Ko Tapu (James Bond Island)
Interesting facts
- According to legend, a fisherman who kept netting a nail instead of fish cut it in two with his sword, and one half leapt into the sea as Ko Tapu.
- The rock stands only about 40 metres off the northern part of Khao Phing Kan, separated from it by a narrow channel of shallow water.
- Plants such as pandanus, cycads and euphorbias grow on its almost soilless cliffs, rooting in cracks and surviving on rainwater alone.
- The tides around the islands rise and fall by two to three metres, and it is this band of water that has gnawed the narrow waist at its foot.
- The sea around it is only a few metres deep and pale green, clouded by silt that rivers carry into Phang Nga Bay from the north.
- Phang Nga Bay later stood in for other places on screen, including Vietnam in the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.
- Since the 1974 film, the original Thai names of the islands have been largely displaced by 'James Bond Island', even in everyday use.
Why it is worth it
Ko Ta Pu is a single spike of limestone standing in the shallow green water of Phang Nga Bay, off the west coast of southern Thailand. It is only about 20 metres tall, but its shape is what makes it unforgettable: roughly four metres across at the waterline and swelling to about eight near the top, it looks like a nail driven into the seabed — which is one reading of its Thai name, the other being "crab's eye". The tides have gnawed its foot into a narrow waist, so the whole column seems to balance on a point.
The spike stands a short way off Khao Phing Kan, a pair of wooded islets whose name means "hills leaning against each other", and it belongs to the great drowned karst landscape of Phang Nga Bay, where limestone towers and islands rise sheer from the sea, their bases undercut into notches and caves by the water. Ko Ta Pu is the purest expression of that process: a tower eroded so far at sea level that almost nothing is left to hold it up.
International fame came in 1974, when the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, with Roger Moore, used the islands as the hideout of the assassin Scaramanga, and Ko Ta Pu played a part in his solar-powered lair. Ever since, Khao Phing Kan has been known to the world as "James Bond Island". The islands became part of Ao Phang Nga National Park in 1981, and since 1998 boats have been kept at a distance from the base of the rock to protect its fragile limestone; the classic view is from the small beach on Khao Phing Kan or from the water.
The rock is at its best early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when the light rakes across the bay, the towers around it stand in layered silhouettes, and the crowds of midday boats have not yet arrived or have already gone.
Getting there
Ko Ta Pu lies in Phang Nga Bay, within Ao Phang Nga National Park, reached only by boat. Longtail boats run from Surakul Pier near the town of Phang Nga, a trip of about half an hour, and longtail or speedboat day trips also depart from Phuket and Khao Lak. Phuket International Airport (HKT) is about 27 km away in a straight line across the water.
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From the encyclopaedia
Khao Phing Kan or Ko Khao Phing Kan, commonly known in English as James Bond Island, is an island in Thailand, in Phang Nga Bay northeast of Phuket. About 40 metres (130 ft) from the shores of Khao Phing Kan lies a 20-metre (66 ft) tall islet called Ko Ta Pu or Ko Tapu.
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