Phang-Nga / Kayak Adventure

Thursday was a mixed bag for the trip. Unfortunately the girls ended up skippubg their spa day to work out plane reservation in order to work around Bangkok airport. The airport was closed due to anti-government protestors (we had no idea it would be such a challenge - nightmare). The end result is we now have to spend a couple extra days here in Phuket (one for J&J and two for D&L). That means an opportunity to make up the Spa and pool time. To reduce the stress the men may join them - of course there are worse things then being stuck at a resort (but still stressful). :)

Meanwhile Jeff/Dave went on a sea kayak excursion to Phang-Nga (national park in the ocean so to speak). Hongs everywhere, which are large rock formations sticking out of the ocean (think James bond movie - forget which one, but they filmed a lot of it here). We visited Hong lagoons, islands, mangroves, and caves. The coolest part was going through caves in the kayak via the ocean into what were inner Hong lagoons. Think football stadium of rock covered in tropical jungle and you kayak through a cave that is not even visible in high tide (but may be almost dry in low tide) from the ocean, through the rock, and into an inner lagoon of water - like standing on the football field - now surrounded by the stadium on the inside (but sitting in a kayak on a lagoon of water). Very cool indeed. One of the caves you could see light on both ends - called it oyster cave because all the walls and ceilings were covered with their shells. One of the others was bat cave - much larger and longer - pitch black so needed light. And yes, the ceiling was covered with bats - lots of bats! In both cases, coming into the inner lagoons, we had to lay all the way down flat on our backs to get through to the other side (think 12 inches between face and permanent facial damage on the cave covered in jagged shells and rock). Again, way cool (at least David and Jeff thought so). We also went to another little island to swim and relax and ate a Tai lunch on the boat.

Never in the USA, but we were able to jump from the upper deck of the boat to get in our kayaks and even swim into shore at the last stop. About 500 yards (of course we didn't know the water went to only a few feet deep within the first 100 yards). David captured some great pictures.

Upon return we met up with the girls for dinner and more logistics rearranging before hitting the sack (see previous blog).