> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://easythailandvisa.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Cliffs Above Phang Nga Are the Best Boating in Thailand - URL: https://easythailandvisa.com/phang-nga-bay-hong-island-and-the-cliffs/ - Published: 2026-07-22T13:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-11T05:20:35.000Z - Description: Hong Island, James Bond Island, sea caves you can kayak into, and a bay full of karst pillars that has been in every film ever made and is still astonishing. - Author: Somchai Jaidee - Tags: Islands & Beaches There are about forty limestone [islands](https://easythailandvisa.com/thailand-islands-nobody-is-talking-about/) in [Phang Nga](https://easythailandvisa.com/koh-yao-noi-phang-nga-honestly/) Bay and roughly six of them have names you will recognise, and everybody goes to the same six, and the other thirty four are the reason to come here. The six famous ones are fine. They are not the point. Last verified 1 August 2026. ## Why the bay looks like this **Karst, which is limestone that has been dissolved by water for millions of years and left standing as towers.** The result is a bay full of vertical cliffs rising straight out of shallow turquoise water, and it is one of the few landscapes in the world that genuinely looks like nothing else. **It has been a film location since before most of these places had a road,** which is why everybody associates it with a franchise involving a man with a gun. The islands are better than the films and the films did not ruin them, which is close to miraculous. **And the karst islands are habitat.** Seabird colonies, fish nurseries, and the reason the water is that colour. Which is not a reason to skip them, it is a reason to not take a plastic bottle onto a boat that is doing exactly that journey. ## Hong Island, and the bit nobody expects **Hong has a lagoon.** The boat goes through a cave into a hidden circular pool of water, the cliffs rising vertically on all sides, and then you are in a room made of rock with a hole in the roof. **Sea kayaking into the lagoon is the single best hour of paddling in Thailand** and it is a completely different experience from kayaking around the outside, where you are just paddling next to a big rock. **Go early.** The inside of the lagoon is a funnel for boats and the morning is when it is still and empty. By two in the afternoon there are a dozen of them circling and it is a car park. ## James Bond Island, honestly **It is a twenty minute stop, it is genuinely pretty, and it is not worth much of your time.** The rock is dramatic. The island is small. Most people spend their allotted time on the beach taking the photograph they came for. **Do it because it is on the way and it is a good photograph,** and then get back on the boat, because the rest of the bay is better and the day is long. ## The caves **There are sea caves all over this bay and paddling into them at water level is one of the great pleasures available in Thailand.** They go in for fifty metres and then they turn and you paddle out into another bay through a different hole. **The big one people photograph, with the room inside,** is a ticketing arrangement rather than a natural wonder and it is a genuinely good tourist trap done well. Go, enjoy it, and understand that you are standing in a queue in a beautiful hole. **And ask about the water level before you commit to a cave,** because at high tide some of the smaller ones are not passable and a guide who does not mention this is doing you no favours. ## How to actually do it **Kayak rather than a speedboat tour, if your fitness allows it.** A half day of paddling between islands at your own pace is the correct experience and it is the version people remember. **Check the tide.** It decides the caves, the lagoons and the quality of the rock walking, and it is the single most useful piece of information for planning the day. **Go in the early boat and in the shoulder months,** and accept that the same reasoning applies here as everywhere else in Thailand: July to October is quieter and the sea is less certain. **Hire a guide,** because the navigational hazards in these channels are real and the difference in what you see between a guide and no guide is the entire difference between paddling round a big rock and getting inside the lagoon. ## Where to base yourself **From** [**Phuket**](https://easythailandvisa.com/phuket-old-town-or-patong/) **it is a long day trip,** and long day trips to this bay are the reason so many people arrive back tired and mildly disappointed, because you spend a large proportion of it in transit. **Sitting it out is better.** There is accommodation in the bay itself, in Khao Lak, and the difference between a two-day trip and a one-day trip to Phang Nga is the difference between visiting a bay and being in it. **And from** [**Krabi**](https://easythailandvisa.com/krabi-province-guide-andaman-coast/) **it is a shorter run,** which makes a day trip from there a much better use of the same hours. **More on this** - [The East Coast Has a Moon Rabbit and Almost No Tourists](https://easythailandvisa.com/chanthaburi-and-trat-the-east-coast-day-trip/) - [Getting to Koh Samui Without Flying, and Why You Might](https://easythailandvisa.com/getting-to-koh-samui-without-flying/) - [A Sea Snake in Thailand Is Almost Certainly Not Going to](https://easythailandvisa.com/jellyfish-and-sea-snakes-in-thailand/)