January 28th, 2019
Okay here we are, big day! Wake up! Drink Nescafe! Grab watertight bags! Google to make sure my GoPro can be submerged in water! Towels! Thank GOODNESS I was feeling so much better!
We needed to be on the side of the street in front of our little hotel by 7:50am, knowing a van would be there to pick us up by 8:00am. At 7:45am I'm running down the street in a bikini top trying to get to the 7-Eleven and back before 8. We needed sunscreen and water. "Brooke, if they get here before I get back, JUST GO WITHOUT ME! Have a great time!"
Of course I made it. The van door slid open and we hopped inside.
Twenty minutes later we're on a pier on the northeast of the island signing a waiver. Seventy five other tourists were with us here. A few younger Thai guys ran about tying different color yarn around each of the tourists' wrists. These yarns told you which boat you were to get on. The boats go to different places. Brooke and I were pink and green.
This was another separated day; Olivia and Kiana did their own thing... Which afterwards I knew for SURE was for the best. I'll interrupt my day here to tell you about Olivia's.
Olivia is terrified of many things in this world. One thing being toilets, which I'll hopefully remember to explain in tomorrow's post. Another thing is ocean water. Olivia, apparently, has not been to the beach in 8 years. This is fine by her because she's eminently afraid of sharks and other sea creatures. Every rock she steps on is a sea monster. Every wave is going to rip her away from land and into a jellyfish's clutches. Very treacherous stuff. BUT! Today Olivia swam in the ocean, the crystal clear waters of Koh Samui, Thailand, and had a BLAST. You shoulda heard her talking about it later in the day! She told tales of body surfing, being smashed down by waves, jumping and flailing about! She really enjoyed herself. She claims it was the best day of the whole trip! They spent the whole day at the beach.
Ok so back to me.
We got on our speedboat. It was covered by a top. That boat was filled to the gills with people. The ride to our first stop in Angthong National Marine Park would be 45 minutes. We'd land at Sleeping Cow Island. Here, our guide said we'd have a short hike, then we could relax on the beach and swim in the water for a while.
We hopped off the boat and treaded a bit of water to shore. We start our "little hike." Brooke is wearing sandals and casually mentions, "dang I wish I had better shoes." It was 10 minutes into the hike that we knew this was no joke. We had to take several breaks. Everyone was in flip-flops because no one knew we'd signed up for this. Luckily I had on Chacos, but still. Everyone was huffing and puffing. The steps were SO tall. It was straight up. No back and forth weaving up a mountain stuff, this was straight up for the most part. Eventually we ran into a small family of monkeys.
These cuties were hopping about just above our heads. They were eating their breakfast, moving from tree to tree. But they stopped above us on our path. These were dusky leaf monkeys, a species of langur. They were a gorgeous black with strong white eye shadow surrounding their little eyes. They were chowing down and dropping down their scraps. I could have set up a lawn chair and watched them for 6 hours straight!
We pressed on. Well, for a while... Brooke lost all happiness after the first lookout point. She was in a skirt, sandals, and was not mentally prepared for a hike. She figured the view from the top of the mountain would look similar enough to the view from this checkpoint, just from a higher standpoint.
She told me she'd wait for me there. I pressed on.
Without her, I tried to go as fast as I could up the trail. The lookout points onward just got more and more wonderful...
I made it to the top after while... And it was unquestionably worth it. I'll just show you. There aren't words.
Just astonishing.
I basically ran back down that trail, knees wobbling and all. I wanted to get back to Brooke.
Real fast, while I was at the summit without Brooke I asked someone to take a picture of me up in front of that incredible backdrop. The pictures turned out great. With that I wanna give you a quick tip: When searching for a photographer in situations like this, always be on the lookout for a 20-30 year old female to ask. Make sure she is the Instagram type. These attributes are important because this type of person knows what you're wanting. You want a dozen photos of you, taken both vertically and horizontally, from different heights and without anyone else in the photo. She will know you will think you're an ugly dog in 95% of the photos, so she will take enough pictures to ensure that the probability of there being an acceptable photo in the end will be high. Sometimes, she will even stick around for you to look through the pics real quick to make sure she has succeeded in this! Offer to return the favor!
