Krabi Travelogue 1

July 25, 2010 by admin
Filed under Reviews

Fluffy Clouds Blue Skies @ Ban Bhor Thor, Krabi !!

Posted By : Weehoong

Located in the district of Ao Luk of Krabi Province, Bann Bor Thor is a small village located north of Phang Nga Bay. Bann Bor Thor is also home to mangrove forest, with amazing limestone caves rich in archaeology. Our visit here takes us 45 minutes from Ao Nang, Krabi to district of Ao Luk via ever so popular Toyota Hilux pickups that you can see almost everywhere in Krabi and Thailand.

A panoramic view of Bor Thor to start off with. We were blessed with wonderful blue skies and fluffy white clouds during our trip. It was July (low season) raining season when we traveled to Krabi. To see a sunny day with blue skies like this is a blessing, said our guide.

We booked for a half day tour which brings us to 2 ancient caves, accessible via kayak with wonderful picturesque views of limestone cliffs and mangrove forest. Cost us 800 baht per pax for a trip includes lunch, hotel transfers, kayak and a wonderful local guide. Meet Sulaiman, our local Bor Thor guide. Sulaiman is a very chatty guy. He insisted we call him Man. Man is a native Muslim in Krabi born and live in Bor Thor. He lives in a wooden house together with his family and his aged mom. Majority here are Muslims much closer to the southern parts of Thailand.

Man speaks very little Bahasa Melayu but he can read Jawi. He professed that he is not religious and traditional guy. From his level of proficiency in English, we can see that he is exposed to people from many parts of the world, probably tourists. Throughout the 45 minutes journey to Bor Thor, Man speaks of his experience with the scandinavians, english, americans, taiwanese, as well as us, Malaysians. Below shot limestone cliffs aged thousands of years. Another photo shows of us modern dwellers in a kayak, slowly paddle across the peaceful quiet mangrove forest. Sulaiman was more that happy to kayak us around since we are his only customer for the day. The low season brings very little visitors to Bor Thor. One week out of 7 days, Man can only see 2 days of business sometimes. The rest of the days, he will just sit at home, relax.

Villagers here live on tourism and also small restaurant business. With a very simple setup of floating platforms, they tie oyster and string them together to harvest pearls and fresh oyster.

A closer look at these oysters. The water salinity level is suitable for these oysters as these mangroves lives on sea water and not fresh water.

Of course, crabs they manage to catch from a simple setup of cage tied to floating plastic bottles. These are then left overnight.

As we exit from Tham Lod cave, this is a cave that we can sail across in low tide early in the morning. Bor Thor is an all season location. One can visit anytime of the year, except for rainy days. During high tide, water level can rose up to 5 meter deep in the cave. Man explained that during full moon, the water is at its highest level, we will have to lie down on our canoe so that we will not hit our head on the stalagmites.

Another view of lime stone cliffs found. Behind the cliff lies Phuket, the ever so popular location for tourist.

For lazy tourists that do not wish to paddle themselves with Kayak, other options are available to explore such as long tail boats. which will cost more. In my opinion, these long tails really spoils the serene environment of Bor Thor because of the noise they emit from the engine of the long tail boats.

We then move to our second cave, Tham Pee Hua Toe (Big Headed Ghost Cave). It is actually named Big Headed Ghost because archeologist have found giant size human heads skull in these caves dated 3000 years ago. Rich with stalactites and stalagmites.

A Panoramic view on top of Tham Pee Hua Toe cave. To the left, behind the dense mangrove trees and cliffs are the Andaman Sea. To the right, behind is Phuket. It is these mangrove trees that helped absorbed some of the impact from devastating tsunami in Thailand that killed thousands and slow downed Thailand's tourism industry.

Man wishes that with his knowledge, he can build awareness among tourist to make Bor Thor a popular place. To him, Bor Thor is his home, his Kampong as he calls it, the place he grew.