5 Islands Tour

The 5 Islands Tour is done by long-tail boat. We liked it better than the speed boat in many ways because you were able to see much more along the way. The scenery has truly been amazing here.
Our first stop was snorkeling off the shores of Daeng Island. There was no beach there, but snorkeling was fun. After that we went to Pakbia Island, where the photo above was taken. The kids played in the sand and collected all sorts of huge shells with the help of Angela Savage and her daughter Natasha. We met them on the tour. We enjoyed chatting with them as we went from island to island. Angela has written a book that is set in Chiang Mai, so I'll now have to see if I can track down a copy.

We stopped in Lading Island and had some lunch. We then did a little more snorkeling and fed the fish. Yasmin, our little fisher girl, was still trying to catch them. She had a bit of encouragement from our tour guide who was able to catch a little striped fish in his bare hands while we were snorkeling earlier that morning!

The above picture was taken in Hong Lagoon. "Hong" means "room" in Thai. The lagoon was like a room in that it was completely surrounded by rocky cliff walls, except at the very small entry that is shown in the picture. It can only be reached by boat in high tide. I'm sure this area
was a haven for pirates!

We had a longer stop at Hong Island Beach. Here we did some snorkeling, but you didn't even need goggles to see the fish. They would come and eat the bread from our hands. I'm so glad that we remembered to bring bread for them. The girls were pretty excited to see a multi-coloured fish in this bay.

Nadim and I got tired of swimming and had a chance to read our books and bask in the sun while the kids continued to swim and chase fish. It was a great day.

CM