Day 1 - Before we call the day to an end...

We went back to hotel room for a nice warm shower after the long full day. I allowed my roomie to take her shower first while I sat down on the tiled floor (as I was wet while kayaking...sigh...amateur ma) glimpse back all the pictures taken during the short sightseeing trip at Phang Nga National Park. Hmmm....200 pictures taken….not bad for the first day. Then I realized that we have two Nemo (tropical clown fish) in our room. Okay…not the real live fishes but just design printing on the refrigerator…my first time to see designed refrigerator in hotel room though.

There is nothing much to do during night time in Phang Nga town. Unlike Phuket, Phang Nga is a quiet little town. One of the famous landmark in Phang Nga is Khao Chang or also known as Elephant Mountain – a large hill in the form of a kneeling elephant. There is a cave called Phung Chang (a.k.a Elephant Belly Cave) within the mountain. The cave is accessible with water raft where the insides contains stalagmites and stalactites, and water that runs all year round.

Elephant Mountain taken from different angle

So nothing for us to do on our first night?! Luckily one of the guys brought game cards, so we decided to meet up an hour later after shower in one of the team’s room to play some card games. When I'm done with my long relaxing shower, my roomie and I went knocking on one of the team's room to start our battle for the night. There are only five of us, the rest didn’t turned up…too tired I believe. They must have doze off while showering or straight went to bed without shower....yucky....hahaha!! Well, since the night is still young...We played ‘Bluff’. How the game works? Simple. Well, the cards are to be distributed equally till finished. Then one player will start by covering up the cards while mentioning the numbers (or pictures) of cards to other players. The player can either bluff about the actual contents of the cards or just straight for the truth. The second player sitting beside then has the rights to open up the stack of card if he/she felt that the first player is telling a lie. If the instinct is correct, then the first player need to take back all the cards on floor. Then the second player to start all over again. Hmmm…seems like I just make this games sounds more complicated with my tedious explanation. Hahaha…well, next time join me and I will explain on how to play this game. We actually played for four rounds and laugh till we can’t stand anymore before we head back to our own room.

Jumps straight to my bed and with less than three seconds...I was knocked out!!

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.

...and so it begins

I always have the urge to start blogging but one of my biggest fear is maintaining it. Simply because I know I’m not the type that will update it once every single day with the itsy bitsy things that’s been going on in my daily life….but suddenly at this very moment; I just have that eagerness to blog. So I might just as well take this little passion that I have right now to write some bits and pieces regarding my recent trip to Thailand with 8 other fellow travelers.

Here’s some background story...

Last Wesak Day holidays, I managed to catch a trip with a group of passionate travelers to a place in Thailand called Similan (funny name – for those of you that still not get the joke, pronounced it slowly in Hokkien). The name Similan actually derived from Malay word "SEMBILAN" which means nine. It’s amazing that many of the names in Thailand came from Malay word. For instance, the word Phi Phi actually came from "Api Api" (fireflies). Back to Similan...why it was named after Sembilan? Simple, caused it consisted of 9 islands:-

Names identification of the islands:
No. 1 ~ Hu-Yong Island
No. 2 ~ Pa-Yang Island
No. 3 ~ Pa-Yan Island
No. 4 ~ Mieng Island
No. 5 ~ Ha Island
No. 6 ~ Payu Island
No. 7 ~ Hin Pausar
No. 8 ~ Koh Similan (the biggest island)
No. 9 ~ Ba-Ngu Island

Where is this Similan? Refer to the map below and you will get a rough idea of where these islands are located.

Now...how I got to know about this trip or even have the thought of joining? I don’t know what’s gotten into me recently, but like I mentioned before, I suddenly have the urge of doing something, well, I had that 'urge' again - feeling of going somewhere for holidays and coincidently I bumped into this package catered for interested travelers. Since I refuse to waste the long weekend by just doing nothing at home, I made up my mind to join them alone (meaning without any of my 'known' friends along). Excited? Of course!! Why? Well, this is my first ever trip 'alone' and this is really something new for me to try!

I called up the organizer nervously and registered myself for the trip, then get a help from a friend to pass the downpayment money to the organiser then VOILA~!!… I’m in for the trip!!

This is a budgeted trip so I have expected for the worst. We rented a chartered van and will be traveling all the way from Penang to Phang-Nga where our hotel situated. The van leaves at 5am on Friday morning. So the night before, I went out with my friends for dinner and casual talks. We dismissed around 2am then moved on to a friend’s house. Okay, I’m bad...I forced her to stay up with me till it’s time for me to meet up with those travelers at the designated meet up place. In the end, I pitied her and gave her few hours to sleep while I surf the net, not wanting to sleep anymore...too excited for the trip maybe. When it’s almost time to leave; I woke her up and reluctantly she wake up to drop me at the meet up point. Wave goodbye to her to join the rest of the team.

And the adventure begins...
*continue in next post