{"id":25297,"date":"2017-12-18T22:02:52","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T14:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=25297"},"modified":"2018-07-13T15:26:20","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T07:26:20","slug":"phuket-day-2-john-grays-hong-by-starlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2017\/12\/18\/phuket-day-2-john-grays-hong-by-starlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Phuket – Day 2 – John Gray’s Hong By Starlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ling and I were last in Phuket 8 years ago, we joined Simba Sea Trips for island hopping around Phang Nga bay. During that trip, I remembered observing several boats bringing visitors to kayak about the various limestone caves and lagoons. I recall it was quite a sight, so trying that experience has been at the back of my mind if I ever returned to this area.<\/p>\n

One of our two key highlights for Phuket 2017 is this very kayaking at the Andaman Sea. Truth be told, there are several operators all offering broadly the same tour in the area, but – as the good man tells it himself – John Gray’s Sea Canoe is the original and the namesake is the person who first discovered these caves and hidden lagoons in 1989, and started an environmentally responsible company to bring visitors to see these caves. Everyone else is therefore a copycat LOL. John – in his 70s now – himself didn’t accompany us on this Monday outing, with his crew sharing that he was recovering from a leg injury. His crew however certainly did his brand justice, and from start to end, our trip went overwhelmingly well with just one or two hitches that I’ll note in my notes here.<\/p>\n

And my notes:<\/p>\n

The itinerary plan<\/strong> is noted on his web site<\/a>, and was pretty much exactly what we experienced. We were the only party that day from Cassia Phuket, so it was just us in the mini-van, with the ride to Ao Po pier taking about 30 minutes. Two boats headed out, with about 35 persons in our boat – two thirds were Caucasians, and the rest Asians – including (unfortunately) a three generation family of Chinese Nationals, who pretty much made themselves heard throughout the boat with their shrill and loud voices.<\/p>\n

Each boat had a number of guides<\/strong>, with visitors roughly paired up to each guide. The guide kayaked and navigated through the various tunnels leading to hidden lagoons. One of our two drivers who led Ling and Peter spoke pretty good English and had an admirable range of vocabulary, and the two had long discussions about various flora and fauna we saw along the way. Hannah and I were in another canoe driven by an older guide who spoke less well, but we still managed simple conversations – thanks in no small part from his earnestness. He especially took after Peter in fact, and called out for him every time the boats launched!<\/p>\n

Hang-on – I hear you say why aren’t visitors kayaking on their own<\/strong>? Rest assure, you do have about 90 minutes in the mid-afternoon to kayak yourself. But unless you have some experience in these sea canoes, you’re likely to mightily struggle just to move in a straight line, let alone even with mild waves!<\/p>\n

The kayaks<\/strong> are custom-built for the company by SOTAR<\/a>, the well-known maker of white water rafts. John remarks in his publicity materials that his kayaks have never capsized. And after having spent hours in one, I can attest to how difficult it is actually for his kayaks to overturn! That doesn’t mean you can’t fall off the boat though, but really – you have to be deliberately trying to get out of the boat for that to happen.<\/p>\n

Stirring and observing the bioluminescent plankton<\/strong> was, simply, magical. This is not something you will see everyday or even most days.<\/p>\n

If you’re as susceptible to motion sickness<\/strong> as I am, you might be deathly worried – as I was initially – about whether you’d suffer from vertigo on the boat. I never did – on account that the boat travels at a very leisurely pace, is stable, and Andaman Sea the day of our outing was very calm.<\/p>\n

John Gray claims that the lunch and dinner buffets<\/strong> he whips up on this tour will be the best food you’ll ever sample in the area. I wouldn’t go so far to say it’s the best<\/em> food I’ve had in Thailand, but it’s pretty close! There was plenty for visitors to have second helpings if they like, and every item tasting delectable. The non-spicy tom-yam soup @ dinner tasted so good that Ling has asked that I write John for his recipe even LOL.<\/p>\n

For the other parts that are a little more mixed:<\/p>\n

The hidden lagoons and caves are indeed magnificent and lovely, but you’d need to temper any expectations<\/strong> of a serene<\/em> experience. There are a lot of canoes jockeying for space in the area, not only from John Gray but also other operators.<\/p>\n

The Kratong ceremony<\/strong> possibly suffered the most. Oh, we all helped to create the ceremonial floating flowers – and to be honest, it was really the guides making the flowers with us chipping to help where we can – but what might had been a beautifully tranquil experience of lighting and casting each of our flowers in the pitch-dark lagoon was just not possible with the number of canoes in a fairly small area.<\/p>\n

None of the above last two notes affected our overall enjoyment of this outing by too much, since it at least met all of our key expectations: that we got to see the caves and hidden lagoons, we got to kayak in the sea, Ling and Hannah swam too, and I didn’t get motion sickness haha. We highly recommend this day trip<\/strong> – and yes, it’s suitable for even kids as young as Peter! The trip costs 9,875THB \/ SGD404 for us – a real bargain for what’s included in the package.<\/p>\n

And lastly, photos:<\/p>\n

\"\"
Loading up our boat at Ao Po Pier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Approaching our first island about an hour after departing Ao Po pier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Two persons to a guide and kayak.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The caves are teeming with life – birds, insects, and even monkeys.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The wife with her eagle-like eyes spotting critters that even the guides missed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Wonderfully sunny day making for beautiful pictures!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The guides were aware that we were a family unit, so we traveled as a pair.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Approaching an inner lagoon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The guides took the initiative to help us take lots of family pictures!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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All that’s missing is the theme music from Hawaii Five-0 now.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I reckon the company has several of these dual-deck boats, and they get rotated between use and maintenance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Hannah’s turn to provide horse power LOL.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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High Five’s!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Kayaking on our own around mid-afternoon. There was a slight drizzle by this point.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Back on the boat for us to make our Kratongs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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One of our two guides especially took after P. He’s welcomed to adopt him hahaha!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Second time Ling has swam in the Andaman Sea. The picture this year isn’t as nice though.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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International dancing competition to see who falls off the kayak first!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Dinner is as good as it looks here, really.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Heading out for our third kayak outing at sunset, and to a hidden lagoon for the Loi Kratong ceremony.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Hannah gets to do the honors of sending off our Kratong.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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There were a lot of canoes in the cave but credit to our two guides: they brought us all the way to the end of the cave where it was much quieter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Day 3 continues @ Phuket Elephant Sanctuary in the next post<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Ling and I were last in Phuket 8 years ago, we joined Simba Sea Trips for island hopping around Phang Nga bay. During that trip, I remembered observing several boats bringing visitors to kayak about the various limestone caves<\/p>\n

Read More Phuket – Day 2 – John Gray’s Hong By Starlight<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[604,601,551],"class_list":["post-25297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-canon-g7x-ii","tag-phuket-2017","tag-smartphone","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/blog-2017-phuket-day2-20171217_140922-hong-by-starlight.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}