Do-It-Yourself Phang Nga Bay Tour (James Bond Island)

The first stop Wat Suwan Kuha 

GPS @8.428872,98.471693

We skipped temple as we woke late on that day, so we headed straight to Samchong seafood.

If you are staying at Patong area, it may takes about an hour to reach the temple by car.

Proceed lunch at Samchong Seafood restaurant (GPS@8.305286,98.419374). According to google map, the distance is about 20 mins away from the Wat.

Samchong is a muslim seafood restaurant. They could only speak Thai, but no worry as they have menu in English. You can hire boat here to James Bond island. When we were there, the family seated next table  can speak a bit of Chinese and help us to do the translation.  I suggest you bring along picture of the long tail and James bond island to indicate your intention to hire the long tail boat. The boat rental is RM180 for the whole afternoon (exclude tipping).

The journey from Samchong to the island took about 30mins . James Bond Island is actually a local Marine Park hence we were required to pay entry fees of THB200 per adult For information of the fees structure please see below.

Next the boatman asked if we wanted to try out canoeing. The price per boat is about THB500 per boat if I remember correctly. During the ride, there are other boat nearby selling chill coconut drinks.The ride is about 40 mins. We were reminded by canoe operator to pay tips to their paddlers. 

The Boatman then drove us to Koh Panyee, a Muslim Sea Village which has variety of seafood restaurant. We were told we need to pay a small fees if we were to step our foot to the village. By then, we were already exhausted and decide skipped the village and call it a day. 

Instead of lunching at Samchong, perhaps next time we will opt to lunch at Koh Panyee then only proceed to James Bond island.

The sun is about to set at the Koh Panyee.

The villagers is sitting by their boat repairing their net. Even the lil one also sitting there helping her mum.

We were lucky enough to catch the glimpse of the eagle on our way back to the pier.

If you prefer a private tour just among your friends, this is quite worth a trip.

James Bond Island, Phuket

Phuket is popular with tourist because of one of the James Bond movie - The Man with Golden The Gun was shoot here. So it is must in your itineary to visit the marine park of Ao Phangnga aka James Bond Island.

Instead of signing up with local tours we decided to hire our own boat - why? Simply because we are bunch of weird people and hate joining the crowd..LOL!!! Of course not, we just want to have different experience all together.

We drove to Sam Chong Seafood after reading the do-it-yourself tour from Jamie's Phuket Blog. We had our lunch there and asked the restaurant to arrange the boat for us. 

Here come our lovely boat - The Long Tail Boat. We paid about RM180 for the whole afternoon.

Our first time with long tail boat. To win win and C, Phuket is like their second home- they come here on yearly basis sometimes even twice a year. But this is their first time of these lovely couple joining us to tour the James Bond Island.

The boat come with self painted Manchester United logo. We felt like a bunch of MU fans going on holiday trip to Phuket ..@@

The famous rock where everyone take picture with. Nature itself is magnificent- just look at how these beautiful large rock appear in the middle of nowhere. Enjoying view like this simply make one feel extremely  calm and relaxing.

After spending about an hour or so, the boater took us to the other side of the island. 

The other side of the island where most of the tourist boat off load the passenger here. 

We enjoyed the scenery as we climb the stairs to the other side of the island.

Beautiful rock formations found here.

We spent about an hour here before leaving the island.

When we about to leave we found another DIY route suggested by the park - how interesting!

Laem Hin, Phuket

Laem Hin is a very well known local seafood restaurant in Phuket- just google top 10 seafood restaurant of Phuket you will definitely find this place.

Since this place is highly recommended by Google, we decided to try out the dinner on our first night at Phuket. The restaurant is located about 40km away from our hotel and the journey took a while since it was rush hours among the locals.

We drove pass villages, dark narrow roads with dim lamp post and for a while we are uncertain if we going to the right directions. We feel more relieved after Google Map also leading to the same directions.

The restaurant is located next to the pier where you can take boat to Coconut Island or restaurant nearby.
Almost all the patrons are local except us table and another table of expats that arrived later.
The do provide English menu however only one staff speak English.

Salad raw prawn despite being one of the popular dish among Thais; this is my first time trying. There is no fishy smell  and surprisingly it gives after taste likewise fresh Sashimi. The chili however is just too spicy for me. 

Almost all the restaurant we goes to offer us stir fried morning glory.

Seafood clear tom yam

Fried fish

This Salted egg squid is very different from our usual, not recommended.

Thai style steam seabass is highly recommended. it come with a bowl of base soup tasted like clear tomyam. Actually the soup tasted so rich soaked with the fish, taste even better than the tomyam. If you plan to have this dish you can forego the tomyam.

The star dish of the night steam live mantis prawn.The size of this prawns is huge from my wrist up to elbow. The prawn is really fresh while meat bouncing against your teeth as you chew . I never have such great mantis prawn in my life. It was so great that my other friends who stay back at Phuket revisit this place after we left.

The happy look at their faces.

We ordered 7 dish for 4 pax, yeah... we over ordered but everyone super satisfied with this yummy-licous meal. 

Laem Hin Phuket

Open 10am to 10pm  (no break in between)

Last order is 9.30pm