Today I took a day trip to the nearby Hong Islands as Warner was SCUBA Diving. I was picked up by a minibus from the Jungle Village Resort across the road. The bus took us to a pier at the end of the beach where we boarded a speedboat to an emerald green lagoon about 20 minutes from Ao Nang and then onto the Hong Islands.

Arriving at Hong Island we had the whole place to ourselves... by that I mean me and the 17 other tourists that came on the same boat. Everyone was pretty friendly and I made friends with a couple from Tasmania called Sally and Peter. This was their 6th or 7th holiday to this area; they love Krabi and keep coming back - it's easy to see why!

Hong Island has a beautiful bay of white powder sand, completely unspoiled by tourism - only a tourist office is gies any clue to human presence on this small island. The water was as clear as water can be and merged into turqoise with deeper tones of green and blue.

Our time was spent swimming and snorkelling in the shallows and relaxing on the beach. I sat, taking in the breathtaking views. We had lunch of rice and omelette before our guide Tum, came oer and asked if Sally and I wanted to go and meet his friend. We were confused for a moment before he explained that his friend was a large Monitor Lizard. I immedietly grabbed my camera and went over only to find a group of 10 French tourists in the way. I swqueezed by the loud french group and spotted the lizard. It was the biggest Lizard I have ever seen... in real life anyway! It was almost the same size as me, which I consider to be very good going as far as Thai lizards go. I have seen a couple of Monitor Lizards before on the side of the road near Siew Bay but this one was amazing.

Sadly I couldn't get a decent photo because it was a good 3-4m away and so well camouflaged that I could hardly see it through my lens! I would love to invest in some better photographic equipment to make the best of moments like this.

After 2 hours we travelled a further 10 minutes by speedboat to Pakbia Island for ore fun in the water. If possible, the sand and water were even more picture perfect than Hong Island. Although Pakbia is only a small stretch of sand, it is a beautiful place none the less. After 40 minutes here we journeyed to one of the neighbouring islands called Lading Island. We snorkeled here with Sergeant Major Fish and other fish I couldn't identify. It was really cool; I'm not a particularly strong swimmer and I lose confidence in deep water but there were others like me who kept to the shallows, feeding and swimming with the fish. I had a great day.