Back on the move

It’s a quiet Monday in Krabi, Thailand. It seems like no one is here. The beaches and hotels are empty. We arrived here yesterday afternoon and I have been battling a case of food poisoning for the past 24 hours. YUCK. When we got to our hotel, I was not ready to go anywhere. So, Chris and I sat on the bed and proceeded to undo my braids. After 5 days of tight corn rows, my hair was a frizzy, tangled mess. Which made for good pics.

Taking the braids out felt good. But, my stomach still feels bad.

So, I am sitting here in the Air Conditioned hotel room while Chris is braving the heat to get some lunch. I’ll be having rice a soda water, which is all I’ve eaten in Krabi.

Aside from the past 24 hours on the toilet, this week has been great. Our stay at View Cliff resort was just right. Again, I think we were the only guests there at the time. So, we had the beautiful beach cove all to ourselves.

 The beach at View Cliff 

 The balcony outside our room  

The hotel was great, but we didn’t spend much time there because we were busy diving around and exploring the island on our rental scooter.

This is the patio of the dive school where we would sit each morning and drink a coffee while our instructor reviewed the reading with us. The view was lovely.

  

The last two days of diving, we explored the ship wreck of the HTMS Sattakut (A US Navy WWII ship) that was sunk late in 2011 as an artificial reef. Even after only being sunk for 9 months, it was already home to many fish and some corals too. After being out on the water for 5 or 6 hours with only pineapple and tea, all of the divers would look forward to being greeted by the samosa man. I know Samosas aren’t Thai. But, these were so good and only 20 Baht a piece (60 cents) YUM!

Kate enjoys a samosa

The last day of diving was the best. We went on a night dive! The boat departed the dive school at sunset, and on board were 6 of the people we had been diving with all week. It felt like we were amongst friends! There was a couple from Mumbai, India (Bino and Antima) a couple of guys from Australia and a man from England named Steve. Once the boat reached the dive spot, we swam around and waited for the sun to set. We dove with big underwater flashlights and on that one dive Chris and I saw a huge turtle, 5 or 6 blue-spotted rays and a CUTTLEFISH!! We had really hoped we’d get to se a cuttlefish and we were the only ones on the boat that saw it. At one point, our instructor had us stop on the sea floor and turn our flashlights off to watch the bioluminescent plankton swirl in front of us as we moved our hands through the water. FAR OUT!

Fully satisfied with our diving experience, we spent the next couple of days just hanging out. The bar/restaurant near our hotel had good food and ambience.

We had dinner there, played some pool and met a really nice couple (Kat and Pat) from Quebec, Canada who have been traveling for months. They enjoyed watching Game of Thrones at the restaurant, so we immediately hit it off. 

Having the rental scooter was great, it really allowed us to explore the island, and at only 150 baht per day, it was cheaper than one cab ride.

      

Our last night on Koh Tao, we went to the Rasta Bar for some drinks, and a few games of Jenga and Connect 4 with the bartender. Just about when Kate had enough to drink, our friends from the dive school showed up and asked us if we wanted to go out with them. Of course we did, so we hopped back on scooter (I was sober) and followed them down to Sairee beach to Lotus Bar, which was hopping with a bunch of wasted Europeans drunk on buckets (literally) of tropical booze. We grabbed some pillows on the sand and watched some awesome fire dancers while enjoying  a bucket of our own, and some pad thai. Around 11:30 or so Andy, a Norwegian dive instructor, had to leave to pick his Thai girlfriend up from work. Bino and Antima kept the party going, inviting us to follow them to Babaloo, an extremely cool bar on a secluded beach.  We checked out the funky bar which had an ice chest full of beer and live fish, and sat out on the beach for one last drink.  As Kate and Antima decided to test out the hammocks slung over the water, Bino and I made bets about who would fall in first. We both agreed it would be Kate. Yet somehow she made it out unscathed, and just coherent enough to get into the taxi. We left the scooter at the bar, as I had finally caught up with Kate. It was a great way to end our stay on Koh Tao, and the next morning we were back on the high speed catamaran headed to Koh Samui.

Goodbye Koh Tao! We love you!

After spending the past 10 days or so on such a tiny island (1 mile wide and 2 miles long) we felt like we were arriving at a big city on Koh Samui (even though its only 15 miles across) We checked into a little bungalow resort called Secret Garden. It too was located directly on the beach, and gave us a great view of the sunset.

Kate and I had dinner here, which was just okay, but unfortunately not worth it, as this is where Kate got food poisoning.  The next morning we got up, had breakfast and headed to the airport for a 45 minute plane ride to Krabi. Kate spent 20 of those minutes in the lavatory.

Another 20 minute cab ride later, and we arrived at our new hotel, The Emerald Garden in Ao Nang.  The hotel is really nice, there’s a couple of pools and tropical vegetation everywhere. We’ve spent the past 24 hours lounging around the pool and in the room, giving Kate time to recuperate. 

She’s feeling a lot better now, and we’re gonna head into town tonight to check out Krabi and grab some food. Tomorrow we’re going sea kayaking in the morning, and then heading over to Phuket for a plane ride up to Chiang Mai.