Advertisement
Published: August 14th 2006
Edit Blog Post
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 got in to our kayak without getting wet. a good start. We paddled for about 1 hour around the island before entering our first cave. This cave was fairly high with room to sit up the whole way through and went about 150m into the rock, Becca was a little scared but did ok (she is such a girly wimp in her old
The islands
Weather is looking good! age) untill we got to the back of the cave and had to turn around. She had a bit of a panic and shouted at Pete to turn us around which was tricky in a narrow cave! In the commotion Pete's sunnies got knocked off his head, that's two pairs he's lost in kayaking incidents! We made it out in 1 piece and becca vowed not to go in any more caves. This vow lasted about 1/2 an hour when we paddled to the second cave, the water here was too low to paddle so we all walked through, this cave involed some pretty small tunnels with Stalagtites to dodge. The floor was also very slippery with what we all thought was mud untill we realised it was actually bat poo!!!! After 200m we made it to a lagoon which was pretty gorgeous worth walking through the bat poo cave for.
It was then time for lunch back on the boat which was moored in a sheltered bay as the wind had picked up making paddelling hard work. We had a nice buffet and then decided it would be fun to swim and jump off the boat in the
Swimming in the rain
He looks a little cold rain that was now pouring down.
The afternoon provided the biggest challenge of the day a cave in which there was no room to sit up in. Lucky for us the water was too high to paddle through so we swam in. It was shallow enough for us to walk for most of it with tunnels where you had to hold your breath a squeeze through. Once we made it it was magic in the lagoon which was filled with mangrove trees (might be why its called mangrove lagoon?) not long after we made it through all the other tour groups started to emerge from the exit in their inlatable kayaks in which you lie down and the cave roof is about 1 inch from the tip of your nose. We all started walking back throught the cave and saw a hught traffic jam of kayaks tring to all fit throught the narrow cave. I wouldn't have liked to be on one of the kayaks stuck in a jam in a cave for 10 minutes, we made it back out in one piece and Becca was glad she had been brave.
On the Mini bus back to our
The cave
We really did swim under there! hotel we got chatting to a German Couple who were on holiday visiting her Cousin who lives in Bangkok and was also on the trip. After chatting to them for half an hour we were invited out to dinner and told they would pick us up at 7:30 after we had all had a nice shower. At 7:30 they arrived as promised and took us to a Thai BBQ resturant. The place is all in Thai and full of Thai's lucky they had their Thai friend with them to talk us through it. In the middle of the table was a BBQ grate where you cooked your own meat which you collected from a 98 Baht all you can eat Buffet table at one end. The food was really good if a little different from resturantds catering for tourists. After the meal we were taken to a coffee house on top of a hill overlooking Phuket town where we all had nice ice cream sundae's. It was a fantastic evening and cost us nothing as they insisted on paying, I think they took pittly on 2 grubby looking backpackers!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.214s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0481s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ro
non-member comment
wat an amazing day! am jealous - but don't know if I'd have been so brave ... xx