The day had finally arrived for my dad's first ever islands-tour and although he didn't exhibit the same excitement as i did; i am still glad that he decided to come along. p.s not that he had any choice.
Our pickup arrived ahead of schedule and typical of tours in Southeast Asia; the mini passenger van went to a few other hotels to pick up more passengers before making the hour journey to Ao Por Pier.
Can finally stretch my legs at 9.00 am when the van reached its destination. I have a habit of taking a picture of the license plate of the vehicle that i sat in; you never know when you would need it and it doesn't cost to have an additional digital image in the memory card.
Building of Amazing Canoeing; I was scratching my head as i thought we would be going straight to the pier. My guess is a few smaller groups would be combined into a bigger one for economies of scale.
Registered our attendance and be assigned to a tour guide. Hold on dearly to the sticker and stick it at a visible spot on your tee-shirt; with so many customers under him, he would rely heavily on the sticker to find his herd.
Complimentary iced water and rose syrup for all customers. In the event you need extra snacks, towel and / or a pair of sunglasses, there's also a store within the building that you can spend some Thai baht.
Beach at low tide in front of Amazing Canoeing building.
A tour guide giving instructions on the do's and dont's; not ours so i didn't particularly pay attention until i heard someone asked if the Hong Island is the same as the one for Krabi.
It was the same question running in my mind as Alex and i had a bombastic time snorkeling at Hong Island back in 2011 when we visited Krabi! Turned out it's a different island and we heard there's no way for snorkeling as the water surrounding the island had low visibility. :(
Random - this doesn't look like our usual pigeon.
After waiting for about 30 minutes, here comes our guide; Taki! We were one of the last few groups to congregate and i absolutely detest wasting my time when i am overseas. Anyway, don't you love it when your guide wears a hot pink top that's totally visible from far, far away?
Walking a short distance to the nearby Ao Por Pier; we noted the red hanging fruits (not rambutans) from the tall trees and even my dad couldn't recognise them! I wanted to check them out but it's more important for me to follow the guide; wouldn't want the embarrassment of being a missing "cat".
Along the way, you can find many stores offering beach clothing and accessories; even waterproof handphone pouches! With iPhones getting so pricey nowadays; i am not willing to risk it with a cheap pouch.
I have taken boats / ferries from numerous piers and never have i seen a pier with vehicles to send us from one point to another! How long exactly is the pier?
Before answering my own question, please note that you are required to pay for the pier transport fee of 20 baht per person! I was aware of this cost as the two kind ladies from At Akarin Tour had already informed us when we purchased the package.
Squeezing in with the rest of our tour mates.
Would you be able to roughly gauge the distance of the pier? It's walkable if you decide not to pay the pier transport fee but i wouldn't recommend under the skin-piercing hot sun!
Reached the end of the pier in mere minutes.
According to Google Maps which had a distance measuring function; the length of Ao Por Pier is about 470 meters! Again, pay the 20 baht (less than S$1) instead of walking.
Many big boats at the pier; in comparison to speed boats, the pricing of a tour package via big boats can be a lot cheaper although i know of people who would request for big boats simply because it's more enjoyable (and relaxing) to have a slower vessel to soak in the sights.
Wait, that's a big boat! Thought i got the package for speedboat?!
Thankfully i didn't freak out as the speedboat was well hidden behind the much larger boat and there were plenty of staff members who would ensure you tread carefully from pier to big boat to speedboat.
Find the guy with a colorful rastacap (also known as Jamaican hat / bob marley head wear) familiar? You would remember him in my posting for the canoeing at Hong Island as he was our assigned canoer!
View of the back of the speedboat from the front seating; this appeared to be one of the biggest speedboats; Honda 3 Engines that can take in up to 38 passengers. You can refer to here.
Iced mineral water and soft drinks (coke, orange etc) for you to take! Don't worry as they were already covered in the tour package you signed up for! Beer is a different story though as it would be chargeable at 100 baht each.
There's even a washroom should you need to release the pressure in your bladder! For safety reason, Taki has advised to use it only when the speedboat is not running against the waves.
View from Ao Por Pier.
A few minutes into the speedboat ride and i can already see the impressive limestone islands on the horizon! I feel that it would be quite similar to what i experienced at Guilin Yangshuo; albeit without the density!
Alex squirming his eyes under the bright sunlight; the disadvantage to sitting in the front of the speedboat is that it's unsheltered and as expected, i had a mild sunburn after this tour.
Big boat that was ahead of us in the beginning!
Dad enjoying the wind, i hope.
Coming to the large island we saw when we were at Ao Por Pier!
It's actually the first stop for our package; Panak Island. On the brochure, it was supposed to include a walk to the cave but according to our guide, the tide was too high and the cave was already submerged.
