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Published: February 17th 2008
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Ao Phang Nga Bay
Our longtail boat driver. Look Ma-no hands! So, when I last left you, we had completed a massive trek from Koh Phangan to Phang Nga. Phang Nga is a really small town, with not much to do, most people just use it as a jump-off point for Phang Nga Bay, which is a huge bay with islands and rock formations scattered throughout. We checked into our hotel, the Phang Nga Inn, which was lovely and the owner was a really sweet lady who was always checking in on us. Ashley had some cousins who were staying at a resort nearby, so she left the next morning to spend the day with them, while I left to do a boat tour of Ao Phang Nga Bay, which is kindof like Thailand's equivalent of Halong Bay, in Vietnam.
The main feature of Ao Phang Nga bay is one rock formation that was in a James Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun, for anyone whose seen that. It's hilarious, all the tour companies advertise trips to "James Bond Island", and once you get there, it's beautiful, but it's exactly the same as the other 8,000 rock formations you've seen that day, except for this one has a million tour
Ao Phang Nga Bay
Huge bay with rock formations like these all over the place boats around it. I saw some beautiful scenery and even got to jump off some of the rocks into cave pools, but after a day of sitting on a Longtail boat, my bottom was entirely numb.
After Phang Nga, we set off for Ao Nang. We had originally wanted to go to Railay beach, which is supposed to be stunning, but all the hotels on West Railay were majorly expensive, and as Ao Nang was nearby we thought it would be a good alternative. Not so much. As we pulled into the main strip, our jaws dropped when we saw a massive concrete street with a million tacky stores, and huge throngs of people, none of whom looked Thai, pushing about on the sidewalk. Not exactly the island paradise we were looking for! Ao Nang was just completely full of European tourists, even the menu's at a lot of the restaurants were in Dutch or Swiss. This is one place that has completely lost any originality it might have once had. Even the beach was over-run with longtail boats trying to take you to another beach, and the water had a gross oily film to it. After spending 2
James Bond Island
Cheesy pose-but I had to do it! days in Ao Nang, we were planning on going to Koh Phi-Phi, which is a massively popular island destination, due to it's stunning landscape, and the fact that the movie "The Beach" was filmed there. However, we were totally fed up with all the tourists, and decided to try Koh Lanta instead, which was another island nearby. The joy of not planning more than a day in advance!
Catching the ferry to Koh Lanta was hilarious, our ferry left at low tide, so it couldnt' come all the way into shore. They loaded us all up into longtail boats, which took us out about 10 minutes out to sea to meet our boat. Imagine a tiny canoe next to a massive ferry, and trying to get your luggage, and yourself, onto the ferry while they both are rocking back and forth. I was pretty sure I was going to tip into the ocean a couple of times, but everyone seemed to make it onto the boat with no problems.
As soon as we got off the ferry in Koh Lanta, we knew we had made the right decision. There must be stricter zoning laws on this island than
on Ao Nang, because there were no high-rise buildings-in fact, 75% of the buildings on the island were just little beach bungalows made of straw and wood. We checked into our hotel, Nature Beach Bungalows, which was on a long sandy strip of Klong Nin Beach. We ran out onto the beach, and were just in heaven. All up and down the beach are chill little bungalows, bars, and restaurants. Nothing higher than one-story tall, such a calm, chill vibe, and hardly any people!! Where is everyone?? We spent the day relaxing on the beach, and that night I enjoyed some 60 baht large Chang beers while listening to a live band at the beach bar.
The next day we were going to do a day trip to the Phi-Phi islands, but we were enjoying the peace and calm of Koh Lanta so much we just decided to stay. Ashley decided to rent a motorbike, and off we went-zipping about just like the locals! There wasn't too much traffic on Koh Lanta, and the roads were mostly flat, so it was a perfect place to try it out. We managed to ride with no injuries, thankfully! At one point
we were driving down the road, and what do we see in front of us but a guy riding an elephant down the street. No big deal. We ran ahead to a mini-mart to buy bananas, and then had a photo session with the elephant. So cute!!
That night, we walked up and down the beach looking for a place to eat dinner. All the places in Koh Lanta advertise "Seafood B.B.Q", so we just picked a place that looked good and went in. It was so cool, they have a large display case filled with ice, and all the fresh fish from that day, and you just point to the one you want, pick a sauce, and they grill it for you right there! You could choose from a whole fish, to a fillet from a larger fish, so I picked a juicy looking piece of king mackerel. Delish!
Kind of bummed we only had 2 days on Koh Lanta, if we had known we might have arranged our days differently. It was just fabulous there! After leaving Koh Lanta, we took the ferry back to the mainland, to Krabi, which is a major port town on
Ash + I
On Ao Phang Nga Bay the Andaman Sea (West Coast).
One of the attractions in Krabi is going to the Tiger Cave Temple, which is this huge temple and buddha statue, at the top of a mountain that overlooks the whole region. 1,237 steps to get to the top, to be exact. No problem! (Or so we thought) Some of the stairs up were so steep, it was like a knee to chest Alissa step, I thought my heart was going to explode on numerous occasions. It didn't help that we have had zero physical activity in the last 2 weeks. After sweating more than one person ever should in a day, we finally made it to the top, where the views were actually pretty spectacular. We met a guy up at the top who lives in the area, and climbs the stairs every day to do work on his laptop-talk about buns of steel! There are a lot of monkeys in this area, and on the way down, we literally encountered the monkey gauntlet. We had gone later in the day so there weren't very many people around, but just 100 monkeys running all over the path and jumping back and forth on
The Monkey Gauntlet!!
They all just looked up at me and stared as I sprinted past them! the railings. Ash + I started to inch our way down, as every monkey just STARED us down, about to attack at any moment! One actually jumped on Ashley's back, and she freaked out, as I ran as far away as possible, just shouting "Just shake it off!!". It's been 24 hours and she hasn't started frothing at the mouth yet, so I think we're in the clear.
Now we fly to Bangkok, where we pick up an overnight train into Laos!
Hope everyone's doing well- only one month left. SO crazy how the time flies!!
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robin
non-member comment
any elephant photos yet? dont let them sit on your head!! kelly and john came through last night and we got to play sigawatts... great to have all u worldly travelers stopping in cosmopolitan hamilton!!