Blogs from Ao Phang-Nga Marine NP, South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 9

I wish I could gush about the amazing things I saw today and the food and the people, but I honestly have to say I was scared for the first time today. It’s the fifth of December, the King’s birthday and the whole nation is celebrating with huge gatherings. This evening Marrin was asked to joint he parade with the other little girls from the orphanage and was dressed up like them for the party. She loved it and it was a lot of sanuk (fun) for her to feel included. Miles has made friends with all the boys here and played the afternoon away with them around the orphanage. Once we were ready the whole staff and kids loaded up the van and headed into Takua Pa, a village about a kilometer away from the ... read more

From Phuket we headed Northwards and around the bay to Phang-Nga. A tiny little town surrounded by limestone mountains and palm trees, it's a very cute little place, the highlight of which is a trip out on Ao Phang Nga (Phang Nga Bay). We took an afternoon jaunt in a longtail boat through the mangrove swamps, through caves and past little limestone islands that cover the bay. It was beautiful, one of the most impressive places we have visited in Thailand. After spending a few hours out on the water we stopped at Koh Tapu (James Bond Island) where The Man with The Golden Gun was filmed. It's tacky and filled with tourists, but the caves and bays nearby are quietly stunning. Avoiding a storm out at sea we headed back to Koh Panyee, a Muslim ... read more

Thailand - Part II Ayutthaya I was researching the Net during the lunch-hour and came across the famous photo of the “Buddha head in a Bo tree” at Ayutthaya. I was highly intrigued. How this was at all possible? Stone idols do not grow on the trees after all. I called my junior colleague over. “Dev, Just look at this, How this sort of thing came about, I can’t imagine” I said, showing him the photo. He also could not imagine how a stone Buddha head can appear in the trunk of a ‘Bo’ tree. It looked more like a miracle than anything else. We researched further and found a very simple explanation for the photo. The Buddha head was encircled not by the trunk of the tree, but by the ‘arial’ roots of the ... read more

Today we woke up at 6:30 (the early mornings are becomming a bit frequent) ready for out sea canoeing. We had our FREE breakfast of toast, tea and a banana and waited for our lift to the peir at 08:00. As promised they were here to pick us up on time, a rareity in Thailand, and after a couple of other pick ups we arived at the pier and headed of into Phang Nga Bay. The water was much smoother than yesterday no need for a life jacket today! The whole area is dotted with little limestone islands covered in trees on their virtical rock faces. There are 150 caves which can be paddled through into lagoons on the insides of the little islands. It took about 1 hour to reach the first stop and we ... read more

The boys and I went down to Phuket to enjoy some more time at the beach. The highlight of our trip was joining a kayaking trip to Phang Nga Bay. The tour operator Andaman Sea Kayak picked us up from our hotel, drove us to the pier (about an hour) and we joined the rest of the group (about 20 people) on the boat. They motored out to Phang Nga Bay, and the boys were very interested in the dozens of HUGE jellyfish that we saw on the boat ride. They looked about 12-18 inches across! Once we got out to the first stop, the boys and I got onto our sea kayak which was steered by our guide. He paddled us through a tunnel in the island (that are only accessible during low tide) to ... read more