As I mentioned before, there have been a number of movies shot in and around the Phuket/Krabi area. One of those movies was the James Bond classic, The Man with the Golden Gun. (Well, I liked it and so it's a classic to me.) And, as it happens, there is a tour for that. They call it the James Bond tour. Actually, there are several of that tour, and they have various levels of quality. I decided on the one that visited 8 places and had sunset to boot. Of course, it was the rainy season and the chances of seeing the sun set were slim. And the woman in the booth that sold me the tour got flustered when I said that if I didn't see sunset, I would come back demanding my money back. She didn't understand that I knew the risks and was only joking. Her reaction was kind of funny though.
It was another of the late starting tours. I was to be ready at 9:30. Right around the appointed time, the minibus showed up and off I went. We stopped at various places around town and picked up a bunch of people and then headed across the peninsula to the Phuket area to get to where we would start. As we arrived, it began to rain. And then pour. This was not a very big deal as there was swimming involved in the day and so I would be getting wet. It still surprises me how many people seem to think that the prospect of getting wet in the rain somehow means that the tour where you are supposed to get wet while swimming means the tour is ruined. It actually surprises me that people consider rain to be a something that ruins an outing at all. (But to be fair, there was a time when I let weather tell me whether I would go out and do something or not. I gave up that nonsense a long time ago.) I did however, have my camera with me and I didn't really want it getting wet. And despite the fact that I had seen that it might rain and had told myself that I should one of my ziplock bags to protect my camera, I still forgot to do so. Luckily (har, har, har, as I don't think luck had anything at all to do with it), the people managing the jetty area where were to board our boat just happened to have dry bags for sale. A dry bag is a watertight canvas bag that can be sealed up so water doesn't get in. They weren't very expensive and I do have need of such things from time to time, so I bought one. And I bought it just in time for the rain to stop. Oh well. I still needed one.
There were about sixty of us all to board this one boat. It was a fairly large boat, so that was no problem. Our “guide” (I put that in quotes because a guide usually tells about the sights a tour will be taking in, but this guy didn't have much to say about that sort of thing, although he was quite funny and kept us all on track timewise) was quite the comedian. And he also seemed to work in the we-will-go-places-at-times-when-other-groups-aren't-there game. So despite what I assume would be a fairly popular set of places to go, we really didn't meet other tour groups much at all on this day.
Our first stop was a beach. We stayed for about an hour and did some swimming and frolicking. The current was really strong and swept along the shore so when I was swimming it took a lot of energy just to stay in the same place.
After swimming, it was off to the archipelago further up into the bay. They made for some great scenery.
We had also had some lunch by this point and one of the crew took some raw chicken and started throwing it in the sea. It was unclear why at first. But he was also making some whistles and shortly some birds started to come by. They were eagles and had come for a bit of a feed.
Then we got to the second part of the itinerary. In one of the islands there was a lake in the center of the island. The only way to get to it though was through a cave tunnel from the sea. So we got into canoes and headed through the tunnel. We didn't even have to do anything. We just got to sit back and relax. There were paddlers that came with each canoe. Inside the cave was dark and narrow. There were some people who were a bit afraid of either enclosed spaces or of the dark. But nobody freaked out.
Inside we paddled around for a few minutes. The little lake was quite nice. Then we headed back through the tunnel and back to the ship to carry on.
Then it was back on towards the island group.
Along the way I met another nice young woman. Her name was Meshkat. She's from Iran. Now I really want to go to Iran. :)
Shortly thereafter we switched to smaller longtail boats for the rest of the time in the archipelago. At the time we wondered why. We found out later as we were on our way back to the ship. The bay in archipelago is very shallow. The ship couldn't have gotten in and out. We found this fact out the hard way. We got stuck on a sand or mud bar. A couple of the passengers in the boat had to get out and give it a push off the bar in order to get going again. The scenery was quite nice through the islands. We passed another hole in the rock. It was possible to take a canoe through it as well, but we had other things to get done, so we just passed by.
Then we headed through or past one of the mangrove forests of the bay. They are such funny looking trees.
After the mangroves we headed to the Muslim “floating” village. It's not really a floating village, and at low tide it doesn't even resemble anything like a floating village as the very shallow area underneath it is out of the water. But at high tide the water sweeps in and the village is definitely sitting on stilts above water.
This was our chance to get souvenirs. I had no money left after buying the dry bag and if I had bought anything, then I would have had to carry it as well. So I just wandered around, despite the fairly hard sell on buying something. After spending a while in the shop, we headed through the village to the other side to catch our boat and go. But going through the village gave us a chance to view the daily life of the Muslims who live there.
From the floating village, we went to check out some rock drawings. I don't know how they would have been found. They were in an awkward sort of place. But they seemed well-preserved.
Then it was on to the namesake of the tour, James Bond Island. It's actually called Koh Phangan. And because it had been saved for last, all the other tour boats had been and gone. The souvenir stands were closed up and we were the only ones there. It was refreshing.
And I can now say I have been to where James Bond fought the evil villain Scaramanga in The Man With the Golden Gun.
I had a nice time on the tour and as we headed back to town, I marvelled at how the weather had been so nice, as the sun disappeared behind the clouds over the horizon.
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