Phang Nga Bay

A quick trip across Phuket island lands you on a pier fit for Atlantic City, Los Angeles, Miami, or any other huge coastal town with lots of revenue coming in--not an uncrowded concrete jungle with nothing larger than a bamboo restaurant surrounding it. The pier is 500 meters long, and ends well into a famous Bay here in Thailand called Phang Nga Bay. It's home to over 40 seperate islands, many made of jagged limestone cliffs. The featured island in these parts is an island called James Bond Island. It had a cameo in one of the original movies 20 years ago, and has been turned into a major tourist trap. The island is nothing more than a spire sticking maybe 60 feet out of the water, with about a 20 foot diameter. The small outcropping island now has a pier built for big boats to come dock & drop tourists off for a 20 minute visit to take their picture, and take a look at one of the 52 souvenir stalls.
To welcome our last (but not least) team member, we decided to take a canoeing adventure into some caves and go visit the infamous island. The scenery was obviously beautiful, but the thing I'll remember most isn't the lush greenery, the new-moon black of the caves, the nocturnal bats flapping their wings all around, or the rust bucket boat that took us out there; it's the fact that I wasn't allowed to paddle my own sea canoe! In Thailand, the Land of Customer Service, when you pay for a guided tour through sea caves, what they mean is that you pay for not only someone to lead your group, but to paddle your own 3 person canoe!

Here's a picture of an out-take from the original James Bond movie: