So at dinner last night the tour leader told me that I should sign up for a boat trip to some of the islands in the area. I hadn’t been talking to any of the other people on the tour, but I guess they all had agreed to go. Hearing that I had been left out, my first instinct was not to go on principle, but maturity got the better of me and signed up. I don’t usually talk too much about the people that I travel with for good reasons. So I’m not going to go into the idiosyncrasies of this group, but I will say that I am the outsider here. I’m the oldest, the only single man, and the only one that has traveled as much as I have.

We were picked up at the hotel and taken to huge staging area. There must have been over a thousand people all being formed up into groups to go to their respective boats. Our group was led to one of about thirty speedboats all moored along the bank of a river that fed into the sea. I took my seat up at the bow of the boat, and to be honest I think this was the perfect spot. I got to see the waves coming, got the wind in my hair, and got a great view of the islands. About the only thing bad about being in the bow was that it wasn’t covered so the sun was a problem. These boats are big, maybe 30 or 35 feet long, some hold up to about 25 people, but ours held less, maybe 20 or 15. They are speedboats too, we were flying along about 30 mpg, maybe faster, I know that that may not sound that fast, but on the open sea that is going very fast. The tour was to take us to four islands, two of the islands we were going to go snorkeling and/or swimming. One of the islands, Phe Phe (pee pee) we were to have lunch and kind of sightsee.

We did all that we were scheduled to do and the only thing that stood out was the snorkeling. I really like to snorkel. I don’t think that up until this vacation I’ve ever gone to a reef to snorkel, I’ve snorkeled on my own. This So far I think I’ve gone at least a two times, but maybe even more this summer, but this time was the best. There were lots of fish swimming around, the water was clear enough to actually see down to the bottom, where even bigger fish were. The second place we stopped was better than the first because of the “trained” fish. I guess they’re so used to being fed there, that they have no fear of people. I had my underwater camera out and the fish thought it was food, probably because of how I was holding it, but at one time they attacked it. The camera has been having some issues so I didn’t get all the video that I actually shot, but I did get some. The camera used to be pretty reliable, unfortunately something has happened and now it will turn itself off or even more frustrating is when you shoot some video and then stop, the video isn’t saved. So like I said, I’ve got some video, about 2 minutes of more than 30 that I actually filmed. I guess it’s better than nothing.

The day ended with me and almost everybody else I saw sunburned. I guess it’s expected being in the sun for that amount of time. I just didn’t realize how bad I got it until I went back to my room. We all used sunscreen too.

Dinner was good–pizza for me– I was just in the mood for something Western. Afterwards we all went out for beers/drinks at a nearby bar. It was fun, but I’ve got to admit I miss the attention that I used to get in Cambodia. I just don’t get it here.

Mon 30/07/12 00:51

Today was going to be mostly a traveling day, or at least that’s what were were told. After breakfast we headed out back to the dock and eventually back to the bus station that would take us to a town on the Andaman seaboard known as Krabi. I guess it’s a famous beach city in Thailand, almost as famous as Phuket. I had never heard about it, but to be honest I was happily surprised when we arrived. If you can imagine almost any city whose income is derived from tourism, you can pretty much imagine Krabi. It’s touristy and it’s gaudy, not to mention all the other things that you may think about when you envision a town based on tourism, but it is also kind of nice. It’s small, so you don’t feel overwhelmed—at least I didn’t.

We arrived at about 12 and by 1230 I was headed to the beach. The water was warm and the waves were big enough to get in some decent body surfing. I ended up swimming for about 30 minutes, and I would have stayed in longer if not for being stung by jellyfish. Nothing serious and except for ending my time in the water I really didn’t get too bothered by it. What was kind of different as I was in the water the spot where I was stung was burning, so I kept looking at it. I guess one of the locals who walks along the beach selling drinks to the tourists saw me and went to get some leaves. I didn’t see him get the leaves, but on his first pass he didn’t have any and then when I was on my towel there he was with a couple handfuls of some leaves. He didn’t speak very much English, but he could say, “jellyfish” about three times, motions for me to pour my water on the leaves, so I comply. He crunches and tears the leaves stopping every now and again for me to add more water until the leaves getting close to being kind of paste-like. He tells me to lay back and then rubs it all over my arm. He was always smiling and trying to tell me what he was doing, and I was trying to tell him that I didn’t bring any money with me, “No problem. Okay.”  I know that it probably sounds bad that my first thought is that this guy had just found a new way to get some money from me, but in my defense it does happen all the time.  After he applied the “paste” to my arm, he grabbed his bucket of soft drinks and took off down the beach. Nice guy, and I did feel a little guilty thinking the worst of him. The leaves did soothe the sting too.

