, and this one is in Phang Nga province, so as far as they are concerned, it is all good.   At this stop, the hongs on the island are still intact, and the lagoons on the center of the island are only accessible by going through the low tunnels.  We leave the boat to get into sea kayaks where a Thai guide will paddle us through the cave like tunnels to explore the hidden lagoons inside.  The tunnels are only accessible during the low tide, so there are times when the tide is too high for even the kayaks to go in and out.  The pictures really do not do the whole thing the justice it deserves, as it is quite breathtaking to enter some of the caverns and then pop out the other side into a column that opens up to the sky, but is flanked on all sides by 100 or more feet of vertical cliff walls.  We go through a couple of these and several caves and then it is time to round everyone back up and get back on the boat.

Our last stop of the day is on Koh Naka Yai, and there is a long open stretch of beach here.  The island is quite close to Phuket and the marina we left from (about 5km) and is quite popular during the day for people to come to use the isolated beach.  There are a couple of small bars here and the day boats shuttle people back and forth during the day for some sun and sand.  Luckily for us we are coming in at the end of the day, and the last of the day boats leaves about 10 minutes after we get there, so for about an hour our small group of people basically has the beach to ourselves as the day is ending.  Mrs. Columbus and I walk the full extent of the beach, and at one end it wraps around the island and and we are totally alone – it is hard to describe the tranquility you feel when you can look around 360 degrees and see no people, just ocean, beach, and jungle.  A great end to a great day.

As we return to the marina and start to make our way back to our hotel, Mrs. Columbus and I both mention that we are very glad we took the tour, and reflect that it is quite possibly the best tour we have been on so far in the south.  I guess the lesson learned is to truly not judge a book by it’s cover.