Day 1 - Journey to Phang Nga

We started off early in the morning at 5am. Our transport....11 seated chartered van. At the same time, that’s when I get to know my fellow travelers for the first time and my temporary roommate for two nights. Exchanged a few ‘hellos’ with them and brief introduction of ourselves. Once the van started the engine, almost instantly, I snoozed off to sleep, basically since I didn’t sleep at all the whole night before.

Our first stop is at Changloon where we had our breakfast and change of Thai Baht. Then we proceed to cross the border into Thailand. The immigration area was packed with big tour buses. Hundreds of people queued up while waiting for immigration to stamp on their passport. While waiting in queue line, suddenly a warning notice board caught my attention. (Refer to the below picture)

So what is the actual penalty for overstaying in Thailand? You have to take 500 times of BATH a day if overstayed for a night... hahaha.... Okay, I admit it myself, prior to this I do sometimes confuse with the correct spelling but I bet I can remember how to spell BAHT correctly after this laugh *wink* (The correct spelling supposed to be BAHT)

Finally, we got through immigration after in queued for about 30 minutes before we get to continue our way northeast. Knowing that it’s going to be a very long journey before we can reach our destination, I continued back my sleep while blasting my ear with the mp3 player loaded with all my favorite songs. Sometimes woke up in between of sleep to chit chat with my newly-formed friends. While other times, played with the special functions of my camera when was too bored (still a newbie with my camera).

Shots taken from inside the van...

Raining...sigh

Thankfully the rain stopped...

The whole journey took us approximately 9 hours including stops for petrol and answers to some nature calls…The excitement was getting more when we finally arrived at Phunga Hotel – where we will be staying for the next two days.

We unpacked and check-in to our respective rooms. Since, we are way earlier than we expected to arrive (thanks to the driver who drove F1 van…averagely 140kmph all the way *I wonder what was his childhood dream – to become F1 driver perhaps*, we proceed to our ‘unplanned’ plan (where unless we have enough time, we will explore a bit of Phang Nga Bay National Park a.k.a James Bond Island). We gathered back at hotel lobby 30 minutes later where each of us forked out another 800 baht to pay for the boat ride and national park fees. Then off we go....

Phang Nga Jetty ~ our boat ride

Rocks formation

Tham Lod Grotto - a cave in Takua Thung with beautiful stalagmites and stalactites

We get to go through the center cave with kayak

Enjoying the view in kayak

Untouched...undisturbed sceneries

Man walking in the middle of the sea

We then headed to Khao Phing-Kan (the name means literally leaning mount). No doubt the place represents it's name very well. There is really a huge rock which split into two where the smaller half has slide down and the remaining one appears now to be leaning. (see pictures below)

Through Kao Phing-kan is a very small island called Khao Tapoo which was made famous by James Bond movie hence a.k.a James Bond Island (pictures below) Tapoo means nail, and this shoreless rock projects up from the sea as its name implies flat and wide at the top, and very narrow at waterline. The sight is simply magnificient.

The famous James Bond rock where The Man with the Golden Gun was partly filmed here.