Thailand, Phang Nga Bay: Mr. Boh, James Boh

Phang Nga Bay is located to the northeast of the island of Phuket, and there you will find fantastic 1 million year-old limestone rock formations (islands) rising sheerly from the emerald-green sea, some of them 1,000 feet high and many containing caves with hanging stalactites. This bizarre landscape includes more than 120 singularly strange looking islands and was truly a sight to behold. Many movies have been filmed in this idyllic location and you may recognise the scenery from famous Hollywood blockbusters as well as local Asian and Thai films.

We are not normally a fan of tour groups and most of the time we actually make fun of tourists in a tour group. However, we ended up booking ourselves onto a tour around this part of Thailand as this was easier and cheaper than our original plans of actually staying overnight in the Phang Nga Bay area. This turned out to be a wise move as we were able to see and do everything we wanted in half a day. Sim's Tours was our chosen company as it was the cheapest tour which covered all the points of interest we wanted to see. It also included a sunset view of Phang Nga Bay which most of the other tours did not include.

Rising from a thin base and soaring out of the water, Nail Island from a distance looks like a giant rocketship being launched out of the sea

The half-day tour began just after noon and included a pick-up in Phuket on Patong Beach. Our guide was very informative and enthusiastic and we found ourselves sucked into "tour group" mentality pretty soon after boarding the large, air-conditioned bus. The guide introduced himself as Mr. Boh, James Boh, and this got quite a few laughs from most of the people on the tour who were keen on seeing James Bond Island later in the day. Mr. Boh informed us of the day's events; he was very informative with a good sense of humour. As the tour company was quite professional, we received a long speech (lecture) about not touching any monkeys when arriving at our first stop of the tour, Monkey Cave Temple. Apparently, they've had problems with the monkeys attacking tourists, but since we are monkey experts now, that didn't deter us.

Monkey Cave Temple, called Wat Tham Suwankuha by the Thais, was the second underground temple we've been to in Asia (you can read about Elephant Cave Temple in our earlier Bali, Indonesia travel journal). This temple is rather unique as it is home to hundreds of long-tailed macaques that are more than eager to share your lunch with you. As we are still entranced with monkeys, we bought some peanuts to feed them from a sweet old Thai lady. The woman tried to speak to us in Thai and we didn't have a clue as to what she was trying to convey, so we just smiled and nodded and said our usual Khop Kun Khrap ("thank you" in Thai). Feeding the monkeys was fine and we didn't encounter any problems during our time in the cave (just a brief fright at seeing Zombie Monkey 2, which readers of our Kuala Lumpur travel journal will understand); they are after all an integral part of this place. In fact, a large crowd gathered around us watching us feed and photograph the monkeys - all the other tourists in the cave temple were too scared to get near the monkeys after James Boh's scary monkey warnings.

Inside the underground temple, we stopped to marvel at a 200 year-old reclining gold Buddha before emerging into a natural limestone cave with thousands of fruit bats hanging overhead. The cave smelled similar to those we visited in Borneo and a flood of memories from our previous month's travel came flooding back. We think that the smell was slightly different at Monkey Cave Temple as a result of the monkey poo which has mixed in with the bat droppings - the smell was a bit more pungent and peanutty in this cave. The temple also had a resident monk, who for a fee, would provide you with a blessing and would tie a bracelet around your wrist. At the far end of the cave there was a slippery walkway which led to a further chamber high up behind some rather large stalactites. We really couldn't be bothered to climb all the so-called "steps" in the heat of the day (despite being in a cave it was still extremely hot and humid), so we passed and left the cave. After our excursions to the largest caves in the world in Borneo, this cave was small-fry, but nevertheless cool to see.

From the cave temple, we were transported a short way to a pier where we boarded a longtail boat to begin our excursion through the Phang Nga Bay National Park. The longtail boat was indeed quite long and accommodated many fellow tourists - what a joy! Setting off, we admired miles of unspoiled mangrove forest before entering the bay area. Phang Nga Bay was beautiful and the longtail boat ride was extremely magical. We sat quietly in the boat, trying to capture every moment, eagerly awaiting our next upcoming attraction which turned out to be a small piece of pleasure housed within the magnificent scenery of Phang Nga Bay.

