Sunday 10th February 2008

Last night, we arranged with the others to wake up this morning and watch the sunrise before breakfast. Me and Nikki set the alarm with the best intentions but, when it went off, we couldn't be bothered - so stayed in bed until it was time to eat. Clem and Yusuf had done their tour yesterday so we said goodbye and they left at 8.30am.

Our tour started with us taking the Long-tail boat along the network of rivers around the Phang-Nga Bay area, through the mangroves and to a series of caves in the limestone cliffs. Next we went out on to Andaman Sea - where there are 120 tree-covered, mountainous islands - it was very beautiful.

The day was spent visiting a number of the islands. On one of them we got to walk through a cave, which was pitch-black and incredibly creepy. Afterwards we sailed over to a tiny little beach where we sat and ate our lunch.

This afternoon, we visited the big one - the main part of the trip, we sailed to Khao Ping Kan, which is the island that was used in the James Bond film, The Man With The Golden Gun. It was really nice being able to walk round and spot the locations used in the film, but tourism has definitely cashed in and the whole place was packed! Afterwards, we sailed back to the Muslim fishing village to collect our things and were then taken back to the mainland.

Phang-Nga isn't very big but the next place we want to visit is a few hours away - so we decided to spend the night. We found ourselves a nice guest house and then went out for a look around. The main street is similar in size to Keynsham high-street, so once we'd walked up and down a couple of times we stopped for some food. We chose a small street-side café and the food was excellent.

If only I could've found somewhere to sunbathe nude... I could've been 'The Man With The Golden Bum'!