Along the streets of Ao Nang, there are many stalls plying their trade for the sale of island tours, the 4 island tour, phi phi island tour, hong island tour or boat services to the nearby destinations.
During my trip to Krabi, I took a Hong Island tour at THB1,200 per pax via speedboat, which is approx SGD$50 for the next day.
The tour company arranged for a hotel pick up, which dropped us at the end of the Noppharathara Beach where the rows of long tail boats and speed boats await their customers.
The journey is split into 3 portions. The first is the outbound speed boat journey towards Hong Island, the journey brought us to view the eastern side of the island and we stopped for 30 minutes at the lagoon within the island itself.
The lagoon is beautiful with turquoise water and shallow waters (4-5 meters deep) for a nice swim or dip. For those who cant swim, the next stop would be a 20 minutes ride out to Ko Phakbia, one of the smaller islands with white sandy beach and a beach with minimal tide. Depending on the season, beware of the mini jellyfishes which swims in the water, for I was stung by a few.
Towards the halfway mark, we were ferried back to the main beach of Hong Island, where we were to spend the rest of our tour. We had our packet lunch there and also there were restaurants selling food and drinks at this part of the island.
There were much more people at this place as compared to the previous 2 locations. There were dead corals rocks at the deeper parts of the beach hence swimmers should take note.
It was quite a quiet and enjoyable tour. The places were beautiful, but the presence of rubbish and the lack of self-awareness of tourists clearing their own rubbish is hurting the image of these destinations. I would definitely return the next time and hope it is a nice as current.