A 3 (+5) Hour Tour

I’d done something crazy. Something unthinkable. Something so out of character that I was questioning my very being. I splashed water into my face and looked into the bathroom mirror. The face that stared back was the same face I had always seen reflected back many times before. And yet the face had gone ahead and done something so remarkably uncharacteristic. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I’d done the unthinkable, I’d booked a tour and paid for it in advance.

I didn’t even know such a thing was allowed, let alone encouraged. I’d always travelled on my own accord following my own whims and inclinations. And now I had booked and paid for eight hours of someone else’s rendition of how I should holiday. How could I betray myself in such a way?

Were other people even aware that such a service existed? It started with getting a ticket—you didn’t even have to do it yourself, your hostel would call the place for you. Then later a car would come and pick you up—that’s right, you didn’t have to walk for half an hour in the morning sun or even barter with a tuk-tuk driver. The car would take you to the port and you’d get on a boat which would transport you around various islands off the southern Thailand coast. They even gave you snorkelling equipment—you didn’t have to bring your own—and best of all you’d have a sunset dinner on a beach. They’d even take you back to your hotel.

I was amazed. I thought the whole concept was very clever and really believed it had a good chance of catching on in other countries too. Imagine a world where you could go on holiday and you could pay for someone to take you around to various sights and culturally-significant locations. Such wishful thinking!

So from Krabi town I, along with two others I’d met at my hostel, were picked up and taken to a pier just up from Ao Nang beach. When we got in the van we wondered if we were the only ones on the tour. I wasn’t sure how all this stuff worked and also the high season didn’t start for at least a month. This postulation was quickly shattered when others were squeezed into the vehicle alongside us and, again, when we arrived at the beach along with the other seventy people who had signed up for the same tour. Krabi town at that time of year wasn’t particularly full of tourists but, as I learned a few days later when I visited Ao Nang, Ao Nang is by no means quiet despite the season. So it seems other people were aware of the whole non-free tour concept.

Thankfully only fifteen of us were on our longboat and therefore on our particular tour. The boat meandered through the sea and the jagged rock formations that poked up through it. Huge, rocky mountains exploded up from the water’s edge. The rock faces, perpendicular to the water, seemed like they had been sliced by a giant cleaver, revealing the mountain’s cross-section and rocky core. Rocky formations hung off the side of some of the small islands like giant stalactites, and the opening to dark caves were revealed high on the cliff face. It was like the whole mountain had been turned inside out.

We snorkelled over a coral reef. The tour guide apologised that the water wasn’t as clear as usual, due to the recent rain. I worried that by saying this it would have an effect on the guide’s ability to collect tips at the end of the tour but then I realised we were tipping him because it wasn’t that type of tour.

Dinner on the beach was a welcome affair. Along with the other longboats lined up on the shoreline, we enjoyed a barbecue spread as the sun set over a pink and purple sky. Later, under the light of the full moon, we observed some bioluminescent plankton that lit up slightly when you shook your feet or hands in the water. The tour guide again apologised that under the light of the full moon the bioluminescence was less luminescent.

Needless to say I enjoyed the tour but I can’t imagine anyone would want to do that kind of thing more than once every six months.