Sea Cave Canoe Tour to James Bond Island

Yesterday on the 29^th of April we started early at half past 7 to get ready for our next tour, going to James Bond Island, which is in the area of Phang Nga. We arrived at Phang Nga Bay at around 10 o‘clock and then our adventure started by boarding a big boat. After we got on the boat, the crew, which consisted of 12 people, welcomed us with cold and hot drinks and a big basket of fresh fruit. While the boat was leaving from the pier we got a short briefing about what we would be doing during the whole day, which made us all very excited. The tour guide then introduced us all to our personal boat guide. There was one boat guide shared between two of us, who would be responsible for the canoeing for us.

All in all it took us around one hour to get to our first stop which was our first of 4 total adventures. First was an Island called Lawa Island with a beach with lots of shells and crabs. There we had the opportunity to swim, relax on the beach or canoe on our own.

After 40 minutes it was time to get into the canoe again and go back to the big boat. There it took us around half an hour to get to James Bond Island. We stopped the boat again in front of amazing, huge rocks, which really seemed to climb out of the water. The boat guide drove us to a small bay with a beach full of shells and stairs on one end of the bay. The pathway we passed by some beautiful viewpoints where it was possible to see the famous rock, which is called James Bond Island, or Ko Tapu or Nail Island. These rocks are famous because important scenes with Roger Moore and Christopher Lee in the 1974 Bond film "The Man with the Golden Gun" were shot there. At the beachside of this island it was possible to go shopping and bathing again.

Back on the boat a delicious Thai buffet lunch was waiting for us followed by fruits and drinks.

After half an hour additional driving we reached another beautiful island called Koh Hong, which we discovered by our private canoe. We saw a lot of impressive rocks, which sometimes looked like piranhas, fingers, an old monk or a gorilla. The impressing and amazing rocks made us really speechless.

Back on the boat we arrived after a 2 minute drive to our last stop for this day. Here we were exploring amazing sea caves, sea tunnels, lagoons and hongs by sea cave canoes. Sometimes it was necessary to lay down in the canoe because the rocks were very narrow for us. But after each small sea tunnel we arrived at a beautiful lagoon with a lot of different plans, like mangroves or palm trees. For us it was also very interesting to see the amazing bat cave or all the oyster fossils.

To sum it up, this exciting trip was a very beautiful insight into the scenic world of the mysterious “hongs” (Thai word for rooms), by canoeing along the amazing landscape of Phang Nga Bay.