23rd February - Koh Hong - JamesBond Island - Koh Yao Noi (Hat Paradise)

Sunday 23^rd February

Sunrise at Paradise Beach (Hat Paradise)

Remembering Pam Headlam, with love.  It is her birthday today

Saturday morning we got up early and moved across to the cave area of Koh Hong.  We wanted to have a look before the tourists arrived…in their hundreds…  We tootled around in the dinghy, after giving it a bit of encouragement with the new pump, and admired the beauty around us.  Stunning!!

Pete espied, with his eagle eye, a small hut on a small beach, just across from the frenetic cave exploration area.  It was the ranger station – this is a national park - with the three rangers just starting to wake up, watch the TV, perform their morning ablutions.  They were very happy to see us, in a very quiet, undemanding way.  And would we like coffee, and cake?  They set us up at a little table, smiled benignly, and…left us alone…

Nobody really speaks any English.  I happened to have my computer with me* and showed one of them some of the photos from Yacht Haven to Koh Hong.  When it came to the jellyfishing longtail boats, he was very enthusiastic and recognized the activity.  I asked if they were for eating – we have never seen them on a menu, not recognizably anyway – and he mimed flying off in a plane. 

 Aha!  To China?  I asked.  Yes…of course…a big export business, jellyfish!  He also told me that they use the jellyfish to make…noodles… But maybe this was a total communication breakdown??

We finally left our cheerful little ranger station – possibly the most delightful office situation in the world – with its plump, happy guard dogs

Tookie the Dog inspects our dinghy

and its carefully positioned hammocks

and moved on to our next destination Koh Phing Kan, aka James Bond Island – it was Scaramanga’s hideout, in The Man With the Golden Gun.  

It is extremely beautiful and absolutely heaving with tourists, all taking photos of one another in front of the iconic bits of geology.  

To locals this island is NOT known as James Bond Island; they call it Leaning On Itself Island.

We left the dinghy surrounded by bigger boats and hordes of people

and did a quick recce.  A gorgeous bit of scenery…

With MANY little shops, selling necklaces, shells, but…NOT postcards, or copies of The Man With the Golden Gun.  They need a marketing manager!

We sailed on to Koh Yao Noi, which is where we are now, for a second night, moored to a solid orange buoy off a beach called…Hat Paradise.  It is very peaceful and beautiful. 

I have been swimming…

and we had a fabulously delicious dinner at the resort restaurant… best ever in Thailand thus far.  (Pete had beef Massaman curry, I had chicken Penang curry – his was The Best!!)  Thai food is very wonderful, full of subtle flavours, but we have had some very disappointing meals.  We have a strong suspicions that in a lot of places they are cooking our of a packet…lots of stir-fried vegetables which all look suspiciously the same, from a frozen pack… And lots of very soupy curry which tastes, sadly, generic.  So the food at Paradise (IN Paradise??) is a most welcome change.

Our view...

* And why the computer, in the dinghy?   We heard, in Yacht Haven, that there is a lot of theft, around the Hongs.  Someone had all of their precious possessions nicked off their yacht, at 9am while they were tootling around the caves.  Speedy opportunistic robbers…they took all of their precious items – cameras, computers, ipads, ipods, phones and…passports.  Woe!  I tried very hard to think of a good hiding place but I reckon robbers would also think of the same good hiding place.  Brainwave – take my preciousnesses WITH me, in a drypack!  This will only work if (a) I don’t leave it somewhere, in a fit of absentmindedness (b) I don’t get mugged (c) I don’t fall into the sea and lose it.

swim on