As I write, we're sitting on a rooftop in Bangkok. Fierce bolts of lightning silently flash all around us, and in the near distance the buildings and lights of Sukhumvit (Bangkok's ultra-modern city center) play contrast to the softly-lit golden temple sitting just across the street.
It's truly a beautiful sight, which serves to remind us of just how far we've come in that time. It reminds us of how many amazing and wonderful things we've seen, and how many amazing and wonderful places we have visited.
Yes, it's been 295 days since we left Seattle for this great adventure that is our life for the time being.
We've hiked through Australia's Blue Mountains, and surfed some of the most famous breaks throughout the Asia-pacific. We have been able to call the paradisical town of Byron Bay home. We've snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef as well as Indonesia's Gili Islands, and rode a moped across Lombok. And that's barely scratching the surface.
In my mind, however, there is one place and one experience that stands out as having provided a sense of splendor and awe that is second to none. The sheer untouched natural beauty of the hongs in Thailand's Phang Nga Bay. Truly one of the natural wonders of the world.
We set out amidst the monsoon rains of Phuket in July, to go for a canoe trip that would turn out to be the type of experience that simply leaves you speechless.
I'm sorry to say that no mater what I write here, nor which pictures I post, I won't be able to do this trip the justice it deserves.
We signed up for a tour through John Gray's Sea Canoes, and it started off like many others. We were picked up and driven across Phuket Island to the departure point, where we boarded 'the mother ship' which was loaded with sea canoes. We set off into the bay, and were served a really quite nice Thai food buffet. The islands started to loom out of the mists and passing showers as we headed out into the bay, and as the grew before us, so grew our excitement.
As we ventured out it was explained to us that many of these islands, whose sheer stone cliffs rose hundreds of feet above the water, were actually more like a ring of stone than a massive boulder. Inside this jungle-covered ring of rock lush untouched lagoons, or hongs, provide quiet sanctuary to monkeys, birds, and fish of untold quantity. Despite the assurances of our guides that we would venture into these hongs, as the mother ship pulled up alongside one, it was hard to believe it was anything more than it appeared to be; a big solid jungle-covered rock. Even harder to believe, was that we would somehow take a canoe through this seemingly impenetrable rock into said hong.
Nevertheless a small armada of sea canoes, with not more than a 2:1 ratio of skeptics to guides, disembarked to paddle towards this great rock. Our canoe quickly took the lead in what I was still half certain would be a rather embarrassing experience for these guides, who seemed so confident we should be impressed. As we approached the solid rock wall, we paddled under ledge which untold ages of waves had carved from the limestone, and our guide turned on a flashlight and handed it to me. He then instructed Krissy and I to lay down completely flat. It was only then as we tipped our heads slightly forward that we saw it. By my estimate not more than 24 inches tall, nor 36 inches wide, indeed hardly enough for our canoe to scrape though on every side, a natural cave began to welcome us into its black depths.
Fortunately these tight confines didn't last for more than ten feet or so before it opened into a black cave. Only the small beam of our flashlight, and our cameras periodic flash provided illumination for this dark world. It was, however, incredible. The cave grew and took shape in only ways mother nature could have imagined. Around another bend we saw in the distance an opening back out into the daylight. Fortunately this time there was enough space to remain sitting while we slowly paddled into the most incredible piece of this world I have had the pleasure of visiting. Perhaps covering a space as large as a football field, though roughly round and far from uniformly shaped, the lagoon we found ourselves in was incredible. Somehow dense jungle
growth clung to the sheer cliff walls surrounding us, and mangrove trees dotted the surface of the water we paddled in. Only accessible at this hour of low tide (recall the dimensions of our entry point) the mangrove roots stretched well above our heads before joining into the trunk of these unique trees. At times we paddled directly through a single tree to continue on our exploration of this quiet paradise. Monkeys chattered and chewed in the trees above us, and the calls of strange sea birds echoed throughout.
In the end we visited several of these marvels, each at least as different as they were similar. Each more incredible than words can describe.
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