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| David and Anne Marie |
Our great friend Anne Marie Medcalf flew in to Phuket from Perth to spend a couple of weeks with us aboard the good ship Taipan
Anne Maries Birthday on the 25th of January was a good excuse for a celebration and a party before we set out to explore Phang Nga Bay with Magic and Tweed. This was our first trip out into the bay and there is just so much to see.
This end of Phang Nga Bay to the East of Phuket is filled with exciting islands and interesting geological land forms. There are towering limestone Kast cliffs with loads of caves and hongs or collapsed cave formations which you can access by underground tunnels from the water. Ko Phanak has a hong and it was our first, just a short day sail north of Yacht Haven Marina.
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| The entrance to the Hong at Koh Panak. A lot of tour boats stop here. |
The cave seems long and is very dark as we pushed our way further into the middle of the mountain by torchlight. After what seemed like and eternity to a person like me who hates caves we came out in an open hole and we could see the sky. The thick tropical vegetation hangs down all around and it is totally inaccessible any other way. There are a number of these formations around the bay.
Then theres the various ethnic groups inhabiting the area. It was traditionally inhabited by Orang Asli or other aboriginal people. These people are gone but several sites of significant Archaeological importance exist in the National Park and are protected.
After Phanak we anchored at Ko Hong. This gorgeous area is a collapsed hong and easily accessed by dingy without the dark passage. Not so dramatic but very lovely.
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| Ko Hong |
From Ko Hong is just a few miles north to the top of the bay and the Moslem Stilt Village. Ko Pan Yi. This was an amazing place. The whole village is on stilts at the base of a dramatic cliff. The local Moslem villagers have developed a thriving tourist trade and most tour boats stop here. We left it until late in the day so there were very few tourists left there. The villagers are very friendly and fun. They have lots of local yummy food for sale take away but we dined at a little deck restaurant beside the water. We chose our live fish out of tanks.
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| Live Lobster anyone? |
The villagers also build these very simple but beautiful little one person boats. Powered by small motors they travel quickly in the flat river waters.
We organised a trip up into the rivers with Stalin a local long tail boat captain and we were all picked up the following morning from our boats. There are some cave paintings and the waterways are lush and tropical with endless mangroves between. Those long tail motors are really noisy!!
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| Left David, Christo Daun Anne Marie, Stalin, Pam and Jon. |
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| Anne Marie strutting her stuff. |
Great weather prevailed and some really great sailing. We had a great time and were sad to farewell our wonderful guest and friend.
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| Ko Pan Yi |
