I booked with Lora at Dior travel from Khao Lak for a private trip to “James Bond Island”, she gave a good price for our family of 3 (child 7 years old). The day before the trip she asked, if 3 more people could join us, we accepted, so all in all we were 4 adults, 1 teenager and our girl.
We left our hotel (Manathai, Khao Lak) in a nice air con minibus 7.15 am and picked up the others around 7.30 the drive to the pier took just over 1 hour. Lora had toilet paper with her, and it was needed for the toilet stops we made during our trip, so really appreciated, that she had thought of it!
We got in the long tail boat and started the trip. It was very hot, but the long tail boat had a shade (we did see some boats without shade, so be careful) and the wind cooled a bit, when we were sailing. As soon as we stopped for pictures etc we felt like chicken in a hot oven.
The scenery is amazing! Really had to describe. First we went through mangroves, the we were in the bay with all the cliffs sticking up. We went with the long tail boat through a cave and finally arrived to the island in front of “James Bond Island”, here we got off (there are park “rangers” who put up small ladders and help you out of the boat), the fee for visiting is 300 thb pr adult. We took some photos and walked (some stairs) to the other side of the island to take pictures of James Bond Island- various good points for this. Lora had brought a “golden gun”, so we had some fun photos of our girl posing with it:-)
There are also some caves you can walk through- it was nice a cool inside.
Since we were there early there was not too many others around, so we had a nice time and didn’t even get close to the souvenir shops, so was never harassed as others describe.
The long tail boat picked us up from that side of the island (so you only walk one way in the heat).
We then sailed back towards the main land, stopping for a very nice canoe ride (my husband opted out of the canoe, as he has a bad back, and the canoe’s they have are inflated ones, where you just sit on the “floor”.) He waited on the big boat, where we “boarded” the canoe. You don’t paddle yourself, a Thai will do that for you, so you just sit and enjoy. At some point we had to lie down to go under some rocks into a small beautiful cave (our girl loved it), the trip also went through the mangroves and we saw crabs and birds.
After the canoeing it was time for a delicious lunch at “floating village” - the “sweet and spicy shrimp soup” was sooo tasty and the “tempura shrimps” the best I ever had - even my husband loved them, and he usually do not even eat that stuff. We also walked around the village- mostly small shops selling souvenirs, but also a mosque (only Muslim’s may enter) and a school (closed for holiday, when we were there) We bought a very expensive ice cream for our girl (3 x the price on main land)
After the village we sailed back to the pier, stopping for a few pictures of the cave paintings.
Was back at the pier around 1.30 pm and back at hotel around 3.
We really enjoyed the trip, and my tip to anyone wanting to do a trip like this: take a private tour! I checked the hotel price for a shared trip, and it was almost the same as we paid Lora for our private one, and I’m sure the complaints about being “hearded” from place to place is because people do not check, what they’re getting themselves into.
