Today Linsey, Stu and I are off to Ang Thong Marine Park which has about 40 odd islands in it. Craig is off early to play golf today so we will see him when we get home.
Our pick up was on time and our ride was this tripped up minivan than was built to party. He picked up a family of four at the Novotel as well as us then another couple before heading to the pier.
Once we were checked in and paid our 300B per person park fee we had to sit in a waiting area for almost an hour before our group (pink group) was told we could go on the boat – it turns out our guide had slept in.
All aboard for a smooth speed boat ride out to Ang Thong. The first stop was just under an hour from the harbour and was for snorkelling at a “reef” next to one of the smaller islands in the park. When we got there, there had to be at least 10 boats already there. Each boat holds about 25 people so you can imagine the crowds and people are in the water where they are trying to park the boats. Not long after we got there at least another 3 boats pulled up. Linsey was pretty much ready to finish as soon as she saw the crowds.
The islands are beautiful but the shallow coral is pretty damaged and there are only a few fish around. The other sad part is the Italians (specifically) don’t have any reef etiquette and walked all over the coral in the shallow sections.
Above is monkey island.
We had 45 minutes at this site then we were off again. The boat was heading to an island (I didn’t write any of the names down) where you can climb up to a look out, then down to a lagoon. This was a really difficult experience with the crowds and almost vertical stairways. Going up was fine but coming down took ages. We were supposed to only have an hour here but we ended up being there almost 2 hours as we think the boat was broken and the crew was trying to fix the engines. The docks at the islands where we alight are made of plastic canisters that you walk across to get to the shore.
I thought from here we might head to lunch (it was 12:30) but it was off to sea kayaking. This was quit fun Stu and Linsey were on the same kayak and I had one to myself. Note it is painful on the legs to sit in a kayak after climbing on the previous island. Linsey and Stu were a little late back to the boat and the dock was hot.
From here we went to lunch – the irony was that of all the beautiful places in the park we could have eaten at, we ate at this restaurant in an area that looked like it was a fishing boat graveyard and the only view was the seawall. Another ironic fact was that we were at a seafood restaurant and there was no seafood on our menu (other more expensive tours did) – Stu was a little miffed.
The final stop was another island for a 45 minute swim, then we caught the speedboat home (again pretty smooth).
davstuholidays 