So anyways, I reunite with Brooke, and head down the mountain. When I showed her the pics from the top of the trail she wasn't impressed enough to regret not climbing. Good!
Here's an important side story. As we are descending the mountain, we pass the monkeys again. Still eating and enjoying a great crisp new morning. Brooke and I stop alongside a couple other tourists to peer up at them one last time. As Brooke and I are watching the most darling baby bop around above us, my attention is caught by a tourist my age who begins leaning over the trail's side wiring with his hands extended far in front of him. I gaze follow and see that he's attempting to get closer to an old lady monkey who is propped up with her back to him feeding. HE BEGINS RAPIDLY CLAPPING AT HER fully stretched out extended WAY over the fencing. She of course jumps away in fright! And I of course start yelling and clapping in the same fashion at him from 15 feet away. He stops his clapping and I quickly realize that my clapping probably sounds like an extension of his clapping in to the old lady, so I stop that and continue with the shouting in his direction. And then I'm cussing and I basically don't drop it until we're all off the mountain. Too bad he the guy didn't speak a lick of English... My blood was boiling. Grow up, Dudley.
Then we relaxed on the beach. Actually, I jumped in that blue water because I was drenched in sweat from that taxing hike. But then we sat.
Load up and onto the next island. This one was only about five minutes away and had another little hike, then relaxing. It would be a short stop. Brooke sat out of the hiking, so I flew up the metal stairs so that I could get back down to her. The trail was MUCH shorter, but still ridiculously steep. The top of this hike would reveal the Green Lagoon. Here it is. Brooke wasn't upset about missing out.
And that's me swimming later.
Oh kay, time for lunch island! We loaded up and headed out! The new spot was equally beautiful... Brooke and I stood in line for the lunch (included) and were so pleased to hear them ask if we were vegetarians as we approached the food. They had food for us! We ate at a small table separate from the other tourists.. It was so nice. We debated if we should take part in the next activity.
Kayaking is a mediocre activity sometimes if the conditions or limitations aren't on point. In this case, I thought the sun would be blazing a little too hard on my already burnt shoulders if I exposed myself out on the open water like that. Also we were pretty sure they wouldn't let us go too far... there were buoys set up and we just assumed we'd be confined to that small area. So we kinda decided for a minute that we'd skip it and just swing on the cute tree swings in the shade while the other tourists flap around by the shore in kayaks.
And then we inexplicably changed our minds and just started walking over to the kayaks.
I am SO GLAD we did this because it was NUTS.
And I only have GoPro footage of it, no photos!
The actual space we were allowed to kayak in was much bigger than we thought.... They let us go out and around a ginormous rock that was jutting out of the water about 50 yards off shore. This rock was aprox. 30 yards across. Brooke and I hopped in the kayak, me in front, her in the back. We've never kayaked together, so we took a moment to discuss our strategy. Then we were off. Easy enough. The water out ahead of us looked fine, like a lake. We plotted to circumvent the giant rock in a counterclockwise fashion, so we head off to the right. Things started getting shaky when we got within a few meters of the rock...
Tension skyrocketed at an exact moment: Brooke and I steer ourselves towards a cool rock formation that basically looked like an overhang. We wanted to paddle under/through it so that rock would be above us and we'd get some shade. Plus I figured it'd be nice GoPro footage. The exact moment the tension swooped in was when Brooke and I noticed another kayak couple attempting the stunt we were gearing up for... We saw that the waves coming in from the open ocean beyond were actually much rougher than we'd previously registered... The kayakers underneath the rock overhang were getting jolted up by the waves and pushed towards the rocky roof above! The man had to reach up to grab the ceiling and push against it so they wouldn't be squashed by a violent wave! In this moment it was obvious that Brooke and I needed to shift direction AWAY from this area FAST. So we started screaming.
