Adventures in Thailand: Maya Bay + James Bond Island
The day after we visited the Elephant Sanctuary in Phuket, we did back-to-back day tours of the infamous limestone cliff islands of Thailand. This was a turning point in the trip for me, as I woke up incredibly sick with the flu. No coronavirus for this girl - unfortunately just a nasty dose that would stick around for the remainder of the trip. At this point I started to lose my voice and sounded like an angry frog, and my skin was completely sore! But I was determined to follow through with our plans because to me, this is what I’d always pictured when I imagined Thailand before visiting.
Day 1: Ko Phi Phi Islands
This was my pick. I’m probably one of the few people who isn’t a fan of Leo’s The Beach, but I did want to see the infamous Maya Bay. It was our first stop of the day. The bay is closed off now, as tourism was taking over and becoming unsustainable for the health of the bay, but to me no people makes it even more beautiful! The water looked incredible - the photo on the left below has absolutely no editing, that’s just how the water looked!
Then we stopped in a beautiful lagoon and jumped off of the front of the boat for a swim in the brightly coloured waters. I was shocked at how cold the water was - I’d expected it to be warm! I said this to Jessie who assured me the water was warm, I was just so sick that it felt freezing! But it was still a little slice of heaven. We also passed by the viking caves, which people currently live in to tend to swallow nests as they are valuable for certain foods.
Next up: a snorkeling break. I had gotten really into snorkeling in Greece, so I was super excited to see what the fish here looked like! Unfortunately my breathing was much too difficult at this point, so I settled for coughing at the surface and enjoying the swim.
Also: I feel like people only tend to talk about the glamorous side of things, so I just want to say here that I had a massive panic attack! I have anxiety, and the primary physical symptom for me is shortness of breath, which then makes me even more anxious because I feel like I can’t breathe. For some reason this really triggered me and I was gasping and started to hyperventilate (which is even worse when you can’t breathe normally to begin with because you’re sick!) I really had to bring myself down from it, and ended up spending the second half of this period of time on the front of the boat soaking in the sun and focusing on breathing. And because it was really hot one of the lovely workers on the boat came over and fanned me thinking I was going to overheat, and not realising I actually felt better than in the water at that moment!
I genuinely had such a good day, but as much as I was smiling in these photos I was struggling a lot both physically and mentally. So just remember, it’s not always what it seems!
Snorkeling works up an appetite, so we headed to an island for lunch after this. We had to wade through the waves (which were starting to feel warmer to me), onto the white sand beach for a Thai buffet with a to-die-for view. I took a little nap on the sandy beach, swung for a bit while enjoying the crash of the waves, and enjoyed the peaceful break from the boat.
Next up: Monkey island. We weren’t able to get off as the water was too high so there was no beach, but we did get to see a few monkeys chilling on the cliff face. Can you spot them in each of these photos???
We stopped on Bamboo island for a bit of relaxing on the beach and snorkeling, then had to cut the day short as two people on the boat were really ill so we had to head back to the mainland. I had the best fried rice of my life near where we were staying, and enjoyed walking around checking out Phuket before calling it an early night so I would be rested enough for the next day’s adventures.
This to me was so random. These were everywhere: this was legitimately how they got gas for their scooters! It looked SO sketchy to me, but it’s just not something I’ve ever been exposed to!
Day 2: Phang Nga Bay
On our second day, we moved over to the Kata Beach area of Phuket and took another day tour, this time to Phang Nga Bay to see James Bond Island. This was had made Jessie want to visit Thailand! The day tour started off with a visit to the monkey caves, which had a ton of buddhas, some bone temples, limestone caves, and, of course, monkeys!
You can see below that I am both sweaty from the heat of the caves and unprepared to visit a space filled with buddhas. I was dressed for a boat tour, so you can see my swimsuit through my top, but they luckily provided wraps for modesty which I proudly donned over my shorts as this was the nicest lo of looking wrap we’d seen of any of the temples we’d visited.
The caves were super cool! I wasn’t expecting to be so impressed by the limestone, but all of the different formations were really cool to see. Next up was a trip to see the beautiful jade waters of the bay and gorgeous islands jutting out of the water.
We made our journey on one of the traditional long-tail boats, painted colourfully for extra cheer.
You get off on an island to view James Bond Island. On the opposite side of the island, there was a bay where almost no one else was, so I took a quick dip (finally feeling the warm water!) and soaked in the stunning views.
Then, we visited a floating village for lunch and a little bit of shopping. They had a lot of really cool items carved out of coconuts - I picked up a spoon rest, but it was tempting it we had more time to buy a lot more!
Our last stop of the day was a spot of sea-canoing. This was probably my favourite activity out of a really amazing day. It was so relaxing! Our guide was informational and had a great sense of humour. He pointed out different shapes in the limestone- “Look! That one’s an elephant. See it?”
Our guide made this heart cut-out leaf and had a mini photo-shoot with us in our own private lagoon. Heaven!
Before going to Thailand, I saw a lot of debates as to which tour was more worth it to visit if you only had time for one. To me, the Phi Phi islands were great for swimming and (supposedly) snorkeling. There was a lot more boat time and almost no swim time in the Phang Nga Bay tour. This one had a lot more to see in one day.
