Snorkel heaven, Tuk-Tuks and Thai Babies

Snorkelling is my new favorite thing. :) Tommy-boy and I have gone twice on this trip and both times, it was like swimming in a tropical fish tank. The first trip left from Khao Lak and was a day trip to the Ko Similan islands. The boat takes you out to various reefs and just dumps you in the water for about 45 minutes at a time and what you see is incredible. Coral in all colours waving in the water, fish of all sizes, with black and yellow stripes and aqua blue with shimmering pink scales, schools of fish which swim all around you, sea anemone and clownfish, parrotfish and zebra fish, and the water is a crystal green-blue. It's actually heaven. The Ko Similans are the epitome of a tropical paradise... white sand, palms and clear water and they're a national park so they're protected from development. The other snorkeling trip we took left from Ko Lanta and took us to another national park island called Ko Rok. Both trips offered spectacular trips and by the second trip, Tommy-boy (who was nervous about snorkeling at first) was the first one off of the boat and the last one one and was dragging me around the reef to point out fish and coral. It was great to see.

We left Khao Lak on Friday morning and had to flag down a bus on the side of the road to make the two-hour journey to Phuket (for 90 baht per person - the equivalent of 2 euro!). It was a local bus with piped in Thai elevator music...haha... but it was air-conditioned and we made it to Phuket in good time. After that we had to find a taxi. The drivers get kick backs for delivering farangs to various tourist industries and bartering for fare is standard so getting a taxi can be a bit more complicated than it seems... As soon as we arrive in any given place, we're swarmed with people yelling, "taxi!" "tuk-tuk!" etc... and you have to wade through and try to figure out who looks reputable and who will take you where you want to go for a reasonable price. After walking around Phuket for a while, we got ourselves a reasonably priced taxi and made it to the pier. Unfortunately, the ferry operators decided to jack the price up by a few hundred baht and since the ferry route goes through Ko Phi-Phi which is tourist central, we had no choice but to pay. The ride was thankfully smooth and airconditioned and we ate pineapple on a stick and settled in for a few hours until we literally had to jump from one boat to the next to get from the Phi-Phi boat to the smaller boat which would take us to Ko Lanta.

We took the Ko Lanta version of a tuk-tuk to our bungalows when we arrived at the pier which is a motorbike fitted with a roof and side car with a long bench. You can get five people into these things! The transport has been creative to say the least! It was such a relief to arrive in Ko Lanta after an entire day on buses and boats and when we arrived, our friends, Jess and Melinda were sitting by the ocean waiting for us. Loveliness.

We've decided to base ourselves from Ko Lanta for the rest of our trip. This island is beautiful and there are so many things to do. There are small thai children who want to get onto this computer and a rooster keeps crowing from somewhere behind me so I'm off. More later.

Cheers.
D.