Thailand 2023, part 39 (Ao Phang Nga National Park, Khao Phing Kan, Wat Suwan Khuha, Ao Nang)
For some unclear reason, I wasn’t in the best shape or a particularly elevated mood that morning when I went on a day trip from Ao Nang. It happens to the best of us. However, I was in front of the hotel at the scheduled time and soon the van arrived to pick me up. Along the way, it picked up more passengers and we all headed to Surakul Pier, about 100 km away from Ao Nang, from where the long-tail boats for excursions depart. Along the way, I often saw the limestone formations for which this part of Thailand is known.
The route practically followed the eastern and northern parts around the spacious bay in the Andaman Sea, situated between the large island of Ko Phuket to the west and the Malay Peninsula to the east. This bay is called Phang Nga Bay and its north-western part is the Ao Phang Nga National Park.
The park, covering an area of about 400 square kilometres, is primarily known for numerous limestone islands that often take the shape of towers with almost vertical sides. It is essentially a continuation of the limestone formations seen on the mainland, as captured in the previous photo. One of the most popular islands to visit is Khao Phing Kan, better known as James Bond Island, due to a scene from the movie “The Man with the Golden Gun.” Advertisements for the national park often highlight this aspect.
Some of these islands also have caves that are accessible only during low tide.
On the other hand, the park encompasses the largest area of natural mangrove forest in Thailand, where numerous animal species can also be found.
So, to start the journey, a mini-bus for excursions takes you to the pier, where you board larger versions of long-tail boats.
There are about 10 kilometres to the open sea (within the large bay) and, in this part, the boat navigates through more or less narrow channels (as these are in fact long and narrow river mouths). Occasionally, you can venture into areas where numerous mangroves grow. You are practically already in the territory of the national park.
Here is a short video clip showing the mangrove forest.
And then, the main canal begins to widen, soon reaching the relatively open sea.
Here is another video clip showing what this all looks like when you leave the narrow river branches and enter the bay:
Then you reach a part between a couple of islands where two larger boats were anchored. These boats serve as docking points for tourist long-tail boats and small boats for local excursions that include passing through a cave.
Here, the visitors are offered two options: either to sit in a small boat and paddle around, including passing through the cave, or to take a larger boat, the one you arrived in and circle around the small island. I opted for the latter, as I wasn’t in the mood for paddling. Later I saw that the local people were the ones doing the paddling, while tourists enjoyed the ride. Still, I was satisfied with my choice. Here are some photos illustrating this part of the excursion.
As seen in the previous photo and some earlier ones, within the Ao Phang Nga National Park, numerous limestone islands with a very distinctive shape can be observed. I’ve seen something similar in the famous Ha Long Bay in Vietnam (https://www.svudapodji.com/en/vietnam-7/), but I wouldn’t want to make any comparisons. Each has its unique beauty.
Now we moved to the island of Khao Phing Kan, commonly known as James Bond Island, as I have mentioned before. Here, you first come across a large crowd.
Even as you walk from the boat along the path followed by all the other visitors, you can see one of the features of this small island: two vertical rocks, with one leaning quite clearly against the other, along with a small cave. However, I dealt with this later; first, I went to see what this island is famous for – the view.
It’s a vertical karst tower, i.e., the view of it that has gained so much popularity in contemporary culture.
By the way, as you can see from the photo, there is also a small beach here and you can swim there, but the view of the murky water didn’t appeal to me at all, so I stayed on the dry part of the island.
As for the vertical karst tower, it is called Ko Tapu, standing at around 20 metres tall, and it is located about 40 metres from the shore of Khao Phing Kan. Although I’m not particularly interested in James Bond movies (I enjoy watching them, but I’m not a passionate fan), the scene is pretty enough, so I took a few more photos there.
Needless to say, I wasn’t the only one wanting to capture this, but for me, it was less important to be in the photo.
The path for the visitors leads over an elevation, offering another beautiful view of Ko Tapu and parts of Khao Phing Kan. Then, you reach a section where the path descends towards the water, providing access to a smaller beach.
While watching all the people passing by, I concluded that I should go there too, although in the end, there wasn’t anything interesting there except for the toilets. Since I didn’t need them, I soon returned to those impressive, enormous and vertical cliffs.
Only when the visitor ventures between these rocks, does one grasp their full size and impressiveness.
Next to the rocks, there is also a smaller cave, but I didn’t venture into it. As far as I was concerned, I was ready to continue with the excursion.
Since this was a full-day excursion, it was time for lunch. For this purpose, the island called Ko Panyee was used. Although territorially located within the national park, it is not a part of it. Nevertheless, this island is quite picturesque, primarily due to the fishing village consisting of numerous stilt houses. The residents are descendants of nomadic fishermen originally from Java island in Indonesia, who began settling here in the 18th century.
To start with, we sailed past some of the smaller islands belonging to the national park and soon we saw Ko Panyee.
From the pier where the tourist boat docks, you immediately enter one of the several large restaurants, as tourism has become the main source of livelihood for the villagers in the recent years. So, we went straight to the restaurant where food was already waiting for us, served buffet-style. Here is what I chose:
After lunch, we had some free time and I used that time to take a stroll through the village. Besides hospitality industry, the main tourist offer comes in the shape of – shopping.
By the way, it’s worth noting that all these are floating structures. At one point, the residents even built a floating football pitch and the children from the village achieved quite remarkable results practicing on that field. Still, I found it interesting to observe various houses and a mosque, as well as the surroundings of the village and the little island.
At the agreed time, we all gathered around the boat and then boarded, setting off slowly. However, to begin with, we sailed past some parts of the village and the island, which I still found very interesting.
In fact, we were now returning to Surakul Pier, as the sailing part of the excursion was coming to an end. Along the way, I took a few more photos and in this way I concluded the visit to Ao Phang Nga National Park.
After boarding the mini-bus, we transferred to the nearby Wat Suwan Khuha temple, which the locals also call Wat Tham, meaning “temple cave.”
This is a cave monastery the history of which is not entirely known, but some prehistoric finds have been discovered inside the cave. There is also an inscription mentioning the temple’s restoration in 1858, suggesting that the temple existed earlier. Anyway, when you enter the cave, the impression is very powerful.
There are several stupas and Buddha figures, with the reclining Buddha figure being particularly prominent.
At the end of the first cave chamber, you reach a wide staircase leading further into the cave, while later on, there are more steps ascending higher. I went all the way, so here are the photos:
Between these two staircases, there is a flat area that seems to lack a wall. Here, we were greeted by numerous monkeys that inhabit the surroundings.
I stayed briefly here and then I descended into the main hall of the temple. The impression was equally striking from this side.
One can take a short walk in front of the cave and this is all a part of the temple complex. Small monkeys are almost everywhere and one of the main activities for visitors is to buy food sold at the entrance of the temple to feed these animals. I normally don’t do that, but I love to take photos of them.
This was actually the last stop on this trip, so now we started to return to Ao Nang, which took about an hour and a half. It seemed longer, though, but upon returning to the town, I still had the time to walk along the Ao Nang beach. I like my pictures, including the sunset and the scenes on the horizon, but I definitely didn’t like the beach.
While I was walking around here, I passed by a bird. It was a zebra dove (Geopelia striata).
Now, all I had to do was to have dinner and then I retreated to my room where I packed because the next day I continued my journey around Thailand. On this occasion, I was crossing from the Andaman Sea to the Gulf of Thailand, specifically to Ko Tao island.