March 8th, 2011
Alarm sounded on 5.30 am, felt like still wanted to sleep but no..no..couldn’t..there was another tour waiting for us. Urrghh…Bro and dad were still snoring when I got up to take a bath. We then went down to have our breakfast, I noticed the chef changed three kinds of dish. “No baked potato for today,” I said.
Another driver picked us up around 7.30 am bringing us to Pha Nga bay tour / James Bond island. Reached there, all the tourists were divided into 2 groups, lucky.. coz I thought we got the nicer boat compared with the other one and I was right. The guide was also a fun guy, he liked to tell jokes. We were given a small colour string that should be tied to our hand so the guide could recognize his team/group. We started the journey accompanied by songs, many fruits, snacks, tea, coffee, soft drinks for free. No worry about run out of those, very plentiful. We would go to 4 islands here, James Bond island, Hong island, and errr.. sorry.. can’t remember the name, hehe.
We stopped at Hong island, changed with long tail boat that brought us to James Bond island. It is called James Bond island coz James Bond ever took a film scene here. Many rocks and solid cliffs are around here. We only had 40 minutes of time to take photos and shopping. I bought dried cuttlefish and fish there, 100 Baht for 3 packs, 200 Baht for 6 packs + bonus 2 packs. I paid 400 Baht for total of 16 packs, pretty cheap!!!
Went back to the big boat and continued with canoeing, 2 persons for one canoe with a professional guide who paddling at the back. The weather was very warm, our skin turned dark soon. We entered the cave, passing many cliffs, taking photos for about 30 minutes. After that, we had buffet lunch on the boat, so many dishes and all was delicious. We filled our stomach till full and they still gave us fruits as dessert.
You know, after all the guests finished lunch, they threw the rest of the dishes into trash bin, oh no…they threw it in front of my eyes, I felt so hurt seeing that. Those dishes still can be eaten by at least 15 to 20 persons. I thought, “They have fridge in the boat anyway. Why don’t they keep it in fridge and give it to others when reach land later?” Thinking of so many people starving outside, it is a waste. Maybe if I dared, I would ask for it, hehehe.
The trip continued again, since it was high tide and impossible to enter the cave, they let us to swim and self paddle canoeing for about an hour while waiting for low tide. It was raining when we started canoeing. This time we entered a dark cave and had to lay down, couldn’t see anything just a bit light from flashlight that was held by the guide. At the end of cave, there was an opened area, we saw a small mangrove forest surrounded by cliffs. It is so beautiful, too bad that we left our camera in the boat, haiz.. I think there is no other way in or out except the cave. I am thinking how if suddenly high tide coming again and covering the cave for the rest of the day? Will we get stuck in there? (Recall the “Sanctum” movie, hiii…so scary)
We finally got back to the boat and ready going back to Phuket. You may give tipping to the canoeing guide as much as you like. Some of guides made some jokes and even danced hip hop when the boat almost reached land. Another seller was waiting on land to offer our photographs. Really didn’t realize when they took a pic of us. We were not interested to buy so we didn’t ask for price.
Arrived hotel about 5.30 pm, we took rest and shower, I even slept a while. It rained heavily again, lucky that I brought umbrellas from home. About 7 pm, we went out for dinner. We found out a cheap food stall run by local, there was no signboard and very crowded though a bit dark. From our hotel, just cross the Rat U Thit road and walk heading north toward Jungceylon mall, the stall is on the left side before Bangla Rd, between Cairo Restaurant and BushRanger Bar & Grill. You can’t find it on the day as I found out that it turned to be another shop on the next day. I think it opens during night only. I don’t recommend this food stall for Moslems coz they have pork in their menu. It is cheaper than other restaurants, it’s only 50 Baht for one portion of Pad Thai / Fried noodle. We ordered 2 portions of fried thick noodle with chicken, 1 portion of fried yellow noodle with prawn, 1 portion papaya salad (som tam) and 3 bottles of mineral water. Total bill was only 270 Baht and we were full, you see?! Then we spent our last night at Patong by looking some gifts and souvenir. We headed to Jungceylon mall, went to basement where there are a lot of souvenir shops. The price offered there almost the same with shops outside mall and you still can bargain. T-shirt is quite cheap in Thailand, I got 4 pieces of t-shirt for total 600 Baht. We tried pancake 40 Baht/each (you can choose your own topping) and also BBQ satay 20 Baht/each. Almost 10.30 pm we reached hotel and went to sleep directly.
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