{"id":413,"date":"2010-10-04T01:56:18","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T01:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/?p=413"},"modified":"2013-10-17T02:01:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T02:01:27","slug":"october-4-2010-phuket-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/?p=413","title":{"rendered":"October 4, 2010 Phuket, Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"

The flight from Hong Kong arrived in Phuket near midnight last night, so our drive to Serenity Resort <\/a>in Rawai was very dark. The island looked pretty bleak at night – we weren’t really sure what we’d gotten in to. But I’d seen many beautiful pictures and our resort’s website was fantastic, so I knew everything would better in the morning.<\/p>\n

While researching sightseeing options in Phuket, I knew I wanted to explore Phang Nga Bay. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures\u00a0of the\u00a0massive limestone islands that have been carved by the ocean.\u00a0The\u00a0James Bond movie Man with the Golden Gun<\/em> and The Beach<\/em> with Leonardo\u00a0DiCaprio were filmed in the bay.\u00a0The area can get crowded with tour boats and snorkelers, so I wanted to find something more\u00a0authentic and off the beaten path. I chose\u00a0John Gray’s Sea Canoe<\/a>, their Hong by Starlight trip. Hongs (the Thai word for rooms) are formed when the roof of a\u00a0sea cave collapses. The hong may be dry at low tide and a lagoon\u00a0at high tide. You may enter and exit\u00a0the lagoon by canoeing through tunnels when the tide is just right – too high and there’s no clearance,\u00a0too low and there’s not enough water.<\/p>\n

Our driver picked us up around noon and drove us to the pier in Ao Po. As we\u00a0cruised to the first hong, we had a\u00a0light Thai lunch and\u00a0the staff gave us a safety briefing.\u00a0The trip was catered with fantastic food prepared on the boat – fresh fish, fruit,\u00a0noodles, \u00a0and cashew chicken – and drinks were included. Everything was well organized and the guides were extremely friendly. We arrived at the first hong just as the rest of the other boats were leaving. We explored three hongs and then had time to swim and canoe\u00a0as the sun set. We floated through tunnels whose ceilings were covered in bats and even saw a family of monkeys playing on the beach! While the crew fixed dinner, our guides helped us build a khratong – a\u00a0small raft built of elaborately folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, and incense sticks. Thais believe the khratong honors and pays respect to the goddess of water. After a fantastic dinner we climbed into our canoes again. I couldn’t even see the opening to the hong, it was so dark!\u00a0The tunnel ceiling was so low we had to lay down in the canoe and we almost scraped our noses!\u00a0The stars and moon\u00a0opened over the hong – it was breathtaking. Making our offering in the bioluminescent bay was so peaceful. This was a highlight of my trip.<\/p>\n

\"Kayaking

Kayaking in Phang Nga Bay<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Floating

Floating our kratong in the bioluminescent bay<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Monkeys

Monkeys playing on beach<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Laying

Laying down to pass through the tunnel!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Kayaking

Kayaking in Phang Nga Bay<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The flight from Hong Kong arrived in Phuket near midnight last night, so our drive to Serenity Resort in Rawai was very dark. The island looked pretty bleak at night – we weren’t really sure what we’d gotten in to. But I’d seen many beautiful pictures and our resort’s website was fantastic, so I knew … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bos_mb_destination":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaladventurestravel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}