My gruelling kayak trip turned out to be about as laid-back as any of the other adventures I’ve signed up for this past week. We basically kayaked around a fairly small island, then just chilled out on a few beaches for the rest of the day. Our tour guides even insisted on doing most of the paddling.
The sad thing about the tour was the lack of tourists. This region is so hard up for tourists right now (in what should be their peak tourist season) that they insisted on running this trip with only two customers. The two of us had a big 45-passenger boat (to get us to our kayaking area) and seven crew members at our disposal. We only paid about US$33 for the all-day tour (including lunch). It was really quite ridiculous.
The trip around the island in the kayaks was quite interesting. The island consisted of huge limestone cliffs that fell straight down to ocean waters or skinny little beaches. There were a number of caves around the island that were being harvested for swallow bird nests. The nests are a delicacy in China, where they are the main ingredient in “bird nest soup” and worth about US$750 a kilo. Needless to say, the caves were off limits to us, and the harvesters working in them required special permits from the Thai government.
In the middle of the island lay a fabulous secret lagoon with a narrow entrance passage between two cliff faces. Actually, I can’t say it was secret because there was an endless entourage of motorised tour boats zipping in and out of it. At least those of us in kayaks could venture deep into the mangrove section of it to explore the shallow waters.
Our tour guides seemed to have the usual happy-go-lucky attitude you find in Thais. They were very friendly and liked to clown around. They insisted on doubling up on our kayaks so they could do most of the work and run a fishing line off the back to catch squid. They mentioned that Thailand was having trouble selling its seafood lately because so many people around the world falsely believed the fish Thais were catching had fed off the corpses of the dead from the tsunami.
On the way back into port, we passed one of the gleaming palaces of the king of Thailand, up on a hill overlooking the sea. The royal family here also has another retreat on top of the mountain I cycled down outside of Chiang Mai. Thais hold their king in very high regard. In fact, the King and I (and the movie Anna and the King) have been banned here for years because they find it deeply offensive. I did come across a reference to Anna in the National Museum in Bangkok, so she did exist as an English teacher. She just never romanced the king…
I just have a few days left before I fly back up to Bangkok, so I thought I would enrol in one of the many cooking classes they offer in Thailand. I know several people who have done them, and they said they were great. We’ll see how it goes.