No worries, we got outta there in a hurry. We went ahead and started around the HUGE rock that acted as the center piece for the kayak track. Around the bend, we couldn't see shore... Only the open ocean and several glorious rock/mountains jutting out of the sea. We felt super alone. But in a thrilling way. No one was there! The waves coming in were still rambunctious, so I had to keep an eye on how our boat was oriented against them. I was mainly yelling about how unsafe the whole thing was. IN A GOOD WAY. "How would anyone know if we tipped over?! What if we paddled off into the distance?! How is this okay?! They don't know our capabilities!!" But seriously, as we were paddling our little vessel around that rock, we felt so free. I'll never forget that feeling. I was dangerous. I can't wait to look at the footage. We are so glad we decided to kayak. Olivia would have HATED.
We docked and spent the rest of the time on the island swinging on a tree swing. We talked about where our next trip would be.
Final stop was coming up. It took us 20 mins to get there. I didn't know what to expect... We were going snorkeling! Brooke has been snorkeling twice, but I'd never done it for real real.
We pulled off into a cove. There was one other boat there already docked. They took off soon enough. The Thai guides threw the anchors out and passed out our equipment. I jumped off that boat so quick!
Brooke had to get her bearings straight first. It was so cute. She said, "I have to panic for the first 5 minutes. Then I'll be fine." She loves snorkeling though!
The water wasn't crystal clear like I was imagining, but that's okay! The guides said it was because there were big waves coming in the cove the night before.
I couldn't touch anything with my feet if I wanted to with my life jacket on (I could see the ground though), but the guides warned us over and over not to do so. They warned of sea urchins that would cut up our feet. "The blood from the cuts will attract sharks. You don't want that, do ya?" Olivia would have DIED at this comment. After all the warnings I still didn't think the urchins would be as threatening as they were. They were gigantic!! Spines literally a foot or more long in some cases! And there were dozens and dozens covering the coral!
Fish were everywhere and they weren't shy. I loved it. At one point while I was doggy paddling around, I heard a loud whistle. Looking up out of the water I saw our guide waving all of us over towards him! I grabbed Brooke and we headed there. Gosh, it was incredible... tens of thousands of yellow fish were swimming under us! It was a school! They'd been disturbed by our commotion and were on the move. Their presence was remarkable... I'd never seen anything like that before. They actually didn't swim away though, they stayed for the duration of our swim. Oh it was so neat.
After snorkels, it was time to head home. And we were pooped.
Olivia flipped out when I told her the story of the day. Then she said we were having dinner at Hooter's. This is obviously ridiculous. But we went. Most expensive meal of the trip by 1000 baht.
After dinner, one more notable thing happened. I finally got to try durian, the stinky fruit that many hotels will fine you for. "No Durian" signs are posted all over the place in English. I think the Thai people know what's polite when it comes to this fruit, but visitors need to be reminded. The point is, the fruit is famous for having a putrid smell. Ya gotta try it though!
I bought a hunk of raw durian from a street vendor and put it in Brooke's backpack for later. This actually got me in a lot of trouble with her eventually... Things smelled stank in her bag for a while after this incident. Anyways, I wave us down a tuk tuk and we all hop in, headed home. With all the wind flying through the air as we zoom down the street, I figured it was a good time to bust open the durian. The packaging was a simple plastic wrap, so I punch through. Then I gently press my finger into the flesh of the yellow fruit and immediately scream! IT'S SO SOFT! WHY?! It was like pudding!? But it was still solid somehow? Anyways, I grab it and take a huge hunkin' bite out of it. Holy Christ, it was disgusting. I threw my head out of the window of the tuk tuk and yakked it out onto the street. Ok, I didn't yak, but I did spit largely. EW!
