"This is our biggest adventure ever!" Sennen said after we waded through a long, often low-ceilinged cave the led to an emptied-out lagoon in the middle of a limestone island.
"Sennen, how will you draw this for Mrs. Kress?" Emily asked. (Sennen is writing and illustrating a daily journal for his kindergarten teacher)
"I'm going to need two or two and a half pages!"
The cave and lagoon were the last activity of five our speedboat took us to today. And as Sennen predicted minutes after departing the marina in the morning, "Daddy, this is going to be our day!" And it was, in no small part due to his incredibly positive and engaged attitude. Especially since his sister was afraid to skeptical at best of the whole boat excursion. She came around during the first stop to swim at Ko Khai, a small white sand island with warm, blue water at the entrance to Phang Nga Bay where we spent an hour swimming. Once Ailyn realized that wearing a life vest made her invincible to water, she began swimming around and playing happily.
This first stop on our day-trip out of Phuket Marina was most like our Ko Chang boat day last year – swimming around at a really pretty cove that couldn't be accessed without a boat. However, Ko Khai turned out to be the only stop of its kind. Our 30-person group of foreign travelers aboard an extremely large speed boat were next taken by a surprisingly professional and well-organized tour company to Ko Khao Ping Kan – aka James Bond Island, the site of the later segments of the 1974 James Bond movie, The Man With the Golden Gun. This popular stop in the Phang Nga Bay National Park is one of more than 40craggy limestone islands that jut out of the sea and are so green that the water itself reflects the color. These days, James Bond Island has no adventure to be found for anyone other than its namesake as the National Park Service has installed a series of paths, stairs and walkways to ensure the daily hordes find their way safely around the island, getting all the right photos.
Once we had ours, the boat whisked us off to Ko Phanyi where a large restaurant which clearly contracts with many of the regional boat tour operators had a buffet lunch of Thai food waiting for us. Initially, this seemed very low on the adventure scale until after lunch when our tour guide offered to take us around the village. At first, it wan't clear where the village actually was – until we realized that walking behind the restaurant, we had entered it. It was an entire village on stilts and its inhabitants all Muslim Thais. Once I explained it to Sennen, his mind was blown. The village had a range of nice and run-down houses and no small number of shops and businesses. But the piece de resistance they want everyone to see is the very cute primary school with the "floating football field" – a soccer field and playground also on stilts, but absolutely immaculate and with the most gorgeous view of any school I've ever seen. Of course the fantastic school with all its upgrades is courtesy of all the daily donations from the many passing tourists. Hence when the donation basket is handed out, people tend to give.
The adventures really began after lunch when we stopped at Ko Hong where canoes with local guides bulled up to the back of our. boat. to paddle us around and through the incredible caves and lagoons of the island. Frequently, to get in and out of the caves, we had to lay down in our canoes. This freaked out Sennen – who shared a canoe with me – and had him sometimes laying down preemptively or when he no longer needed to. Meanwhile Ailyn – always the natural adventurer – was thrilled and was yelling to us through the caves and across lagoons as she, Matheus and Emily paddled along behind us.
It was also around this point where I learned what the boat staff and possibly many other Thais make of Matheus' presence. Something one of the boat crew asked me right before I got in the canoe combined with questions the canoe guide asked let me know that they imagined Matheus is my illegitimate son by a Thai ex-girlfriend from when I lived here 17 years ago. The canoe man even tried to get me to open up by telling me how his cousin had a fling with a foreign woman who got pregnant and how his cousin still pays her child support. Despite my explaining that Matheus is our au pair (I used nanny in Thai) from Brazil, the canoe man wasn't buying it. It took several rounds of questions before the line of questioning subsided.
Our canoe excursion was trailed by the aforementioned cave and lagoon hike and exploration during which I carried Ailyn – at times like a baby – through the watery darkness. At moments along the way, she threatened to eat my face in a fairly scary way almost reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter. Amazingly, Sennen was not afraid or even hesitant. He marched proudly forward, embracing his adventure.
And then, our brave hero got on the boat and asked, "Daddy, how do we KNOW they have enough gas to get us back? And what would happen if they don't?"
What was impressive about our day besides the incredibly gorgeous Phang Nga Bay, the fun we had and our kids' great attitudes – was how well the entire excursion was run with beverages, snacks and fruit provided at every turn including a breakfast buffet of Thai sweets, cookies, sandwiches, juices, iced tea and coffee. Our tour guide was helpful, informative and entertaining. And while this wasn't the private chartered boat of last year in Ko Chang, it was a great experience despite how touristy it was.
Not surprisingly, after a day like that both kids passed out on the long van ride home and barely made it through a quick shower and change into jammies. But they were satisfied and happy.
"Mommy, I really liked our boat trip today. I'm really glad we went," was the best way to end the day.
