After 30 minutes or so we were there - not quite like Bond in the Man with the Golden Gun but never mind. It is smaller than I imagined and Ruddy our guide kept saying you can walk round to the beach but I was sure you couldn't as it didn't seem to have one in the pictures. Turns out you pull up and park on a nearby island that does have a beach and a very good view of the James Bond Island. We were there around 10am and it was busy and Ruddy said it gets busier than this - right decision by us to go from Krabi and not Phuket. There was also a little souvenir market on the island staffed from people from the nearby Muslim floating village it seems. There was also a crazy shard of rock face which totally looked like 127 hours type of rock where you'd get stuck at the top.
We re boarded our boat and that was our visit to James Bond Island over, though our next step was still very James Bond esq! Off we were speeding through the open waters again with the wind and spray in our hair when you hear clunk clunk clunk then silence! Our boat had broken down. in the open water. There we were bobbing about with boat after boat zooming past. A gust of wind came and blew us towards the cliff face of a nearby island. We could hear the motor whirring then cutting out over and over again. We decided it wouldn't be far to swim to the nearest island as we were practically blown onto it anyway and it had a small beach so we should be OK! Eventually the motor started and didn't give up - woohoo - turns out a piece of plastic was stuck in hte engine - bloody tourists littering! So we were back on our way! We reached not an island this time but a large vessel floating where we disembarked our tempramental longboat and boarded canoes! At least these can't break down, puncture maybe though!
Our canoest Manoon paddled us through caves, under wierd limestone formations - one looked like a tongue, into a lagoon where the only way to enter was to lay down on the canoe to get under the very low rock opening then into a mangrove forest. It was amazeballs. Our canoe guy was amazing - pointing out lizards and rude shaped rocks and mountains - turns out he is also a Man City fan! We gave him a good tip. You could totally see James Bond canoeing through the area with a villan in tow!
Back to our longboat which this time held out to get us to the Muslim floating village. 2000 people live on here, they have electric, internet, fresh water and all floating on water. It was weird, at some points it was obvious you were over water like being on a badly built pier and at other times it was a concrete floor and felt like land. It all fit together by a series of narrow alleyways that led through a market, to a school, a mosque and restaurants. I couldn't imagine living there, they look like they are building more too! It could end up mahoosive!!
This was the end of our boat section of the day where once getting it from the village back to dry land we headed in the minivan to Monkey Temple. It didn't feel as much of a temple as yesterday though there was a massive reclining buddha through the big draw here were the monkeys. They were a little vicious at times fighting each other and snatching food out of peoples hands. The caves again were spectacular. They have good locations here for thier temples and I can see why the monks would want to meditate in them.
Our final stop was to a waterfall but due to the amount of rain they have had (not whilst we have been here though) it was gushing. No one went in except a crazy Thai family who were not with our group, it didn't look safe at all!
Our last night in Krabi we decided to go back to our favourite restaurant Aning's on Ao Nang beach front and we got a tuk tuk there, I'm glad as it was so hot! We then got lurred into a bar on the basis that the guy liked Daniel's beard! Turned out to be an awesome bar with a band doing mostly rock covers, a lot of rock from the 80s too. The Chang was on BOGOF and they had Makers Mark for the price of JD, everyone's a winner! We stayed til about 1, took a little walk on the beach then got a tuk tuk back to the hotel. A great end to a fab four nights in Krabi.
Number of stray dogs #37
Number of stray cats #7
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