Off to the islands

When we last left our intrepid traveller, I had just packed up my bag (AGAIN!) to go down south to Krabi. We arrived in Ao Nang (pronounced Ow Nang). Wow. is this town full of tourists (called pharang in thai ;) The south is like that I am told.

Wow. this place is beautiful. I thought the north was beautiful with all the hills, and bamboo forests. But it's got NOTHING on the south! The limestone rocks/mountains, you know the ones, that you see in every tourist pic of Thailand, they are like that, and there are hundreds of them. Over 20 stories high, and made of limestone. Today we did a 3 hour sea kayak trip through the channels around some of these islands. We were kayaking through the trees, who's roots are in the water. it was breathtaking. Thank god for Camp. I have been assigned the sternsmen job for our kayak, and it's like riding a bike, how to do it comes back!. We haven't run into anything yet, but we did kayak through caves where we had to practically limbo to get under the stalagmites...or is that stalagtites??

We had to finish our trip by about 1pm, because the tide was going out and we were running out of water! So we landed at our destination where they presented us with the most amazing lunch. Pad Thai, Massaman Curry (yes ANOTHER type of curry!- which I will definitely learn how to make next week), coconut soup, vegies, and corn/chicken thingys (yes, that is it's name..shush). It was a veritable feast...

This afternoon we got back to the hotel early, so a few of us took a long boat to Rai Lay beach. This is a pretty famous one. Man. the water here is light light blue, the sand is white, and islands are phenomenal. Long boats are basically Thai versions of fishing boats, and they have really long motors off the back and are hideously loud. AND COOL!! In typical thai fashion, you rent a long boat, but if you want the cheap price you have to wait til more people come to fill up the boat (that means 8 passengers), that can be 5 minutes, or...an hour. We waited about 10 minutes. all good.

The beach was georgeous...I could get used to this...
Tomorrow, we're going to Hong Island by kayak...and camping in a national park for a couple of nights. That should be entertaining. My time with the Gap tour is done on Friday, where I am going to Ko Phi Phi for a few days, then Phuket, then Ko Samui. Finally after much planning I have all of my tickets booked. We'll see how I handle my own company :)

Oh yes. I have a new uniform. long fishermans pants, long sleeved shirt, big floppy hat and big sunglasses..the sun is hot and mean :) I have gotten very strange sunburns so far, where I've missed spots. right now, I have bright red shins...will I ever learn???


xo. send aloe vera