Underwater Adventures

The day was upon us. We walked the massive 4 min. walk to another resort to meet up with our guide. We were ordered chicken fried rice (lunch is included), collected our gear, and made our way to the beach. There were only about 12 of us (compared to the 30+ we saw on other boats), which made for much more personal space. We all loaded into a longboat - which is more or less shaped like a really long banana (you can see one in the blog title) and were taken to the tour boat. This, however, was no ordinary tour boat - it was a snorkeling boat!!!

We began our trip around the island to our various diving sites. I don't remember the names of any of them, but I do recall that Shark Island does NOT have any sharks, or so Phil says (our tour guide/snorkeling coach/aquatic life expert extraordinaire). At this point I will apologize for some of the terrible pictures, but I was using an underwater disposable camera.

Koh Tao - from our boat

I decided to jump in at the first site, snorkel, flippers and mask. It took a total of about 14 seconds to realize that I'm so thin that I don't even float in SALT water, so I went right back to the boat and grabbed a life jacket. What a great decision. While wearing the life jacket it becomes very difficult to move in a way that causes water to enter your snorkel. Also, you can easily have a nice, leisurely kick around the ocean, observing the beautiful and colourful coral, fish, anemones, sea cucumbers etc. (even though they look kind of grey in the pictures) I even got to see a couple of Black Tipped Reef Shark swim under me (only the babies though).

There IS a shark in this picture. I swear.

Anemone

A bigger anemone

The final dive site was at the island resort of Koh Nangyuan. It is actually 3 small islands, but because of the ocean currents they are connected by long, coral beaches. The largest island has and tremendous lookout point, and between the two smaller islands there is a Japanese garden, filled with coral, brightly coloured anemones, giant clams, and even Spiny Black Sea Urchins.

The beaches of Koh Nangyuan. The nearer one is actually underwater, as it was high tide, but that only brings the water up to mid-calf level.

Very Nirvana-esque

Not as much.

Merry Christmas and Welcome to Koh Tao

We arrived in Koh Samui on Christmas Eve with the intention of avoiding doing any kind of travelling on Christmas day. It didn't quite work out that way, but there was definitely a minimum of transportation to be done on Christmas Day.

We woke up to a beautiful morning, with my first real tropical beach sighting. (see prev. post for pics) As seemed to be a bit of a tradition, I awoke at about 6 am, and went for a stroll along the beach. Andrew got up around an hour later. We purchased our tickets for the ferry - which is really a high speed catamaran - and the van whisked us off to the gathering area at the dock. The ferry was a nice, smooth ride, first stopping at Koh Phangan - we'll return there in a few days - and then on to Koh Tao. The whole ride took about an hour and a half, and cast a whopping 200 Baht ($8).

Koh Tao is just a small island, which you can circumnavigate on foot in a single day. It was absolutely gorgeous. The entire permanent population of the island is about 8000, and there were at least 15 000 tourists. We got into the back of a pickup truck with benches - the only thing that resembles a cab - and for 50 Baht each were taken to the Sai Ri beach on the Western side of the island. Of course, we opted out of making reservations before our trip, so we found a bungalow for 400 Baht/night ($12) at the In Touch resort, which only had only real drawback - only one bed.... again. Unfortunately, this was the 3rd time this happened to us, and this time it was going to be for 3 nights. "What was the biggest upside?" you might ask.... besides the 13 second walk to the beachside restaurant, the spectacularly fine, white sand beaches and the amazing tropical atmosphere surrounding us, it would decidedly have to be the giant tree growing through our bathroom. Yep. not growing out of the floor, but the bathroom was actually built around the tree. Also, no roof in the bathroom. This was spectacular for showering in the rain. You might notice the bucket next to the toilet. This is because many toilets in Thailand are not what you might call "flush" toilets. Rather, you need to take a couple of scoops of water from the bucket and pour it in to flush everything through.

After we settled in and relaxed at the restaurant over the most amazing pad thai I have ever tasted, we explored the length of the beach (during high tide, so there the ocean actually touched the restaurants in places). Andrew attempted a phone call home, but with such little success that I didn't see it as a wise use of $10. All-in-all, we seemed to have found our tropical paradise.

At about 10 pm, Andrew and I realized that we hadn't eaten yet, and were in desperate need of a Christmas feast. I went for the traditional Christmas dinner of barbecued tuna. Andrew tried to make it an early night, since we had big plans for the next day, but I went for a walk along the now enormous beach, since the tide went back out, and the ocean is incredibly shallow, and to check out the nightlife of the beach. I thought I would try sleeping in the hammock on the porch... bad idea. The mosquitoes arrived and found every gap in the bug spray I had applied, and the hammock was not set up in a way that lent itself to getting sleep, but rather to be sitting virtually upright. After about 2 hours of this, I finally gave up, and went back inside to share the bed with Andrew.