Convincing Brooke to try it after that was a losing battle. Convincing Olivia to try it was successful, but also tough. She reacted in the same manner.
We needed to be on the side of the street in front of our little hotel by 7:50am, knowing a van would be there to pick us up by 8:00am. At 7:45am I'm running down the street in a bikini top trying to get to the 7-Eleven and back before 8. We needed sunscreen and water. "Brooke, if they get here before I get back, JUST GO WITHOUT ME! Have a great time!"
Of course I made it. The van door slid open and we hopped inside.
Twenty minutes later we're on a pier on the northeast of the island signing a waiver. Seventy five other tourists were with us here. A few younger Thai guys ran about tying different color yarn around each of the tourists' wrists. These yarns told you which boat you were to get on. The boats go to different places. Brooke and I were pink and green.
This was another separated day; Olivia and Kiana did their own thing... Which afterwards I knew for SURE was for the best. I'll interrupt my day here to tell you about Olivia's.
Olivia is terrified of many things in this world. One thing being toilets, which I'll hopefully remember to explain in tomorrow's post. Another thing is ocean water. Olivia, apparently, has not been to the beach in 8 years. This is fine by her because she's eminently afraid of sharks and other sea creatures. Every rock she steps on is a sea monster. Every wave is going to rip her away from land and into a jellyfish's clutches. Very treacherous stuff. BUT! Today Olivia swam in the ocean, the crystal clear waters of Koh Samui, Thailand, and had a BLAST. You shoulda heard her talking about it later in the day! She told tales of body surfing, being smashed down by waves, jumping and flailing about! She really enjoyed herself. She claims it was the best day of the whole trip! They spent the whole day at the beach.
Ok so back to me.
We got on our speedboat. It was covered by a top. That boat was filled to the gills with people. The ride to our first stop in Angthong National Marine Park would be 45 minutes. We'd land at Sleeping Cow Island. Here, our guide said we'd have a short hike, then we could relax on the beach and swim in the water for a while.
We hopped off the boat and treaded a bit of water to shore. We start our "little hike." Brooke is wearing sandals and casually mentions, "dang I wish I had better shoes." It was 10 minutes into the hike that we knew this was no joke. We had to take several breaks. Everyone was in flip-flops because no one knew we'd signed up for this. Luckily I had on Chacos, but still. Everyone was huffing and puffing. The steps were SO tall. It was straight up. No back and forth weaving up a mountain stuff, this was straight up for the most part. Eventually we ran into a small family of monkeys.
These cuties were hopping about just above our heads. They were eating their breakfast, moving from tree to tree. But they stopped above us on our path. These were dusky leaf monkeys, a species of langur. They were a gorgeous black with strong white eye shadow surrounding their little eyes. They were chowing down and dropping down their scraps. I could have set up a lawn chair and watched them for 6 hours straight!
We pressed on. Well, for a while... Brooke lost all happiness after the first lookout point. She was in a skirt, sandals, and was not mentally prepared for a hike. She figured the view from the top of the mountain would look similar enough to the view from this checkpoint, just from a higher standpoint.
She told me she'd wait for me there. I pressed on.
Without her, I tried to go as fast as I could up the trail. The lookout points onward just got more and more wonderful...
I made it to the top after while... And it was unquestionably worth it. I'll just show you. There aren't words.
I basically ran back down that trail, knees wobbling and all. I wanted to get back to Brooke.
Real fast, while I was at the summit without Brooke I asked someone to take a picture of me up in front of that incredible backdrop. The pictures turned out great. With that I wanna give you a quick tip: When searching for a photographer in situations like this, always be on the lookout for a 20-30 year old female to ask. Make sure she is the Instagram type. These attributes are important because this type of person knows what you're wanting. You want a dozen photos of you, taken both vertically and horizontally, from different heights and without anyone else in the photo. She will know you will think you're an ugly dog in 95% of the photos, so she will take enough pictures to ensure that the probability of there being an acceptable photo in the end will be high. Sometimes, she will even stick around for you to look through the pics real quick to make sure she has succeeded in this! Offer to return the favor!
