We continued to sail North in the Malacca Strait to the island of Phuket. I’m going to admit my ignorance of the entire area: I didn’t know Phuket was an island. For that matter, I didn’t know Lankawi was an island either!
We again took a ship’s excursion by speedboat into Phang Nga Bay. This area contains the Ao Phang Ngo Marine National Park, with dozens of limestone islands filled with caves and rock formations.
If you look closely you’ll see a rope hanging down from one of the rocks on the underside of this island. Our guide explained that fishermen come out and use these ropes to catch fish.
The next destination was “James Bond Island,” which was used as a location for the “The Man with the Golden Gun.” I now know for sure that they didn’t really blow up the island in the end. Apparently the James Bond franchise is still popular, judging by the number of people flocking to this island. After shedding our shoes and jumping into the (shallow) water to walk to the shore, I stood there with my shoes in my hand and looked around the small beach surrounded by rocky cliffs, wondering what the attraction was. We were given nearly an hour to explore what looked to me like nothing more than a tiny beach. I saw a few people walking up some stairs in the rocks, and decided to find out where they led. First I had to get my shoes back on my damp feet, sand and all.
I gingerly started up the stairs, wondering where they went. A little higher, a little more, and around a corner was a view of the pinnacle rock that was so visible in the movie.
I continued along the stairway, and coming around a corner discovered we were not alone! The stairs led into a larger open area with another beach access for more boats. And as always, enterprising locals were taking advantage of the number of tourists coming to pay homage to 007.
Our next stop was Koh Panyee, a floating fishing village. This was advertised as an opportunity to meet the locals, see the village, and browse the shops. We were not impressed. The village is a confusing warren of buildings on pilings, and our guide warned us to stay close to him so we didn’t get lost. It became a march through narrow walkways with nearly every home having an assortment of wares that were clearly of the “Made in China” type. Stopping to purchase anything was nearly impossible, as our guide was on the move. We were hoping for local crafts and wares, but it was t-shirts and toys and keychains. The town was interesting, but has been converted into a tourist trap.
After returning to the island of Phuket, we were treated to lunch in a lovely Thai restaurant. The food was just what I had been looking forward to. Authentic Thai food! Yay! I was actually delighted to find that my favorite food truck in Alaska truly was Thai food on a level with the food in Thailand. The restaurant in Thailand was a lot fancier than the food truck, though. I spent some of our allotted time there wandering around the property taking photos of the beautiful facility.
Travels with Billie 