James Bond Island [ Fri. 11th February 2005 ]

A visit to James Bond Island is a must do if you're on Phuket apparently, so we booked Sims Afternoon tour.

First up, we visited the famous Monkey Cave Temple. A cave with a temple inside and hundreds of monkey's outside. On boarding the bus to leave, the driver was checking everyones feet. "No monkey shit on bus", he warned!

After that, we headed over to the pier where we boarded a long tail boat. Basically a large canoe with a V12 engine strapped to the back of it. Fast but extremely noisy!

Khao Phingkan or James Bond Island as it now more commonly known, was used in the James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun starring Roger Moore. Ko Tapu (Nail Island) is the rock formation just off the island that was used as the backdrop in the film.

There's not much there apart from a load of souvenir stalls selling everything from postcards to shells. After a few pictures and a wander around, we were back in the boat and off to Ko Panyi.

The island of Ko Panyi is home to the 'Sea Gypsies', an entire Thai Muslim fishing village of about 500 households built on stilts in the sea and connected by wooden bridges. We had dinner there and also had a look around some of the houses. Unbelievable, that they live out here just on stilts in the water!

We were greeted back on the mainland by a women who was selling us pictures of ourselves. We'd forgotten that has we boarded the long tail, she'd taken our picture. In the time we were gone, they had it developed and had marvellously stuck it to a china plate complete with stand. It was tacky as, but we just had to have it!

A great tour and we'd recommend going on Sim's Afternoon Tour.

Here's the pix...

Monkeys outside the Monkey Cave Temple (Wat Suwankuha)









Buddha inside the temple.









I'm keeping my distance from these monkeys!









Scenery along the way to James Bond Island



James Bond Island with Ko Tapu in the background.












Ko Panyi - home to the Sea Gypsies.









Scenery on the journey home.