Cruising: Thailand and Malaysia on a small ship adventure

This isn't your normal cruise embarkation. No fancy terminal, no signposts, no grinning staff wanting to take your photo against a fake sunset. My taxi stops uncertainly amid the coiled ropes and rusting machinery of Phuket's work-a-day deep-sea port and, dragging my suitcase, I pick my way towards the diminutive Panorama II. The yacht looks like it ought to be afloat in a posh marina, not tied up against an unadorned concrete pier.

In two minutes, I'm up the gangplank, hallooed by the captain and ensconced in the lounge over a drink tinkling with ice cubes. We cast off without fanfare. A row of squid boats glowing with green lights sits on the horizon like an alien invasion. As we sail nearer, I see the boats are jauntily painted with orange roofs and yellow stripes. Fishermen's faces grin out of the twilight. Ahead, islands are humped on a silvery sea.

I'm off on a meander through the Thai islands and onwards to Langkawi and Penang in Malaysia. This is Peregrine Adventures' inaugural cruise, an interesting attempt to carve out a new niche in the competitive cruise world. It's nothing like mainstream cruising. Panorama II's nearest competitors might be Star Clipper, which carries more than three times as many passengers, and Coral Adventurer, which sails only in Indonesia.

This is a cruise pretending not to be a cruise. We set off on what is essentially a sailing yacht, with a flexible itinerary to remote locations at a languid pace. This is the first cruise, and only half full, so it's hard to judge who'll be on board, but this journey will appeal to active travellers in their 40s and 50s who are no longer enthused about backpacking, but not yet ready to surrender to big-ship cruising.

We don't see a big cruise ship until our last day in Penang. On our first day, we anchor off Koh Yao Yai, known for its lobster-fishing communities rather than the holidaying hordes of nearby Koh Phi Phi. A few days later, we're at Koh Krandan in Hat Chao Mai National Park, enjoying a beach barbecue of giant prawns and huge sausages. As we sail away there isn't another boat in sight. Clouds are puffed with orange. The sea is a placid, beaten silver, rimmed with pink on the horizon like an exotic cocktail.

Passengers lounge on the deck, subdued by the heat of the day, by the sea salt on their faces and the sunset's beauty. There's just a low murmur of admiration at the scenery, the clink of icy cocktails, the lazy turn of a novel's pages. The evening light erupts in a last moment of fierce red, and the day is gone. We eat dinner under a light breeze, far from the cacophony of Thailand's notorious resort towns.

This is expedition cruising of sorts, but you're never really in a remote place. Don't be surprised if a boatload of tourists from some town just over the horizon temporarily turns up on your castaway beach. Besides, Malaysian ports of call Langkawi and Penang are firmly on the tourist trail, and so is Ao Nang in Thailand's Krabi province. Ao Nang is a rollicking beach resort of unchecked development, looped with neon and tangled electric cables, and crowded with massage pavilions and fast-food restaurants.

What Ao Nang does offer, though, is varied options for shore excursions, such as rock climbing, Thai cooking classes and eco-cycling, plus a spectacular setting amid the glorious karst scenery for which Thailand's islands are famous. Many passengers opt for the simplicity of a long-tail boat to Railay Beach which, though crowded in places with Russians and prawn-pink Englishmen, sits between soaring, jungle-draped crags where monkeys leap.

Peregrine Adventures commits itself to small-group, responsible travel and local experiences. Even in Ao Nang, it does a good job at presenting more than just bar-lined waterfronts and beach amusements. We head inland by open truck one evening for dinner with a local family at Bung Ae House among the karst piles and mango trees. Head of the household, Mr Air, shows us how to hack open coconuts, and which parts of pineapples taste best, and takes us on a tour of his neighbour's palm oil and rubber trees.