Chris and Chandi’s Worldwide Adventures

Well Chandi and I just finished two full days of prepackaged tours, I feel so cheap and used ha ha

The first was a day of kayaking. Kayak is a generous term, these things were "tri-yaks" which are plastic hulled sit-on top sort of thing but they are good for these sorts of trips. After a crazy tuk-tuk ride (a small truck with seating in the back) to the outfits shore facilities (umm, very generous here) we sit around for about half an hour while the staff gets the boats ready. Then off we go, first leg is a snaking tour through a mangrove forest, very cool. Then into lots of "canals" through great limestone formations with shear cliffs etc. Blah blah, I'll show ya the pictures later.

Now maybe I am not sounding to excited about all this great scenerey, that is because the COOLEST thing happened next. We were BOMBARDED by a group of crazy little fuzzy monkeys!! And as you all know my main reason for coming to SE Asia was the hunt for the elusive SE Asian Finger Monkey. Well these monkeys were jumping all over our boats, sitting on us and everything, IT WAS AWESOME. We could have sunk and been eaten by barracudas at this point and I would have died happy. Another funny part about the monkeys was one of the french guys on the tour freaked out when the monkeys came on his boat, it was funny. Now these monkeys were much bigger than the average finger so the search is STILL ON!

Next we go to a little beach for a "delicious authentic thai meal", the brochures words not mine. Well it was OK, though I totally violated Laura's "only eat cold things cold and hot things hot" as everything was pee warm. Well guess who showed up again!! Those crazy little monkeys!! More hilarity ensued, they really love pineapple and watermelon.

Well now the tide is going out so we have to push ourselves out to the water through some mud, ghastly memories of SHIPYARD LAKE are BlAzInG into my mind, my fellow WPK guys will know what I am talking about.

As well it seems that with the on again / off again monsoon rain (did I forget to mention the flood waters of hell that would open on us periodically) we have run out of things to see so the guide takes us to another mud flat (oh goody!!) and shows us little crabs (no not those kind Brendan) and other little mud living creatures. After awhile of that it is time to head home.

The icing on the cake was paddling back to our departure point and then realizing that the ebbing tide had lowered the sea level so much that the last 500m or so between open water and the "shore" was a gooey slimey yuckey mud flat infested with who knows what living in it, oh wait we do! Oh and I did I mention that we had the DRAG our tri-yaks over these mudflats to shore! Well in my case I had to drag two because the wussy (note, w=p) french guys wouldn't drag theirs, it was "too heavy". PFFTT. Chandi was not particularily inmpressed with this wee jaunt through the mud but SHIPYARD LAKE prepared me for this!! All in all the kayaking trip was pretty good because of the MONKEYS and the SCENERY but everything else was sub-par.

Today we went on a five island snorkelling trip that was pretty fun. Thanks to Laura's sweet-ass snorkelling set I was diving around like a pro, and I saw lots of fish I don't know the names of. It turns out fish like bread and if you stand in the water and toss bread chunks around you they go crazy for it, it was quite fun. All in all the snorkelling trip was OK but suffered from the same mediocrity as the kayaking trip.

Well tomorrow we are off to Ko Phi Phi by longtail boat (said Pee Pee Island, makes me laugh everytime) for more fun and sun. I intend to get an authentic speedo tan here.

Later Skaters!