Krabi's 7 islands Trip

The 7 islands tour started in the afternoon from Krabi's Aonang Beach, navigating around some of the beautiful islands.

Chicken Island – One of the rocks in this island looks like head of a chicken, quite fascinating to navigate around this island. There was no stop at the Chicken Island, it is accessible by boat only during low tides when the sandbar connecting the Chicken island to the Tup and Mor islands is exposed.

Koh Tang Ming Island – This island is famous for snorkeling with its scenic views of marine life.

Tup and Mor Islands – These are two small islands in between Chicken and Poda Islands. The amazing highlight of these islands is a stunning sandbar connecting these islands and was my favourite of the whole trip.

Poda Island – A beautiful, calm and big island with longer, idyllic beaches and is a place to watch stunning sunset.

Railay Beach – Railay is not an island, it is part of the main land. However, the beach is isolated by the tall limestone cliffs and is only accessible by boats. An amazing place for peaceful days and pristine waters.

Phra Nang Cave – small cave in Railay Beach.

The 7 islands tour started in the afternoon and finished with dinner at the famous Railay beach, while watching the sunset. The tour guide picked me up from the hotel and drove straight to Ao nammao Pier. We need to pay a small fare for using the pier and then take the long walk to the end of the pier to wait for the boat. It was almost a 40 mins wait, probably due to low tides. But I really make use of the time capturing some of the sceneries around that area, especially of grounded long tail boats. After the long wait, a small boat took passengers to a bigger boat. Almost 30 passengers were there in the big boat. A big group of very noisy local boys and girls were the life of the trip. They come onboard fully prepared to enjoy their best times (with a few liquor bottles!).

First we went to the Tang Ming island for a 30 mins snorkeling and then the tour guide gave us 2 choices,

1. To take a long tail boat to go the Tup, Mor and Poda islands

2. Go straight to Railway beach area for more snorkeling.

Most of the people in the group were interested in snorkeling and opt for the second. I, after seeing a bit of Poda island from the boat while we were anchored near to the Tang Ming island, decided to jump into the long tail boat to see those 3 islands. And, I must say, after watching these three beautiful islands, that was the best choice. It will be a great loss for those who choose not to go there.

The boat took us (there were only about 10 people joined for this trip) straight to the sandbar between the Tup and Mor islands. The white sandbar was amazing, there is no words to explain the beauty of it. You can just walk around from one island to another, the tides were just right to expose the sandbar enough for a walk, admiring the beauty of the pleasant turquoise waters on both sides. All the boats were on one side of the sandbar and the visitors were swimming on the other side. In fact, there is another sandbar connecting the Chicken island to the Tup island also, which is visible in the google map. However, it was submerged by the water at this time. Time allocated for these islands was 30mins. A strange thing happened at the Tup island and is worth mentioning. The ticket office demanded 400baht instead of 200baht ticket fees for the national park mentioned by the tour agent. Some of the people in the group started an argument and they went to the boat driver. The boat driver, who is associated with the tour company, stepped in and helped. He just collected 200baht from all of us and pass it to the ticket office. I have no idea what exactly was going on there, but moral of the story is to get help from the tour guides instead of fighting, in this kind of times.

Then the boat went straight to the Poda island. It is another beautiful island with a lot of trees (even some coconut trees) and is famous for watching sunset. We were given 30-40mins in the island. I tried to walk around as much as I can, with my broken toe nail which almost came off. Waterproof band aids from those medicine shops in Ao nang really helped to keep it in place. I was more worried about sand going inside the wound. Later, I met another passenger in the boat with a similar wound. There was a tall Korean guy introduced himself as a doctor, took a good look at her wound and said, wash clean with betadine, and also leave it open instead of plastering it. Another good lesson learned was, salt water will do a better job in healing the wounds. Poda island has toilets (not many of these islands have toilet facilities. However, the big boats will surely have a toilet.

We reached the Railay beach on time for sunset. The beach was big and nice on one side, but the Phra Nang Cave was on other end where the beach was a bit narrow. I walked towards it. Tide was slowly coming up and when I started my walk back from the cave, the beach has almost disappeared due to rising tides and waves were getting really strong. I was forced to walk on top of those slippery rocks laid down as seawall, which was a bit risky. They provided a nice thai buffet dinner, along with fruits, while watching the sunset. It was overall a good trip.