We are in Khao Lak at the "4 stars Resort" called Nangthong Bay Resort. We have our free weekend to do excursions, so I decided to go to the one where we visited "James Bond Island" and we did sea canoeing. The majority of the group decided to do Elephant trekking, but I preferred to go out and look rock formations. Our group was small, only Rebecca, Thomas, Amy, Kevin and I decided to go.
Our driver Halim picked us up at 9 am and it took over an hour to go to the Phang Nga Bay. It was raining a lot and we were hoping that it would get better as we get closer to bay. We arrived to Phang Nga Bay, It is a Muslim village; Halim was actually from there and his dad came from a moken village. Halim told us that the previous symbol of the village was the "chang" (elephant), because one of the mountains resembles the form of an elephant and there was a legend that a farmer killed a domesticated elephant because he thought that it was destroying his crops. The man killed the elephant by stabbing him on his side, and the legend says that the mountains surrounding the village resemble the dying animal. This is a very interesting story of the village but sadly, they changed the symbol of the village to be the “James Bond Island”. This small island was used by the Hollywood industry to film the James Bond movie in 1974, and they actually closed up the island for 3 months!
Later, we got to the port and took a long tail boat from the Kean Tour company and went around the bay to look at the mangroves and mountains surrounding it. It was really nice to see the beautiful green landscapes, and we even saw a colorful bird between the trees; there were supposed to have some long tail macaque monkeys but we didn’t see them. It was a very relaxing boat trip until it started raining and we got wet! Anyways, we continued the trip to James Bond Island. The island is pretty cool, it has organic beaches full of shells and it has very interesting rock formations and jungle style. However when we got to the beach it was full of tourist and little “tourist traps” stores selling all kind of pearls and shells. It was funny to see a European woman wearing a thong and nothing more in the middle of the bungalows administered by Muslim women. Another interesting story was that Kevin asked for the price of the pearls and “bargained” the price down to 100 bah, which means those weren’t real pearls.
After taking several pictures with the James Bond Rock and some of the caves and leaning walls we got back to the boat and went back to the site of sea canoeing. Unfortunately it was raining again but it got lighter as we were loading the sea canoes. We took 3 canoes, Rebecca and I in one, Thomas and Amy in another one, and Kevin in the last one. It was actually nicer to have drizzle instead of a bright sun as we were around the sea. We passed under an open passage where it felt as we were inside of the mouth of a very large whale. We continued going and entering very low and dark caves and small and hidden passages. We saw a lot of mangroves and even found mud keeper fishes. It was a very low tide and sometimes we got stuck in the mud; either that or we were too heavy! We were in the canoes for over an hour and got back to the boat to take more pictures.
All the canoeing and rain got us hungry, so after that we went to have lunch. It was really good but spicy! We had soup, bbq chicken drums, coconut shrimp, and another very spicy plate of fried sea food, vegetables and eggs. We finished the delicious meal with pineapple and tea and went walking around the Water Village. They had a couple of souvenirs shops and as we were walking, a lady boy handed a monkey to Kevin and Amy held it too afterwards. We took pictures and they were charging us but I don’t think either of us paid. We continued our walk and Halim was so nice to take us to the Muslim school and showed us the biology lab where they had samples of many sea animals in jars: turtles, fish, crabs, octopus, snakes and other animals. They also had posters of the different small scale and commercial fishing practices and we had a discussion with Rebecca about which ones are the more sustainable and which ones they should ban. There were kids running and the little Muslim girls had to wear a uniform that looked like the gown of a graduation. After the school we continued walking around the water village and Halim showed us the fishing practices they use to trap fish, lobsters, clams and crabs. It was already time to go back on land, so we took the boat and they showed us some pictograms up on the walls of some cliffs that no one knows who made them but they say it was 2000 years ago.
We got back to land. It was 330 pm and Halim was rushing so he could show us a Buddhist temple that was famous because it was in a cave and it was full of monkeys that came down from the mountains. We got there and there were like 50 monkeys of all sizes around people who were feeding them. The temple itself was very interesting as well: it had another leaning Buddha and many other big Buddha figures that were made of clay. There was a monk and even Buddha figures that if you put a coin in them, they will give you your “fortune”. As we came in farther there was this very dark cave that we climbed. It was inhabited by bats and there was a characteristic smell, as we went up, there were traces of water and the view was amazing. It was too high though so I was feeling a little bit of vertigo and went down very slowly. At the entrance of the cave, there were also writings on the walls made by each of the kings Thailand has had. My camera died as we were around the monkeys so sadly, I couldn’t take any pictures.
We left the temple and went to one of the national parks close by to see the waterfall. It was a little park but it had seven waterfalls (small ones), we could have swum there but the water was really brown from all the sediments that the rained brought. So we decided to take the nature trail and hike for like half an hour. It was a very refreshing walk around the forest and the river but as we got back, Kevin noticed he had a leech on his foot. As we got back all the way down, Rebecca and Thomas also had them, they were like 5 little leeches in total; Thomas was bleeding a little bit and Kevin was playing with them. This way we ended up our great excursion and started our trip back to the resort. Those 1700 baht for the trip were very well spent.
After hearing so much about the canoeing trip, I must say I was very jealous and sad that I had to choose between two amazing experiences. It is interesting to hear about all the different aspects of the trip and the juxtaposition of the tourist trap areas and the serene natural beauty of others.
ReplyDeleteThe anecdote about the topless European and the Muslim women reminded me of our time on Kho Ra when a few of us were talking to Awe and the visiting Thai students. We asked them what the liked about Americans and their culture and also what they didn’t like. Because of Thai culture they were very positive about their answers, but Awe told us one thing that was difficult for Thai people was the different standards of dress and immodesty of western culture made the Thai people feel awkward. I think awkward would be an understatement in the situation you described. However, being in such a touristy area, I’d imagine the women at the bungalows to have been habitualized to this aspect of culture and it got me wondering about cultural sustainability and how we should look at tourist traps. Should we look at them as diluting Thai culture, or as forming their own sub culture which also has its own merits?
For the most part, the trip itself, excluding the tourist traps, seemed pretty low impact and sustainable. Having been on canoes, you avoid the issue of creating trails and treading on wild life and the with the main attraction being the nature and just looking around and taking pictures, it seems as though not much was disturbed by you, the visitors.
One of my favorite aspects what you described was your tour of the school. While working on my final project with the villagers on Kho Phra Thong, I realized how much education means to the Thai community. With education about local livelihoods, like fishing, I wonder if they teach the children about the pros and cons of the different fishing methods or if they just teach them about fishing because it’s one of the more common professions.
I think if I ever come back to Thailand, which I really hope I do, I’ll be able to go sea canoeing. And hopefully the practice will still be sustainable so it’ll be there in the future.
--Michelle Honda