Thailand Guide
Southern Thailand: the Andaman coast
Ao Phang Nga
AO PHANG NGA has a seascape both bizarre and beautiful. Covering some four hundred square kilometres of coast between Phuket and Krabi, the mangrove-edged bay is spiked with limestone karst formations up to 300m in height, jungle-clad and craggily profiled. It's Thailand's own version of Vietnam's world-famous Ha Long bay, reminiscent too of Guilin's scenery in China, The bay is popularly explored by boat, but better still by kayak, which give access to the bay's hidden treasures - the hollowed-out karst islands, or hongs, which enclose secret lagoons that can only be accessed at certain tides and only by kayak.
Much of the bay is now preserved as national park (entry B200; 
www.dnp.go.th/National_park.asp ). It is thought to have been formed about twelve thousand years ago when a dramatic rise in sea level flooded the summits of mountain ranges, which over millions of years had been eroded by an acidic mixture of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rainwater. The main hong islands are in the western and eastern bay areas – to the west or east of Ko Yao Noi, which sits roughly mid-way between Phuket and Krabi. But the most famous scenery is in the central bay area, which boasts the biggest concentration of karst islands, and the most weirdly shaped formations.
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