James Bond island & canoeing in caves
November 8, 2016
Okay guys. I didn't know if a day could beat our elephant excursion but today was pretty dang close. So we booked the James Bond canoe excursion through Phuket travel company. We got it for $40 US per person! Super cheap! So they picked us up from our hotel at 8:30 AM and we started the drive to the docks where the boat was. Well you all know how our Koh phi phi boat tour went and I got super sick so I was hesitant to do another boat excursion but this one was different. Instead of packing 200 plus people onto a ferry it was only 50 of us and there was so much room! You could lay on the top deck of the boat and chill or be inside air conditioning or outside with a covered roof. Our first stop on the boat ride was Panak island. There we got to go canoeing in "Bat/diamond cave"! So we each got our own private guide that was in charge of the rowing and Clint and I just got to lay back and chill! We started going into the cave and the head lamps showed hundreds of bats on the ceiling! WHAT!! It was crazy seeing that many bats so close to us! After we were in the dark for awhile we started to see some light shinning through and our guide tells us to lay down flat. So here we are flat in the canoe with the cave inches away from our face! So awesome! Then all of a sudden you are in this gorgeous green jungle opening that looks like it's from Jurassic world movie. It is stunning! We couldn't stop staring around us and enjoying all of the beauty. We kept canoeing farther into the opening and went around a lot of rocks! The caves alone was worth the money just for that
BUT we got to do it again at the next stop which was called Hong island which means room in Thai. Well that makes perfect sense because once again we went through a cave and had to lay down flat and we opening into this giant room water cave opening! It's too hard to explain exactly so just look at the pictures! HA! But it was so incredible to see. Our guide took some pictures of us in front of a standing island (which I totally would have believed it was James Bond island because it was so cool). We saw monkeys all over the walls of the opening and our guide tried to get one of them to come on the boat but we didn't have any food so the monkey didn't! Bummer! After the canoeing we got back to the boat and had a delicious buffet with the most gorgeous view! They started the boat to head to James Bond island while we were all eating. Clint and I headed to sit at the front of the boat once we were done and it was so much fun just letting our feet hang over board ( don't worry nana we were still on the boat with a bar blocking us so we were safe!)
Once we got closer to the island they had tons of long tail boats waiting to pull us closer to shore. We all hoped on one of them and zoomed over to the island. We got off and BAM there it was in all of its glory! The beautiful James Bond island in the flesh. We took TONS of pictures and made some new Chinese friends ( they just wanted pictures with us)! We climbed around to the top of a little hill so that we could get the best view of the island/ rock! It was so cool! We walked around the cave opening that was there as well and just hung out. There are a lot of vendors selling goods that you can buy there as well!
One of the many Chinese tourists that wanted pictures me with LOL ^^^^
After that we got back on the boat and headed to our last stop which was Lana island. Here we got to swim ( Clint jumped off the boat into the water) and canoe! This time they didn't have the guides for us but that was EVEN better! Clint got to use his canoeing skills and take us to the beach! There we saw monkeys and a couple of jelly fish in the water. We went into a couple of openings around the island. It was so amazing just being that close to nature and being able to touch these islands just in the middle of the ocean. No joke we couldn't stop taking pictures because you would turn around and there would be another cool island that looked perfect so you would take a picture and then you turn slightly and there are 5 more islands! They are everywhere! It was so unreal. After we got back on the boat we started heading back and they served some fresh fruit and drinks! We posted up on top of the boat where there were comfy mats to lay down and we enjoyed the nice sea breeze and view.
Overall I would 110% recommend this excursion to anyone that comes here. There is nothing about it that I would change except letting me just stay and live on the islands would have been cool. LOL but you get to experience so much canoeing in caves and seeing James Bond was awesome! My dad will be so proud! I will post the link below of the exact excursion that we did for anyone that wants to do it!! SO FUN! WE LOVE THAILAND.
Link to website to book excursion
Link to website to book excursion