Krabi Trip: Day Two

My mom told us that one of my aunt and her husband will chaperon all the kids to a four islands tour so we will need to wake up at 6AM.

I had a hard time sleeping after woke up around 4AM with full bladder. After I use the bathroom, I came back to bed to the horror that was my younger brother's relentless snoring. I tried to go back to bed but it was hard to ignore the snore... Before I knew it, it was 6AM with my youngest sister call on my mobile phone to woke me up. We went about our morning routine and went to eat the hotel breakfast buffet. For a rather small resort hotel, it does serve a real breakfast buffet, although with just ten foods to choose from (ham, sausage, bacon, cooked vegetable and stir fried southern noodle) with a large bowl of boiled rice, salad section, two kinds of fruits, toast station and cereal. A present surprise was that they also have omelet station :)

After we had our filled, we gathered in the hotel reception building to wait for the tour guide to pick all of us up with total of about 18 people. We all ride in two vans to the tour company's private pier to board the speedboat to begin the tour.

First, we went to see 'Ao Pra Nang' or Royal Lady Bay in English. Although the bay is part of the mainland, it was accessible by boat only. There wasn't a lot to see in the place because the beach front was quite small and the only attraction was a highly respected Buddha that has been placed in the shallow cave on one end on the beach. It was a beautiful beach with turquoises water and sand comprise of fine crushed seashell. This bay also house one of the most expensive hotel around, the normal room cost 30,000s baht per night and the suite cost 3,000 US$ per night!!! We stayed for about 20 minutes and then we return to the boat for our next destination.

Next, we went for scuba driving near Chicken island. This island have a pillar on one side of the island that looks kinda like chicken head, hence the name. The boat anchored near the island and let us get off the boat to scuba dive. Although the sea water was clear to the bottom, there were not a lot of fish, also all the corals were crushed by the tsunami. However, once I went into water and start swimming, I started to feel a sharp pain like bee sting here and there often, on my legs arms and fingers, and it was not just me. Pretty soon everybody were yelpjng and wincing, eventually I swim close to aunt and she told me to go to the boat and ask the guide what is happen and can we go to our next destination now because there was nothing to see anyway. The guide told me that it was sea hornet which seems to concentrate in this area because of the decreasing tide. Upon hearing this we call everything body back on board and go to the next destination. My aunt's husband was having a pretty bad reaction to the sea hornet sting as he spot red bumps all over.

Our third island is Poda Island, here we stop for swimming on the beautiful beach with very clear water. At noon we had lunch and play in the water a bit more. There were a lot of tourists on this island, mostly white couples and families with some asians and local families.

The last destination and island was Pot Island with is part of the three islands in the parting sea route. The parting sea (I am not sure if this is the official name) is the phenomenon that when the tide was low, sand dune will be visible, connecting three islands together. Our guide said that it was big water day (meaning it was high tide day) the parting will happen around 4:30PM which is beyond the touring time, plus if the parting had happen we cannot return with the boat anyway because of the dune. At the time that we arrive at the island, about 1PM, the dune can be seen in the water. When we get off the boat, I notice that there were fish swimming near by. Soon we all get the snorkle mask from the boat and swim around looking for fish. I spotted at least 4-5 kinds of fish swimming around the area in flocks. As time went by I notice that the sand dune that connects the island became more and more visible as the tide must be lower.

At last the guide called us back on the boat to take us back. It does not take long for them to take us back and to my surprise they actually take us to the beach which our hotel is on. So we did walk back to the hotel from the beach.