To better understand the risks I am taking, I met a kayaking guide in Phuket the day before my trip. He said there were no large sharks in the bay and the main hazards were getting stuck in a mudbank, becoming dehydrated or getting caught in a storm.
He gave me a tide chart and taught me how to read it to help mitigate the first hazard. And as it’s the start of the dry season I shouldn’t see any storms, at least not any serious ones.
I have done everything within reason to ensure my safety and the success of my trip. But adventure, by definition, is a journey without a foregone conclusion. Anything can and will happen out there.
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After five hours on the water, I start to feel I’ve bitten off a lot more than I can chew. The kayak’s cockpit does not allow much movement and my legs have become numb from inactivity. My lower back is sore, my shoulders are cramping up and my elbows creak with pain.
It is with much relief that I complete the 15km crossing from Phuket to Koh Panak.
With towering peaks, lush green jungle and sheer limestone walls honeycombed with stalactites and sea caves, Koh Panak is a popular stopover for day cruises that carry dozens of sit-on-top kayaks for their guests to spend a few hours paddling around the bay.
The last of these boats are heading back to Phuket when I make landfall at a small beach on Koh Panak’s east coast and set up camp.
I heat a can of tomato soup and follow it with a cupcake with a small candle and wish myself a happy birthday before falling asleep to the sound of baby waves lapping on the beach.
When I awake the sun is rising over the bay, painting the sky crimson and the water with a golden glaze. Crabs scamper up the beach while a pair of pterodactyl-like hornbills explode from a tree, making loud “gok” and “rroh” sounds.
Tiny footprints in the sand around my tent lead to a grey-haired macaque trying to rip open a packet of instant noodles pinched from my kayak overnight. The monkey drops the packet as I approach and scampers onto a big rock from where he watches patiently for another lapse in my defences.
From Koh Panak I head north, rock-hopping between the most dramatic and iconic karst formations of Phang Nga Bay: Koh Hong, which has a hidden lagoon that can be accessed by kayak through two narrow openings; and James Bond Island, where parts of the 1974 spy thriller The Man with the Golden Gun were filmed.
In the movie, the island was the secret lair of villain Francisco Scaramanga and select guests such as Bond. Now it’s a tourist trap and anyone can come, with dozens of boats jockeying for space on the beach.
When I arrive, at least 1,000 tourists are snapping selfies and strolling down a wooden boardwalk lined with hawker stalls selling trinkets and snacks.
I head instead to a nearby island that is as drop-dead gorgeous but without a person in sight.
After lunch, I continue north through a channel between two islets where a few stationary flat-bottom boats with tables and chairs serve as bases for kayakers on day tours from Phuket.
As I pass the most northerly platform, two men – one old, one young – invite me aboard and, after hearing about my journey, offer to let me stay the night. The offer seems heaven-sent; the pain in my elbows, which are now red, has been building up all afternoon. Every stroke of the paddle hurts.
They give me ice to reduce the swelling and a sliver of soap, a raggedy old towel and a bucket of fresh water to shower with. After only two days at sea, these simple items seem like luxuries.
The following morning I paddle north for two hours to Koh Panyee, an inhabited island that sits on a river mouth on the north coast of Phang Nga Bay. It is covered with stilt houses and has a large, onion-domed mosque and a floating mini-soccer pitch.
On the boardwalk, men openly smoke and sell marijuana, which was recently decriminalised in Thailand.
From Koh Panyee, I head east along a thick mangrove forest on the north coast of the bay, where monitor lizards, some more than a metre long, belly-flop into the water, apparently just for kicks. But when I get closer, I see one surface with a fish clamped between its jaws.
In the early afternoon, I pass a fishing village on a riverbank and moor my kayak at a waterfront restaurant. It’s my first real meal in three days and I eat like a pig: a whole fried chicken, papaya salad with prawns, sticky rice and vegetables, followed by banana pancakes.
I had planned to paddle only a few more hundred metres upriver to a guest house and call it a day. But it is now low tide and large sections of the river are impenetrable mudflats. My map shows that there’s an alternative route – a 3km loop around a headland that leads to a back channel that connects with the same river.
The journey, I calculate, should take about an hour. But I fail to take into account the vast sandbank hidden by a few centimetres of water that surrounds the headland at low tide.
Within half an hour of setting off, I get stuck. Trying to reverse course is pointless; there’s nothing to do but wait. Three hours pass until I am released by the tide. And that back channel I saw on the map? Well, it is blocked by mangroves.
I have no choice but to paddle back to my starting point, by which time the water has risen and I can paddle right up to the guest house.
