A Magical Day

Tourboat for the day
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We had heard of the Jim Gray Sea Canoe tours before we left to come here, but it was a little expensive (around $100 pp) and we weren't sure what all we would want to by this point in our trip. After seeing some brochures for other similar tours, we decided that if they still had openings, we would do it. We had also heard that the trips booked up way a head of time, so if they didn't have room, so be it. We called the day before the tour and amazingly they had space. I took that to be a sign that this was meant to be and we made our reservation. The woman on the phone didn't speak the best English and my Thai is limited to a few words, so we were hopeful that they could actually show up to pick us up. In retrospect, I should have talked to the hotel staff and asked them to call. One downside of staying in a small hotel is that it is hard to find and I, of course, couldn't give any directions!

In the first cave
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We waited downstairs at the correct time and before to long the phone rang and from the conversation we figured it was our driver getting directions. Sure enough, the woman at the front desk hung up the phone and told us that our ride would be there in a few minutes. Our van arrived and we hopped in for the ride to the dock. Our van was the last to arrive, so us and the other two girls from our van got on the boat and we were off. There is covered seating on the top of the boat for everyone and the guides got us something to drink and started our safety briefing as we pulled away from the dock. The thing that makes this tour interesting is that you tour through caves and hongs. You approach what looks like a cave in the side of an island and you exit the cave in the middle of the island. The hongs can only be accessed during low tide. You are assigned a guide, who is your guide for the whole trip. They do all the paddling and when you go through the cave the clearance is so small in some areas that you have to lay down in the canoe. After the safety briefing and instructions, lunch was served. We ate and chatted with each other. Every group of two was provided with a drybag to put cameras and such into while out on the canoe. They showed us how to close them correctly so that they would be watertight as well. I had a waterproof case for the digital camera, which would come in very handy later.

Almost better than the tigers!

Mangroves
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We stopped at the first hong we were going to tour, Mangrove Hong. Everyone stood around on the back of the boat while we waited for our guides to bring our canoe up. The guides grab the canoes, throw them into the water, and then jump into them. Its fun to watch! Our guide for the day was Rick. He sat in the back, Jeff in the middle, and I sat in the front. As the person in the front, I had the job of manning the flashlight while we went through the cave. It was tight clearance in there at times, but before long we emerged into the hong. The photos don't do justice to what it was like in there. Tall cliffs covered with greenery all around you. In the middle of this hong were tons of Mangroves. Rick parked our canoe and took us on a tour of the hong and told us about the mangroves. He then paddled us around the rest of the hong, then back through the cave, and back on the boat.

Its wet out here!
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We stopped at our next location, which required a trip through bat cave, which had bats in it. It was a longer and larger cave than we went through previously. Right at the entrance to the cave was a beautiful bird, that I didn't get a very good picture off. All through the cave over the ceiling everywhere were little bats. I couldn't get good pictures of them either. The bats weren't big and scary and didn't fly down from the ceiling or anything. We emerged into a large hong (the largest one that we would go through according to Rick) and it was pouring down rain. We aren't talking normal rain here, it was raining in sheets. I suppose as this is the first time that we have seen rain this trip (way better than our Australia/New Zealand Trip!) that I can't complain to much! Before long, we were soaked and cold as the rain was a bit chilly. The water however was warm, so we dipped our hands and feet in the ocean to warm up. This is when having the waterproof cover for the camera was great. I was able to capture the rain in is full glory! Rick paddled us through the rain around the hong. There were some monkeys that had a nest that we stopped to see. In this hong, the water was very deep everywhere. One has to wonder how the monkeys got here in the first place? There wasn't a whole lot of land present here. Finally we reentered the bat cave and got out of the rain. We reached the exit of the cave and hit a HUGE traffic jam of canoes from another tour headed into the cave. The tide was starting to go out, so they were paddling against the tide and trying quickly to get inside to get out of the rain as well. Rick maneuvered through everyone and got us to the boat. They had put down covers on all the sides of the upstairs seating area, so there was a nice dry non-windy place to sit. The crew quickly brought around hot tea and coffee for all of us to drink.

All the kratongs. Ours is in the lower left corner
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By the time we arrived at our next location the rain had mostly stopped and the sun was coming up. We got back into our canoe and in this location everyone got a little bit different tour. There was a large island and Rick paddled us all the way around it. He got us up close to the side of the island and we could see little crabs running all over the coral. We did learn from another couple on our trip that you shouldn't try to touch the crabs because they did pinch! Once we got around the island a little bit from the boat it was like we were the only people out there. Rick pointed out the caves that people climb up to get bird's nests for bird's nest soup. It is amazing the cliff faces that some people scale for those! We relaxed and enjoyed the scenery and the sounds of the waves hitting the island. Once we arrived back at the boat, we were able to take the canoes out ourselves and paddle around. Both of us together were nowhere as good as Rick! We paddled around for a while and then headed back to the boat.

Magical moment
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Once we got back dinner was served while we watched the sun start to set. So far our day was similar to tours on any company. The remainder of the day are unique (as far as I know) to this company and is what made this trip so magical. With the help of our guide each pair of people made a kratong. Kratongs are made as an offering to the gods. They are usually released once a year in Thailand on the first full moon of the twelfth lunar month. They are assembled with banana leaves, flowers, and joss sticks. Each guide has a little bit different style, so although they are all assembled from the same things, they all look different. Once our kratongs were all assembled, we headed to our final stop of the day while we watched the sun set. Once it was dark outside we got our kratongs, got back in the canoe, and our guide paddled us in the dark, through a cave into a hong. The guides are so used to the dark apparently that even though we all had flashlights, no one had theirs on. The next moments are ones that I wish I could bottle up and share. I have a few photos, but none of them turned out all that well from it being dark, so you will have to use some imagination. We all floated silently in the dark in the hong. Our guides took our kratongs and lit the candles and joss sticks and set them afloat in the water. The smell of incense filled the air and the only light around was the light from the candles. Rick told us to look in the water and moved the canoe paddle. As the water was agitated, it appeared to glow. I am sure that there is a total scientific explanation for this, but in the moment it seems to be magic. Now, as you look around all you see are the candles floating and the glow of the water as everyone has their hands in the water. The only sounds are the gentle sounds of the paddles in the water and the splashing of people's hands. We floated for some period of time, and then the guides collected our kratongs and took us back to the boat.

Sunset
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We enjoyed the ride back to the pier in the dark all very awed with the day. The only thing bad about the whole day was trying to find the correct van back to the hotel. They instructed us to "get back in the van you came in". We knew which people we rode with, but none of us remembered which white van we had been in! After a false start of getting in the wrong van, we got in the right one and headed back to our hotel.

This is another day that I have far to many photos to fit in the blog. If you want to see more photos, please visit my google gallery where there are a lot of pictures from our trip. I have about a bazillion more photos than I put up, so if you want to see additional photos of anything, please let me know. I probably have them!