Many of the most beautiful parts of coastal Thailand around the Phang Nag bay lie on islands which require boat trips to visit.
There are many such boat trips available – a huge selection to choose from whether that’s on the travel websites like Tripadvisor and Viator, or directly with local operators and agents that have stalls around the main beach resorts.
We were staying in Ao Nang, Krabi and the travel agent we’d booked our holiday through had arranged for us a speedboat day trip to Phi Phi Islands with an islands tour operator called Sea Eagle Tours.
Phi Phi Islands (or Koh Phi Phi as it’s known locally) are two islands off the coast of Krabi, which are probably the most famous and popular islands to visit from this part of Thailand.
The scenery around Koh Phi Phi is incredible – and there are beaches that are some of the best in the world, including perhaps the most famous beach of all – Maya Bay, which was the setting for the Leonardo Di Caprio film ‘The Beach’.
That film resulted in an explosion in popularity of visits to Koh Phi Phi and Maya Bay specifically, which resulted in serious damage to the environment and eventually led to the Thai authorities closing Maya Bay to tourists completely.
Thankfully it has recovered and now re-opened, although you’re not allowed to swim in the sea there or to approach the beach via the sea, in order to protect the marine life and coral which surrounds it.
As with most excursion operators in Thailand, Sea Eagle Tours arranged to pick us up directly from our hotel in a small minibus on the morning of the trip, driving us to the departure point – a beach near Ao Nang
This was a group excursion with other travellers rather than being our own private boat trip – and I counted about 30 or so other passengers as we climbed on board the Sea Eagle Tours speedboat, following instructions from our guide for the day, named Sal.
We did a couple of island boat trips in Thailand and the speedboat option was definitely better than the traditional Thai ‘long tail boat’ options.
Although the long tail boats look good, they are much more uncomfortable than the speedboats, which can also go further, faster meaning you get to see more and spend more time on the islands than with the long tail boat tours.
After a comfortable journey on the Sea Eagle Tours speedboat we arrived at our first stop of the day, which was Maya Bay and the famous ‘The Beach’ movie beach mentioned above.
We docked at a pier and Sal explained that we needed to do a short walk (about 5-minutes) to the other side of the island, where we’d emerge on Maya Beach. We were to meet back at the pier for departure about 45-minutes later.
We’ve visited some memorable beaches on our travels before. Les Salines on the Caribbean island of Martinique; Calo Des Moro in Mallorca and Palombaggia in Corsica being three of the most stunning and special beaches we’ve seen anywhere in the world.
But as you emerge through the jungle undergrowth and onto Maya Beach, it’s clear the beauty of this one surpasses all the others and you can see why it was chosen as the setting for that film about the ultimate paradise island beach.
It has to be one of the most beautiful places you can imagine seeing on earth.
Though there is a slight problem…. What do you normally want to do when you arrive at one of the most (maybe even the most) beautiful beaches in the world…?
…You want to lay out on the sand and swim in the perfect, clear warm sea!
But no. As I mentioned, swimming is banned for the protection of the environment.
Yes you could lay out on the sand, but the other problem is the many thousands of other people visiting here on similar tours each day.
It was certainly possible to take a few photos and crop them so there’s no-one else in them – but the reality is there are crowds of people here (although the far end of the beach that we walked to is much quieter).
We were also quite rushed, having to follow the set schedule of the Sea Eagle tour and only getting 45-minutes here.
We’d have liked to have spent longer – but in reality if you can’t swim here there’s not much point spending too long here, especially given how intensely hot it was and how much we needed to get in the sea to try to cool down!
Anyway, it was amazing to see such a beautiful place. Perhaps other times of the day (especially very early morning) are much quieter and you can enjoy a more relaxed visit, but for us it was time to get back on the Sea Eagle speedboat to the next destination.
That destination was Pileh lagoon, where the boat anchored up in this amazing emerald green, crystal clear lagoon surrounded by dramatic cliffs, where we could jump off the boat and swim for 15 minutes or so, which was very much needed as were were so hot with the temperature above 40-degrees and the sun beaming down from a totally clear sky all day.
Back on the boat and the next stop was the second Phi Phi island, known as Phi Phi Lee.
Here we anchored up in a sheltered bay with a large coral reef – and Sal provided everyone with diving masks and snorkels so we could snorkel around the bay.
The sea water was so warm it was hard to believe we were in the sea and not in a bath – it was literally like warm bathwater in places and there was a great variety of fish and marine life to see, even including baby sharks.
After about 45-minutes of snorkelling we were back on the boat and off to the next stop, which is known as Monkey Bay.
We didn’t get off the boat here, but we did pull up into a quiet bay with huge cliffs surrounding us, on which families of monkeys appeared.
Some other excursions were going ashore here and we saw monkeys taking things off of visitors (like water bottles) – and we watched them swinging around in the cliff-side trees for a while before moving on to the next stop.
A buffet lunch was included in the price of the trip, which was provided in a restaurant on Phi Phi Don island.
We had an hour or so here to eat a very filling and delicious lunch before heading for an extended stay at another famous Phi Phi Islands beach, known as Bamboo Island.
All the previous stops had been for about 45-minutes or so, but at Bamboo Island beach we had much longer, which was ideal to be able to sit in the white sand relaxing after all the activity of the morning – and to swim in the perfect clear, warm sea.
We explored around the shore of the island for a bit but mainly just laid on the beach enjoying the stunning weather and scenery before it was time to board the boat again and head back to where we started in Ao Nang.
I’m not usually a big fan of large group boat excursions and much prefer private trips where you’re in control of how long you stay and where you go – and aren’t packed into a big boat with a large crowd of others.
But in this case we were really happy with the excursion that Sea Eagle Tours put on for us and how well organised it was – largely I think because the guide Sal was so effective at keeping everything so organised.
She was enthusiastic and energetic, speaking excellent English and communicating extremely well with all the passengers, making sure the whole day ran like clockwork.
It also helped of course that the places we were visiting we so stunning and the weather we had was absolutely perfect.
Of all the boat trip excursions we had around Phang Nag bay on this holiday, the Sea Eagle Tours one was the best experience we had and the scenery we saw was the most beautiful.
If you can find an option for a private excursion to Phi Phi islands, then maybe you might enjoy the greater flexibility of a less rigid schedule and to be able to spread yourself out in a more relaxed way on the boat.
But if that’s not an option, then this group tour with Sea Eagle Tours is an ideal way to see the stunning Phi Phi islands from anywhere you might be staying around the Krabi region.