January 5, 2011

phang-nga bay


this bay is full of very pretty islands and islets. many of the islands have "hongs" which are collapsed cave systems accessible from the sea at low tide. we entered some of them. it was like going through a whole, then a cave and finally seeing the sky again on the other side, but inside the mountain!!! forming and enclosed lagoon. this was rather impressive. certainly something we had never seen.

some other caves have no open end and they are long dark tunnels. we entered some of them with the dinghy as far as 200 meters and with a flashlight. we could only see and even smell the hundreds of bats hanging upside down the cave ceilings. every island in this bay has at least a few caves so there was enough to explore for as long as we stayed there. the shapes of the islands are so different to what we are used to. tall limestone pinnacles covered in jungle and surrounded by green waters.

the currents ran strong in the bay because of the many rivers to the north. even with winds over 15 knots the bow was not pointing to the wind, ever. It was sideways or even against it. the boat was awkwardly being pushed by the current all the time. Once again the place was a bit crowded but this time we found it a great advantage. sometimes when we could not locate the entrances to the caves we would just follow the kayak tours and voila!! there they were, breathtakingly beautiful all the time.







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