After doing a little exploring I headed back to the hotel. Later the group went out to dinner beside the beach. It was a very “romantic” spot and would have been best served if I were with a date.

It’s the second day in the jungle and we’re really not going to do that much since we’re leaving about 1 for our next stay, but most of us decided to go tubing down the river, a different river mind you, from the one we went on yesterday. This river was clear warm and just about perfect in every way. There were little rapids, areas where you could just coast and places if you wanted to stand up, you could. I don’t want to over do the sentiment, but it really was just about a perfect morning.

After lunch we loaded up in a… I’m not really sure what they are called except that they are referred to by the fact that there are two rows of seats in the back. So anyway, we get in one of these vehicles, it’s pickup truck with benches and a roof in the back. It is lots of fun because you’re out in the open, you feel secure, and you’ve got wind keeping you cool. So we are taken to a port about 3 hours away, and I should say I had the worst seat out of the group; in the middle with no leg room. By the time we got to our destination I was in a pretty foul mood. Most of the ride all I could think about was the nearly perfect tubing experience down the river not less than a few hours ago. I mentioned to someone that I was daydreaming about the tubing to another person on the tour and he said he was doing the same thing.

We got on a long-tail boat and headed out about 4 for about a1 hour ride to a famous island. I’ll have to get the name of the island later because all I can remember is that it was in a James Bond movie a long time ago— I guess it was the super villain’s lair.  I don’t think that I need to mention this, but I really love the water and the fact that I got to take a boat trip to a remote island is really a good thing.

After a little sightseeing on the island we headed back in the direction that we came to a small village that is partly over the water. The way it’s described is that it is a Muslim fishing village. I don’t know, but the fact that they add the type of religion to the name just doesn’t sound right to me. It’s a Christian city… you know what I mean? I digress. The village was partly built over water and partly connected to an island. Oh, I didn’t mention that the islands are very picturesque, and I hope the photos will show how beautiful the place was. We were staying over the water in what is best described as bamboo huts over the water (on stilts), and honestly another one of the best times so far. Later on, at about 10 pm I looked outside and the water had gone out so we were just over mud, kind of stunk too.

The time at the village was mostly spent walking around on a kind of tour, I say “kind of” because it was very informal, and just a walk through the buildings.

It’s the second day of the tour and I’m in a little village a long way from Bangkok. The first part of the tour started with a few hours of sightseeing in Bangkok, all of which I’ve seen before. So although I went with the group, I can honestly say that I wasn’t too interested in seeing the sites. Later, about 5, we left to catch a train for a small(er) city south. Since the journey was going to take us about 13 hours we got a sleeper car to pass the night. It hasn’t been the first time that I have been in a sleeper, but this one was a little bit different than any I’ve been in before. Instead of being in a cabin with four or six beds, this sleeper had two beds next to the aisle, no cabin. It was a little bit strange but I like strange sometimes.

After arriving at our hotel in Khaosok (about two hours away from the train station), I was finally able to take a shower. The place that I have is really nice, it’s a bungalow hidden in the jungle, right above a river. I am really impressed with the bungalow too. Since I’m the only male by myself on the tour I get the room to myself, and for where it is at (in what seems the middle of the jungle) it really seems nice. At least it has hot water for showers. There are monkeys hanging around and all sorts of other animals like lizards too. Really is a nice place

Later this afternoon, in fact in about twenty minutes we are heading out to canoe down the river, which river I don’t know, but it should be fun.

Just a note, I’m writing this about three days after I went on the canoe trip. The last few days have been moving really fast, and even now as I write this I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to catch up on all of the days and things that I’ve done since the last entry. I’ll try though.

The canoeing trip was really fun. It wasn’t anything like I had expected, first we were passengers and not rowing. I didn’t like the idea of that at first, since I’ve always been the type of guy who wants to row, or drive, or do my own physical thing, but I have to say that in the end, I did enjoy just letting the river go by as I leaned back and relaxed. Not a lot of interesting things happened that I can talk about, but it was fun. We saw a couple of snakes in the canopy above the river, and there was one point in front of a temple that fish would gather and wait for the boaters to feed them. Supposedly that was the only place on the river that the fish were safe and they knew it, so they stayed there. They were so thick and so eager to get the food that they actually jumped into one of the boats. Unfortunately not mine, but at least two other canoes. We also stopped for some swimming but I wasn’t in the mood. The water was really moving fast and it was also very dirty, so I chose to just hang out with the other people that didn’t swim and drink coffee.