First, let me say there is no way I am capable of capturing the beauty of the islands in Phuket’s Phang Nga Bay with my iPhone. Even with an expensive camera decked out with great lens, I’m sure I wouldn’t do the site justice. So, as I told our guide who wanted to know why I wasn’t snapping shot after shot, I’m capturing this sight with my eyes.
And what a sight it is. The islands are tall limestone karsts, towering over the sea like tree-covered skyscrapers, rising hundreds of feet. Near the water’s surface, the wave action has eroded the soft limestone into an intricate comb of rock formations.
Robert and I are resting on an inflatable sea canoe. A young Thai man in the back is paddling us across the serene water. We’re part of a ship’s tour of about a dozen such craft, and the small flotilla is headed toward an opening in the eroded rock—a cavern to the interior of the monolith. Once through, we’re in the hong, an interior lagoon open to the sky high above and surrounded by steep and lushly verdant cliffs. The guide’s paddle dips softly behind us. We circle the lagoon and enter another dark cave, then exit into an even larger lagoon. It’s all beautiful.
Too soon, it’s back to a larger boat, where we, the canoes, and guides are brought aboard to motor to another spot. Again we get in the canoes, two by two, and paddle toward another dark opening. This one is guarded by a trio of monkeys sitting on their respective rocks. The cave is long, very dark, and the guide’s head-mounted spotlight points out colonies of quite large bats roosting among the stalactites above. Then again we break through to another jungle lagoon, again completely encircled by the tall cliffs. There are many monkeys here, several with babies, some jumping into the water to swim. (Luckily, none try to board our canoe.) We stop by a mangrove where our guide spotted a walking fish. It had walked up the root to sit out of the water and seemed content to eye us as we eyed it. Then it jumped back into the water.
You’re probably seen pictures of these islands. They were a featured locale in a James Bond movie called The Man With the Golden Gun. Seeing it in person is a whole other matter, and we’d recommend it if you ever get a chance.
After a Thai lunch on board the larger ship, we motor to a third location where we go ashore for a quick swim and spend some time on the beach. The sand is extremely fine with small shells. The waters of the Indian Ocean are quite warm, but then you step into a deeper current and feel a refreshing chill. But all too soon, the boat sounds its call, and its time to head back across the bay for a long bus ride to the much, much larger MS Amsterdam. But a little bit of my imagination is staying among those lovely islands.
Robert adds: This lesson should actually have come before Dennis’ writing. It’s pronounced “poo-KETT.” And the place we visited – Phang Nga – is “pahng nya.” For some reason, in Thai, the ‘h’ is silent in words that start with ‘ph’ and ‘th.’
The first ‘hong’ we visited – ‘hong’ means ‘room,’ and these interior openings really are like large rooms – also reminded us of some of the scenery in “Avatar” with these giant, flat, sheer uprisings of rock dotted with “how did they even get rooted?” trees and grasses. Entering the second ‘hong’ was a little more dare-devilish. As we were exiting the bat cave, the low archway we had to pass through was very low indeed. So much so, that we all had to lean back completely prone in order to barely skim through without scraping our bodies on the rough oyster-shell ceiling. There’s an obvious reason why these places aren’t visited at high tide. Yikes.
Dennis adds: Over 500 passengers will leave the ship in our next stop of Singapore, having booked only the first leg of this voyage. But for the following 14-days when we transit the islands of Indonesia, we’re told the ship is sold out.
To check out Dennis’s novels, visit www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann
frahmannthoughts 