By the time I arrive there, I am so tired I can barely raise my arms and my knees are sunburned red. I could’ve just waited at the restaurant in comfort all afternoon, read my novel, watched the sunset and paddled here in a matter of minutes. But that would’ve required patience.
After five days at sea, my body has become accustomed to six to eight hours of daily exercise and the aches and pains have faded. But while paddling past the mist-covered mountains on the bay’s west coast on Day 7, I get stomach cramps from overexerting my abs.
For the first time on this journey, I feel I cannot go on.
I fish my phone out of my dry bag and search for the closest guest house or campsite. But the only accommodation nearby is the Banyan Tree Krabi resort, which charges 10 times as much as your average guest house in Thailand.
To hell with it, I think, you only live once. I book a room online and annotate it with a message that I will arrive in a kayak.
Ten minutes later I land on the beachfront of the resort. I am greeted by three men who carry my kayak past the high-tide line that by itself justifies the steep room rate: I cannot even bend over, such is the pain.
“We’ve had some come in yachts before,” one of them tells me. “But never in a kayak.”
After a good night’s sleep and a long hot shower, I walk to the hotel restaurant and attack the breakfast buffet. Then I go back for seconds and thirds – calories I will no doubt need for the longest day of the trip.
On most days, I cover 15km to 20km. But today I must travel 25km, with a stop at Koh Kai – Chicken Island – for lunch.
The sun is shining brightly and I am feeling strong as I leave Chicken Island for a campsite 14km away. But suddenly the sky turns a dark shade of grey, the sea becomes angry and it begins to rain so hard I can barely see a few metres in any direction.
With the tide working against me, I must paddle twice as hard and my stomach cramps return with a vengeanceIan NeubauerI lose all sense of where I am and begin to feel fear. Then, as though on cue, a marine horn blasts through the air. I turn around to see the faint outline of a covered boat and two figures motioning for me to come aboard.
They are a married couple from Krabi town, in the north, returning home after a spot of fishing. They don’t speak English and I only know a little Thai, but they understand that I’m paddling east, towards the coast.
After securing my kayak with a rope they alter course, slashing hours off my journey.
When the rain stops, about an hour later, I thank my new friends and get back to work. I’m still 5km from the coast and with an average paddling speed of 3km/h, there is just enough time to get there before dark. But with the tide working against me, I must paddle twice as hard and my stomach cramps return with a vengeance.
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Yet this time, there’s no other option but to fight through the pain.
When I finally reach the beach a new problem presents itself. The tide is fully out and there are some 300 metres of soft sand between me and the campsite.
The kayak is too heavy to drag so I unload my gear and carry it up to the high-tide mark in three separate trips before returning for the kayak. I’m beyond exhausted when the job is complete and collapse on the grass. Within moments I am sleeping.
On what is supposed to be the last night of my journey I stay in a bungalow on Koh Yao Noi, one of two mountainous islands in the geographic heart of Phang Nga Bay.
In the evening a big storm sets in and the rain rattles against the windows until dawn. By midmorning the weather has calmed, though the bay remains choppy and pockmarked with white-capped waves.
I take in a lot of water as I head south along the west coast of Koh Yao Noi and spend as much time bailing as I do paddling. But when I enter the channel beside sister island Koh Yao Yai, the water turns as still as a lake.
Edged on either side by fine white beaches and leaning palm trees, the channel demands to be photographed. But as I retrieve my phone, I notice I had not properly sealed my dry bag and saltwater has seeped inside.
My phone is ruined – and I’ve lost all the photos from this trip except for a handful I uploaded to social media.
I want to stamp around and curse and feel sorry for myself but do not have the time. It’s 2pm and there is still 10km of sea between myself and Phuket, from where I have a flight to catch.
When I leave the channel and again reach open water, I find myself battling metre-high waves and begin taking aboard water faster than I can bail out. Then, a rogue wave hits me on the side and tosses me overboard.
“What the hell are you doing?” I think as I haul myself back into the kayak. “Risking your life to save a measly hundred dollars for another flight.”
I decide to go back the way I came. But with both the current and tide working against me it’s impossible to re-enter the channel.
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Then I spot a distant beach on the west coast of Koh Yao Yai, the larger and less visited of the two islands, and make a beeline for it. An hour later, I make landfall in front of a deserted guest house on a long strip of sand carpeted with flotsam and jetsam.
I set up camp, heat a can of sausages and baked beans and make a small fire on the beach.
I’ve been in a hurry throughout my entire adult life: a hurry to achieve, a hurry to succeed, a hurry to make the most of the time. Yet, as I sit alone on the beach staring at the blinking lights of Phuket that are so close but so far, I feel something profound has changed within me.
Phuket can wait until tomorrow. Life is right here, right now.
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