The longtail boat circled around a large limestone island and as we passed a corner of the island, we were able to view Koh Panyee in the distance, a Muslim "sea gypsy" fishing village. The village was started 200 years ago by three Muslim families from Indonesia who emigrated to Thailand but were not allowed to settle on the mainland due to the Buddhist population not wanting any Muslim settlements. Thus they settled on the sea itself and, since then, the population of Koh Panyee has grown to 1200 people, all still Muslim. We strolled around the amazing village built on stilts over the water, and noticed that the village is completely self-sustaining, with everything a person could need to maintain a high standard of living. The floating village contains a mosque, health centre and primary school among other things. The men of the village earn their living mostly as fishermen and sea canoe peddlers, and the women run all of the village gift shops and restaurants. They live on what they can make and catch with their own hands and, of course, the money they make from tourists who are brought there to enjoy the fabulous fresh seafood and textile shops. We ate a late lunch at the pier which consisted of some great spring rolls and very spicy prawn fried rice.

The next and final stop on our tour was to the infamous and eagerly awaited James Bond Island. On the way, the boat driver took us on a little trip through Thum Lod grotto, where the driver manoeuvered the boat through a large arch that had formed in the limestone rock. Luckily, it was low tide and we were able to make it through the opening without crashing! This was a great way to see the arch close up with its huge stalactites hanging at the entrance. We were again pleased to have chosen this late afternoon tour as most of the other tours would not be in the bay area during low tide to experience the thrill of riding perilously through a small cave.

We finally arrived at Khao Ping Kan (James Bond Island) where scenes were filmed for "The Man With The Golden Gun", starring Roger Moore and Christopher Lee. Dan was very excited as he had seen the film several times as a boy; however, this moment was lost a little with Kyle as he had never seen the film. James Bond Island is comprised of two huge stone outcrops joined by a small beach. The water in front of the island contains a geological oddity called Khao Tapu (Nail Island). Rising from a thin base and soaring out of the water, Nail Island from a distance looks like a giant rocketship being launched out of the sea. Along with Nail Island, the other interesting formation on James Bond Island was the enormously tall slanting rock which served as the entrance to Scaramanga's laboratory in the famous Bond film. This huge rock is an amazing natural occurrence which protrudes very high and almost vertically out of the sand, leaning against another huge slab of rock.

On James Bond Island, we were a little disappointed to see rows of vendors selling overpriced souvenirs, and we were also disappointed to pay the 200 Baht national park entrance fee on the island. If you travel to this area, you should be aware that most of the seashell trinkets for sale are imported from the Philippines and Indonesia, as Phuket and other surrounding areas were stripped bare of shell life long ago to meet consumer demands. Even on a tiny beautiful island out in the middle of nowhere, we were still chased by blatant consumerism!

Despite the high prices, we treated ourselves to a couple of cold soft drinks and got down to exploring the island. Luckily, the tour company included this destination as our last stop, which meant that we missed most of the other tour groups which descended on the island earlier in the day. Normally the small island is over-run with tourists taking photos but we were fortunate to miss the hassle of jostling with other tour groups to snap the vital picture of Nail Island. Also, the lighting late in the afternoon is very good on the side of James Bond Island where Nail Island is visible, and this along with the lack of tourists provided us with a pleasant photo-taking experience, as evidenced by our photo album.

After 45 minutes on James Bond Island, and a 45-minute journey through Phang Nga Bay at sunset, we boarded our tour bus again for the 1-1/2 hour journey back to Phuket. We finished watching "The Man With The Golden Gun" which had been started earlier on our journey from Phuket. Kyle, who stills needs to work on his British allegiance, chose to read his book instead of following the film and trying to see what all the fuss about visiting James Bond Island was about. However, Dan kindly nudged Kyle at every point when the two featured islands appeared on screen to ensure he would be able to link what he saw during the afternoon's tour with the film.

Back in Phuket, and thoroughly exhausted, we looked back on the day's events with much happiness and discussed how much we really enjoyed the magnificent view of Phang Nga Bay National Park, and found it all had culminated into an unforgettable day. If anyone reading this is in Phuket and looking for a nice day out, we recommend booking a tour to James Bond Island and the breathtaking and beautiful Phang Nga Bay National Park, and Sim's Tours is a good company to use.