The cave tunnel gets smaller and smaller as we lie flat in the yellow inflatable kayak.  "No moving!" laughs Sayaan, our Thai guide. The roof constricts to barely half an inch above my nose.  Moments pass, then the grotto widens.  "Turn your flashlights on," he whispers.  Glistening stalactites hang down like giant ice crystals.  A rock crab scuttles over a rose-colored, fan-shaped formation. I want to stay and absorb the beauty longer. But we're dependent on the tides, so he paddles us through the hong (island), shaped like an angel-food cake, to enter the inner lagoon. We're exploring Phang Nga Bay, Thailand, in sea canoes. This is just one of the exotic adventures that awaited us in this friendly and captivating land.

Made famous by the 007 movies "The Man With the Golden Gun" and "Tomorrow Never Dies", the bay is home to hundreds of weirdly-shaped limestone outcroppings that rise dramatically up from the sea. But while our 10-year-old son is obsessed with the '007' Nintendo 64 video game, we don't go anywhere near the tourist site of James Bond Island. "Too busy!", exclaims Sayaan. "We go where there are no other people." 

Elephant Treks and Other Exotic Activities 

We started our day trip to Phang Nga Bay from Phuket, off the west coast of Thailand. A world-class resort island, Phuket even sports an international airport. That's good news for families. You'll find deluxe hotels (and less expensive accommodation) offering cribs, babysitting services, children's menus, medical clinics and everything else you want when you take your kids on an exotic holiday. 

My first taste that this was going to be no ordinary beach vacation occurred just after arriving. Jet-lagged, I dozed off in my beach chair, when a baby elephant tickled my foot with her trunk. 'Sally' and her handler roamed the grounds of five hotels spread along the three miles of white sand beach comprising Phuket's Laguna Resort area. Without expecting money, her handler invited children to sit atop and pet his elephant. One afternoon, we noticed Sally standing in the ocean, getting splashed by a horde of excited youngsters and spraying them in turn with her trunk. We later learned that Sally and other elephants have been brought down from Chiang Mai, where logging had recently slowed. With Siam Safari Nature Tours (+66 76 280116), you can experience educational visits with an elephant and a half-hour "trek" without traveling to northern Thailand. But if you find the prospect of riding elephants daunting, three riding clubs at Laguna Phuket, Ban Sai Yuan, and Patak Road offer horseback riding instead. 

Beach Life 

Phuket's less demanding activities involve being seduced by the sun, sand and sea. The hotel lawns fringing the beaches are havens for indulging in beauty and relaxation treatments. Local Thai women give bargain-priced massages and combination manicures and pedicures in the shade. 

The beach was also our favorite place for trying out the deliciously spicy Thai food. We'd stroll, barefoot in the sand, until we came to a restaurant that struck our fancy. Typically, we'd be seated in comfy cane furniture, 20 feet from the water's edge, underneath a canopy of hand-painted, colorful paper parasols, enjoying a dinner of curried crab or fresh tiger prawns for the equivalent of US$7 per person. (Youngsters need not fear - French fries can be had, too!) 

Sea Canoeing 

Sea canoeing was perhaps the most memorable part of our stay in Phuket. We were picked up from our hotel and driven to John Gray Sea Canoe (+66 76 2545057) on Phang Nga Bay. There, guests were split into two groups and assigned individual guides according to their previously-registered language preference. Our group of 14 then boarded a large, covered boat for the one-hour cruise through Phang Nga Bay to our first hong. Along the way, we read about how the stalactites we'd soon see are formed by slowly dripping water and how the lagoons inside the hongs are formed when the central section collapses, resulting in the doughnut shape. Upon arriving at the first hong, we slid into our canoe. Each rubber canoe accommodates two adults (there's room for one child up front) plus a guide who sits at the back and does the paddling. After practicing the art of lying down still and going through our first cave, we clambered back up aboard our boat and motored off to our next hong. 

We explored four hongs. Sayaan discovered the Princess Cave on our second stop nine months earlier while swimming nearby. At the end of its 150-meter tunnel, Sayaan paddled us cautiously past a mangrove snake curled up in a mangrove tree growing in the island's lagoon.  Elsewhere, we spied monkeys in the vegetation at the water's edge. And our fourth hong found us inside the pitch dark Bat Cave where our flashlights illuminated a colony of bats hanging from the roof. 

Back on the boat, we ate a late lunch of coconut milk soup with shrimp, followed by freshly cooked blue crab (kids can order sandwiches in advance if they wish). Everyone was starved by the time we ate, but it was a must that we see the hongs first, while the tidal access times were right. The window of opportunity for entering each cave varies from 90 minutes to a mere 8 minutes -- after that, the rising tide will flood the cave! In the lagoon at the end of the Princess Cave, the water rose at the rate of one foot every ten minutes. On our return to Sea Canoe's dock, we passed by an oyster farm and were entertained by Sayaan's magic rope tricks. 

Sailing the Similans With Star Clippers 

At the end of our stay, we boarded the 150-passenger cruise ship, Star Flyer, for a seven-day cruise from Phuket to Singapore. She and her sister ship, Star Clipper, are faithful recreations of 19th century schooners -- but with well-appointed cabins, a beautiful baroque library, and teak and burnished brass finishings. Our stops included Thailand's uninhabited Surin and Similan Islands, Phang Nga Bay, and Langkawi and Malacca in Malaysia. From Phuket, you can also take a daytrip by sailboat to the breathtaking Similans, one of the "World's Ten Best Dive Spots" according to Skin Diver magazine. In pristine turquoise waters, a white-tipped reef shark and colorful coral reefs tantalized our dive group. 

The Star Clippers cruise line doesn't specifically promote itself among family cruisers (and does not recommend itself for children under 8, although children are welcome), but Christmas and Easter sailings average 15-20 children per ship. We were pleasantly surprised to meet two other families aboard with kids -- a Norwegian couple with a 12-month-old and a couple from Denmark with an 11-year-old girl. There were no cribs, but the beds had safety rails, and your cabin steward will happily plump up pillows to keep small ones safely tucked inside. Also, every day except one, we stopped to spend most of the day on land, so active children will have a chance to run around. One of my best memories was how friendly the crew and other passengers were to all the kids, and how willing to play with them. Of course, that was true throughout our visit to Thailand, a country known, for good reason, as The Land of Smiles.

Janice Mucalov covers international travel and fine living for several publications from her base in Vancouver, B.C. and is the mother of 11-year-old Sasha.

Photos courtesy of John Gray's Sea Canoe