So anyways, I reunite with Brooke, and head down the mountain. When I showed her the pics from the top of the trail she wasn't impressed enough to regret not climbing. Good!
Here's an important side story. As we are descending the mountain, we pass the monkeys again. Still eating and enjoying a great crisp new morning. Brooke and I stop alongside a couple other tourists to peer up at them one last time. As Brooke and I are watching the most darling baby bop around above us, my attention is caught by a tourist my age who begins leaning over the trail's side wiring with his hands extended far in front of him. I gaze follow and see that he's attempting to get closer to an old lady monkey who is propped up with her back to him feeding. HE BEGINS RAPIDLY CLAPPING AT HER fully stretched out extended WAY over the fencing. She of course jumps away in fright! And I of course start yelling and clapping in the same fashion at him from 15 feet away. He stops his clapping and I quickly realize that my clapping probably sounds like an extension of his clapping in to the old lady, so I stop that and continue with the shouting in his direction. And then I'm cussing and I basically don't drop it until we're all off the mountain. Too bad he the guy didn't speak a lick of English... My blood was boiling. Grow up, Dudley.
Then we relaxed on the beach. Actually, I jumped in that blue water because I was drenched in sweat from that taxing hike. But then we sat.
Load up and onto the next island. This one was only about five minutes away and had another little hike, then relaxing. It would be a short stop. Brooke sat out of the hiking, so I flew up the metal stairs so that I could get back down to her. The trail was MUCH shorter, but still ridiculously steep. The top of this hike would reveal the Green Lagoon. Here it is. Brooke wasn't upset about missing out.
Oh kay, time for lunch island! We loaded up and headed out! The new spot was equally beautiful... Brooke and I stood in line for the lunch (included) and were so pleased to hear them ask if we were vegetarians as we approached the food. They had food for us! We ate at a small table separate from the other tourists.. It was so nice. We debated if we should take part in the next activity.
Kayaking is a mediocre activity sometimes if the conditions or limitations aren't on point. In this case, I thought the sun would be blazing a little too hard on my already burnt shoulders if I exposed myself out on the open water like that. Also we were pretty sure they wouldn't let us go too far... there were buoys set up and we just assumed we'd be confined to that small area. So we kinda decided for a minute that we'd skip it and just swing on the cute tree swings in the shade while the other tourists flap around by the shore in kayaks.
And then we inexplicably changed our minds and just started walking over to the kayaks.
I am SO GLAD we did this because it was NUTS.
And I only have GoPro footage of it, no photos!
The actual space we were allowed to kayak in was much bigger than we thought.... They let us go out and around a ginormous rock that was jutting out of the water about 50 yards off shore. This rock was aprox. 30 yards across. Brooke and I hopped in the kayak, me in front, her in the back. We've never kayaked together, so we took a moment to discuss our strategy. Then we were off. Easy enough. The water out ahead of us looked fine, like a lake. We plotted to circumvent the giant rock in a counterclockwise fashion, so we head off to the right. Things started getting shaky when we got within a few meters of the rock...
Tension skyrocketed at an exact moment: Brooke and I steer ourselves towards a cool rock formation that basically looked like an overhang. We wanted to paddle under/through it so that rock would be above us and we'd get some shade. Plus I figured it'd be nice GoPro footage. The exact moment the tension swooped in was when Brooke and I noticed another kayak couple attempting the stunt we were gearing up for... We saw that the waves coming in from the open ocean beyond were actually much rougher than we'd previously registered... The kayakers underneath the rock overhang were getting jolted up by the waves and pushed towards the rocky roof above! The man had to reach up to grab the ceiling and push against it so they wouldn't be squashed by a violent wave! In this moment it was obvious that Brooke and I needed to shift direction AWAY from this area FAST. So we started screaming.
