The Man with the Golden Gun

One of the caves we went through in the long tail boat, Phang Nga province, Thailand.
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I was awoken at 5am by the call for morning prayers - a little earlier than I had heard in the past.  At 8am our breakfast was already laid out and consisted of some kind of rice dessert thing (I opted not to try it after the look the South African woman gave after trying it), tasteless fried dough (which if you put pure sugar on it, apparently made it tastier according to one of the Brits) and on the other extreme, a pancake filled with a very sweet coconut filling.  Done with breakfast and not quite sure what to do, someone finally came to get us for our long tail boat ride, which was to last 7 hours.

Our fist pit stop to explore a cave, Phang Nga Province, Thailand.
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So, the 5 of us piled into the boat along with our driver, who spoke little English - this was going to be interesting tour!  After about an hour and a half at gazing at the beautiful rock formations, it starts to rain.  I had opted for the front seat and started to get wet.  We had our first pit stop at a small island.  Not wanting to get out, thinking it might be drier if we stayed in the boat, the driver finally coaxed us out.  He then handed us flashlights and took us into a cave.  After about 10 minutes and the sight of a few big spiders and having to venture pretty low down to continue on, the girls decided to opt for going back, while the boys continued on for another 20 minutes.  From what I could tell, we didn't miss too much.

The leaning rock the park is name after, not really the film that was filmed there! James Bond Island, Than Bokkharani National Park, Thailand.
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Back in the boat again, we had a second pit stop to a cave.  This time, the girls didn't even bother getting out of the boat, much to the chagrin of the driver and boys.  I think I would have been tempted if the weather had been sunny and warm.  Moving to the back of the boat, thinking I would be drier, we headed off again.  This move turned out to be a big mistake because as the rain got harder and harder, the rain that collected on the tarp above us, managed to get dumped down one side of me, multiple times.  I sat there thinking, are we really going to be out all day?  And then my next thought was, I really needed to find a place that night that had hot water.  We stopped again at another small island, this time for lunch.  It was still raining, but not nearly as hard.  We found some shelter under a tree which worked great, until the wind blew!  Our lunch consisted of warm shrimp fried rice and fresh pineapple.  However, I felt bad for Kristy who is allergic to lime that had been used in the fried rice and there is only so much pineapple you can eat before your mouth gets that soreness from eating the fruit.

The hawkers on James Bond Island, Than Bokkharani National Park, Thailand.
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After lunch, we finally made it to our destination, James Bond Island, named after the filming of "The Man with the Golden Gun" back in 1974, featuring Roger Moore as James Bond.  Unfortunately, the island was overridden by hawkers, but the main attraction a small island not too far off from the bigger island was still cool to look at.

A few pictures later (and yes at least one of the cheesy touristy shots where it looks like you are holding the island up - I couldn't resist ;)) we made our way back to the pier at Phang Nga taking our time to go through some mangroves, some of which required good driving skills due to the bends and a not very wide river path, and another trip through a cave.

My cheesy tourist photo at James Bond Island, Than Bokkharani National Park, Thailand.
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Dropped off at the pier, there was no transport in sight to get us back to the bus station.  I was eager to get back because I was still deciding what to do next which required getting on the internet and if I had to head over to the east coast, I only had a little bit of time to figure it out before the bus left.  Finally someone showed up and with 45 minutes, I managed to make my decision.