Hence, we spent the next few minutes cruising along the island and watching people canoeing. A blatant waste of my time. If i want to see people canoeing / kayaking, i can go to Pulau Ubin in Singapore.
I didn't even come out with a separate post for Panak Island as there's simply nothing interesting for me to talk about. Hope the islands ahead of us would be a lot more stimulating.
Use your imagination time; I saw two snails and a rock! Taki would occasionally point out islands to us but as the speedboat was pretty long and i am quite hard of hearing, i can't catch much of what he was talking about most of the time.
Aside from the spectacular limestone cliff, my purpose of showing the above picture was the yellow boat operated by Two Sea Tour; commanding a perfect rating on TripAdvisor with over 1,900 reviews, i didn't join as the price of their kayaking tour was too hard for me to stomach.
Whatever the case, we had arrived at our second destination.
James Bond Island - you can see its most iconic structure from the above photos. Made famous by the James Bond movie in 1974: The Man with the Golden Gun, you can find more photos of the island, that's easily ranked number one in terms of fame in Phang Nga Bay, at my post here.
Towering cliff at James Bond Island; made possible due to the panoramic (vertical) function on my iPhone. Since we are on the topic of iPhones, the newly introduced iPhones by Apple were so exorbitantly priced; maybe i should just upgrade from 7-plus to 8-plus.
Not the last to arrive back at the speedboat but our preferred positions in front were already taken up! :( Shall make a mental note to be the first few to return so that our "front view" would be assured.
Flower garlands for luck, i presume.
Next up; the cluster of man-made structures a short distance away!
Panyee Island (Ko Panyi) - a 100% Thai Muslim island with about 2,000 residents; an fascinating fact is that most of the buildings were on water!
Lunch at the Koh Panyee Village restaurant; located at the far end of the village, time was given for us to explore the island! You can check out the many retail stalls (many were selling the same, touristy souvenirs), the mosque and the floating football field. Click here for more pictures.
Picture of the floating village from the main jetty.
With plenty of time spent on the village, i did notice the green border surrounding some of the islands and raise my curiosity with our guide. They are mangroves and have an important purpose in defending the islands' coastline against erosion from strong waves.
Departing for the next item on our itinerary.
Panoramas - hard to take more as the waves can be choppy and you wouldn't want a weirdly-stitched panorama with the frequent bobbing up and down.
Cruising past James Bond Island again.
Random photos taken along the way.
The official Hong Island of Phang Nga Bay; with water reflecting a greenish tinge, it's no wonder that snorkeling isn't an attraction. Our main activity at this Hong Island was to canoe and you can find the details here!
And canoeing we did even though we weren't the ones doing the hard work; it's the chap (with the bob marley headwear) we saw early at the Ao Por Pier! It's a relaxing canoeing session for the three of us although i found it a tad too boring for me; could be more fun if i do the canoeing!
Parasailing in the sky - guess we would be reaching the last leg of our tour; swimming and relaxing at Naka Island as indicated on the brochure which i would be sharing at the end of this post.
In addition to parasailing, you can also jet ski at Naka Island. Sadly, the tide was too high and the waves too choppy for us to do any decent snorkeling. We therefore spent our one hour relaxing at Jiggy Bar with Mai Tai, coconut juice, chips and barbecued corn.
Sliced pineapples as a concluding dessert for our tour!
Making our way back!
Naka Island is surprisingly very close to Ao Por Pier and before we knew it, one of the staff members was already getting ready the rope to secure the mooring.
Tips would be appreciated!
Pictures of you in nice frames; i didn't bother checking out the pricing as it would likely collect dust at my house. No point wasting my money.
The lengthy Ao Por Pier.
As i was happily taking photos, the shuttle quickly filled up and we couldn't manage to squeeze in! Oh well, not that we were in a hurry to go back to our hotel even though i am looking forward to having a nice shower.
Given that the distance is less than half a kilometer and there's more than one shuttle; we didn't have to wait long anyway!
Stores that were opened earlier in the morning were mostly closed when we got back at about a little past 4.00 pm. And you know what? I forgot to check out the trees with red, hanging fruits!
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James Bond Island Brochure
As promised.
Website
http://www.amazingcanoeing.com/. The tour package can be quoted directly from the website but from past experiences, the prices are usually higher and it's best to buy from the tour counters (as we did from At Akarin Tour near Swissotel Patong Beach resort.
Price of Package
3,800 baht as listed but we got a discounted price of 1,500 baht per person after bargaining with the two nice ladies at At Akarin Tour! Rule of thumb when it comes to bargaining; never be rude and never be unreasonable. It's a business and they need to earn to survive.
For my itinerary to Phuket, click here.
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