No worries, we got outta there in a hurry. We went ahead and started around the HUGE rock that acted as the center piece for the kayak track. Around the bend, we couldn't see shore... Only the open ocean and several glorious rock/mountains jutting out of the sea. We felt super alone. But in a thrilling way. No one was there! The waves coming in were still rambunctious, so I had to keep an eye on how our boat was oriented against them. I was mainly yelling about how unsafe the whole thing was. IN A GOOD WAY. "How would anyone know if we tipped over?! What if we paddled off into the distance?! How is this okay?! They don't know our capabilities!!" But seriously, as we were paddling our little vessel around that rock, we felt so free. I'll never forget that feeling. I was dangerous. I can't wait to look at the footage. We are so glad we decided to kayak. Olivia would have HATED.
We docked and spent the rest of the time on the island swinging on a tree swing. We talked about where our next trip would be.
Final stop was coming up. It took us 20 mins to get there. I didn't know what to expect... We were going snorkeling! Brooke has been snorkeling twice, but I'd never done it for real real.
We pulled off into a cove. There was one other boat there already docked. They took off soon enough. The Thai guides threw the anchors out and passed out our equipment. I jumped off that boat so quick!
Brooke had to get her bearings straight first. It was so cute. She said, "I have to panic for the first 5 minutes. Then I'll be fine." She loves snorkeling though!
The water wasn't crystal clear like I was imagining, but that's okay! The guides said it was because there were big waves coming in the cove the night before.
I couldn't touch anything with my feet if I wanted to with my life jacket on (I could see the ground though), but the guides warned us over and over not to do so. They warned of sea urchins that would cut up our feet. "The blood from the cuts will attract sharks. You don't want that, do ya?" Olivia would have DIED at this comment. After all the warnings I still didn't think the urchins would be as threatening as they were. They were gigantic!! Spines literally a foot or more long in some cases! And there were dozens and dozens covering the coral!
Fish were everywhere and they weren't shy. I loved it. At one point while I was doggy paddling around, I heard a loud whistle. Looking up out of the water I saw our guide waving all of us over towards him! I grabbed Brooke and we headed there. Gosh, it was incredible... tens of thousands of yellow fish were swimming under us! It was a school! They'd been disturbed by our commotion and were on the move. Their presence was remarkable... I'd never seen anything like that before. They actually didn't swim away though, they stayed for the duration of our swim. Oh it was so neat.
After snorkels, it was time to head home. And we were pooped.
Olivia flipped out when I told her the story of the day. Then she said we were having dinner at Hooter's. This is obviously ridiculous. But we went. Most expensive meal of the trip by 1000 baht.
After dinner, one more notable thing happened. I finally got to try durian, the stinky fruit that many hotels will fine you for. "No Durian" signs are posted all over the place in English. I think the Thai people know what's polite when it comes to this fruit, but visitors need to be reminded. The point is, the fruit is famous for having a putrid smell. Ya gotta try it though!
I bought a hunk of raw durian from a street vendor and put it in Brooke's backpack for later. This actually got me in a lot of trouble with her eventually... Things smelled stank in her bag for a while after this incident. Anyways, I wave us down a tuk tuk and we all hop in, headed home. With all the wind flying through the air as we zoom down the street, I figured it was a good time to bust open the durian. The packaging was a simple plastic wrap, so I punch through. Then I gently press my finger into the flesh of the yellow fruit and immediately scream! IT'S SO SOFT! WHY?! It was like pudding!? But it was still solid somehow? Anyways, I grab it and take a huge hunkin' bite out of it. Holy Christ, it was disgusting. I threw my head out of the window of the tuk tuk and yakked it out onto the street. Ok, I didn't yak, but I did spit largely. EW!
Convincing Brooke to try it after that was a losing battle. Convincing Olivia to try it was successful, but also tough. She reacted in the same manner.
Intense. You got my anxiety level up on that one lol
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