A note about the restaurant: This became a great place to sit, while looking out over the beach and ocean, and get some reading done while sipping the constant supply of Chang Beer, an occasional Pina Colada (how can you not have one or two) or the spectacular shakes. The food, while we ate at a few other places, was so good, it was hard to go elsewhere. The banana fritters (while technically a dessert) made for a great breakfast. The fruit was as fresh as I have ever tasted, and almost every meal was seafood, since I could be reasonably certain that it was magnificently fresh.

Christmas Eve

Not the most exciting of days, but an interesting one nonetheless. We had no plans for the day until we headed to the airport, so we went into town and decided on enjoying a nice Khmer massage. This essentially means that I had a girl of about 15 pound the snot out of me for an hour. The worst part was that I asked for the "light" massage. After what felt like an eternity of being physically assaulted, we walked around some more, bought a few of the items we had seen and desperately wanted (although I wish I had bought a new pair of shoes), and it all cost so little.

We made our way out to the airport a little after noon, for our late afternoon flight. Little did we know the the airport actually closes from 9 am until 2 pm. Scratch that... the airport LOCKS from 9-2. thankfully the restaurants are on the outside of the restaurant, so Andrew and I enjoyed a nice meal at Dairy Queen. The sight of which could mean only one thing... first hot dog in months. Sadly, the hot dog was not quite as I expected, and was quite a let-down. The DQ was good for one thing though... getting in a quick nap, something that would become a little bit of a habit of the next week or so.

We got through the awfully small, but still very nice airport at Siem Reap, and boarded the BangkokAir flight (yes, our 4th airline in 4 flights) for Bangkok. We had a 3 hr wait for our next flight to Koh Samui. Thankfully, BangkokAir gave us access to one of their lounges for free internet and snacks.

We arrived in Koh Samui at just after 9 and got a room in a motel. It wasn't anything special, and unfortunately had just one bed. The bathroom was about 3 feet wide, and about 30 feet long. At least it was near the beach... the first of our trip. Andrew went to bed early, while I walked next door to a beachfront bar and started chatting with a couple of guys from Newcastle. I haven't a clue what either of them said. There were some people lighting these paper lanterns which would float away into the night and simply disappear. After a couple of beers, I also decided to crash, having to catch a ferry at 8 am the next day.

Final Day at Siem Reap

Andrew and I decided that we wanted to see a couple of the more remote temples, as well as the landmine museum on our last day. It also gave us a chance to see a little more of Cambodia than the tourist portion.

Landmine Museum

This has nothing to do with Angkor, but since we had seen Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, we thought we should see this museum focusing on an ongoing problem in the country. It is actually a joint venture with a Canadian organization, but created by a man who had laid thousands of mines in his own country for the Khmer Rouge. It was amazing, and terrifying how many ordinances were at the museum - all of which come from the ground in Cambodia. There have been millions of landmines placed in Cambodia over the past 40 years between the U.S. (along the Vietnamese border), the Vietnamese when they invaded Cambodia inte 1970s, and mostly by the Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge who used them to cause unrest both before and after their terrible rule over the country to uner mine the efforts of the existing government, as well as during thir reign to prevent movement withing the country. What caught me the most out of everything was the fact that over 200 landmines were excavated from the site where the museum (which was very new) stood. There was sections of the grounds that were roped off because they still hadn't checked that area for any mines.

Try to count the number of ordinances you see in these tow pictures (they are different angles of the same place).

Correct answer: more than 200

Banteay Srei - the Citadel of Women

We had heard such great things and seen such amazing photographs of this temple from Sean and Erin, we just had to check it out. When they went, they were the only two people at the temple. When WE went, we were the only people beside the 3 busloads of Japanese (possibly Korean) tourists. Unfortunately, with the remote location of the temple (15 or so km out of town), there was no chance of seeing another one and coming back, so few good pictures were possible this day.

Kbal Spean - The Riverbed

This turned out to be one of the best decisions of the entire trip. It's a good 60 km out of town (about 1.5 hr tuktuk ride). At first you arrive to some vendors and parking.

You spot the rickety old wooden bridge that leads you to the path.


The path is a pretty steady, well beaten path (be sure you don't leave the path, as there are landmines in the area), providing a few nice places to rest.



You plod along for about 10-15 min.


At this point you realize you are not at the end, just at the point where the path becomes somewhat more.... vertical.



You continue along your path (thanking God that there are enough tree roots to provide rudimentary stairs) for another 15 min. or so. You have to admit that the jungle is exactly what you hoped (although not exactly the rain forest type of jungle). You also note that it's odd that the roots of a tree that can't support it's own weight, can support yours.



There is a fork, and you aren't sure which one to take, so you randomly (and correctly) select the one on the left that heads downhill.


You pass some caves and come around a corner to find....







The upper portion of the river bed.
I am also very aware that I call it Kbal Spree in the video, even though it is actually Kbal Spean.

Who needs pickup trucks?

Or a front seat?

We sat through the very dusty hour and a half tuktuk ride back to our guest house, and spent our last night in Siem Reap out with some new friends we met the previous day, who come from California, and like us are teaching overseas (they are in Japan). Oddly, on their travels they met someone from the International School of UB in Vietnam.