Our first excursion on the bay was to Titop Island. Titop is a super small island with a little hike that has a breathtaking view of the bay. The only thing that was a little depressing was the crowds! It seemed that every cruise ship brought their patrons here at the exact same time. But we didn't let that get us down!
The hike is a million stairs with about three look-out points on the way up! The first look out was about five minutes up the stairs. It was amazing!
The next lookout point was about 3/4 of the way up the mountain. At this point the stairs became very steep, so Corianne decided to hang out at this pavilion while Cristin and I went all the way to the top.
Cristin and I continued to the top and were rewarded with a spectacular view!
We had a 360 degree view of this beauty! The only thing annoying was that the top of the mountain was a gigantic gazebo with a roof and rails. It was hard to get a good picture without the rail in the way. For me, if I am going to make a hike to the top of a mountain, I expect nature, not a bunch of man made structures.
We did figure out that if we stood on the second rail and straddled it between our calves, we could get a pretty natural pictures!
After getting our fill of the glorious view, we headed back down the steep stair to join back up with Corianne.
We made our way down the mountain and still had about 10 minutes before the boat was loaded, so we decided to try to find a spot on the beach. When we got out to the water, it was so dirty and brown and gross, that I opted to sit on the sand. There wasn't much sand to sit in, so I was glad when it was time to go back to our boat.
Our next excursion was kayaking at a pearl farm! Corianne can't swim, so she opted to stay on the cruise ship while Cristin and I took on the kayak. All along the water were these huge black circle balls. We found out that the balls were attached to cages/nets that held the clams for the pearls.
We had about an hour to explore the area around the pearl farm. We went into one of the coves and just paddled around and took in the glorious mountains all around us.
Our last excursion on the cruise was the Surprise Cave, Hang Sung Sot.
The Surprise Cave was surprisingly gigantic! I was not expecting to find such a large interior in the cave!
The cave had a lot of stalagmites. There were so many rock formations that looked spot on like animals and other creatures. Our tour guide did an amazing job pointing out some of the different formations.
One of the neatest things about the cave was the ceiling! The ceiling is said to have been formed by waves as the mountain were pushed up from the bottom of the bay. It looked like a bunch of ice cream scoops.
We spent about an hour or so in the cave exploring all the nooks and formations. It was beautiful and nice and cool in the cave.
The cave started low and by the time you made your way out of the cave, you found yourself high above the waters with a perfect picture view of the bay. I know, I know- another bay picture? But it was so pretty! I never got sick of the view, and seriously, the pictures don't do any justice. It was beyond cool!
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