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George's World Travels
Where did I leave you?
Sheltering from the monsoon weather again in Ko Phi Phi I guess on our somewhat miserable middle and may I add ONLY full day on the island! The hihlight of the day was buying many pretty flower hairclips and finally becoming up to date with my postcards. Oh dear.
So yes that night we went shopping around the stalls along the main street, and had dinner in a nice French place where on the front of the menu we were informed that the boss and creator of the restaurant had been killed in the Tsunami. Much of the island was devasted by the waves, especially the area we staued in. It was eary to look around the place, so buzzing with life now and 'back to normal', that it was hard to believe what had happened. But the pictures and little momentos such as that brought it home. It was like walking around Pompeii, imagining the fear and destruction, but instead of centuries ago this was a mere 19 months.
On our last few hours on the island we roamed around some of the bays on Phi Phi Lay on our own put put boat. By the second bay (of which we dont know the name due to the drivers lack of English) we snorkelled. It was amazing. Bringing back so many memories of Australia. Actually a lot of Thailand has reminded me of the conitinent. Although the variation of the reef off Cape Trib was not matched here, there were other joys. Fish came so so so close to us. None were shy! I had to keep my arms moving around to stop them form going into my face (flashes of a conversation with Emma and Sarah were looming in my mind of how they were bitten by the critters in samui). We saw yellow and black striped ones-these were the over friendly fish. then the fish from finding nemo-the mysterious one with a scar on its face in the tank. And lots of rainbow coloured ones that Nicki loved that refleced every colour imaginable.
Our last port of call on the boating expedition was Monkey Bay, where all these wild monkeys come, inquisitively up to unsuspecting and delighted tourists to pick at their hair, swing in trees, see how close they can get, and then attack you!
I was one of the unfotunate souls that was atacked. As Nicki reprimanded me, "You must have done somehting to provoke them". Well to this I blame my dad. From him I inherited his obsession with photographs and geting 'just the right one'. This was to be my down fall. After spotting two cute monkeys playing and going under a tree trunk, where they could peer from underneath to observe the goings on of the island, I thought, 'wow, that would be such an awesome photo, them peering back at me!'. The result of this revelation is a picture taken perhaps a second or two late, as the expression of the monkeys face turned from cute and cuddly to 'I am fierce and will attack!'. One second later I have two monkeys running for me and clawing my legs, me screaming and running around trying to shake the b*****s off and everyone else laughing. Maybe I might have seemed a tad intimidating trying to get close to capture the perfect shot but I meant them no harm and felt very guilty aferwards for clearly having scared them.
My consolation comes in others also being attacked, and my conclusion that the monkeys didnt have o come close to all of us but obviously seemed curious and intrigued by our boats and little groups. However, they must have also been on edge and perhaps pushed their fear to the limits to see who we were and what we were doing.
All in all the morning was a great success, especially in comparison with the previous day. The sun was shining and we had our Phi Phi Lay experience. The bays were gorgeous, the water shimmering and amazingly clear and snorkelling was breathtaking.
Our ferry crossing back to Krabi at 2pm also followed our change in fortunes and was sunny all the way across, athough very wet due to the splashing waves. (Later, we realised our mistake in not applying enough sunscreen-extremely burnt backs! Alas, they are now tanned, a big improvement and we didnt peal so alls good.)
A night back at Seaview resort (where we stayed in Krabi before) was lovely, although Nicki was feeling very unwell and 'Krabi', haha her joke not mine. So not so fun. A dinner of a cucumber salad, consisting solely of cucumber, was not welcomed!
I was also constantly checking my email to see if Byron was in town yet, sadly we missed him by a day or two, which sucks, and I fear was probably my fault somehow, what with our strict itinerary. Sorry if you're reading this!
Our next day was spent trying to get to Khao Sok national Park, an apparent 2.5 hour car ride away. Our transfer to the bus stop, where our transport departed was over an hour late. Then we waited other 40 minutes at the bus stop. Then...we huddled on the two small front seats of the minivan, which was unair-conditioned compared to the cool remainder of the van for almost 3 hours. Oh god, what an unbelievably horrid trip. We were so smelly and gross when we go off and to top it off our normal routine of getting rid of clothes and jumping into the cool clean showers of our next accommodation (seperately!) was not to be in our somewhat basic jungle hut. However, after we had recovered somewhat we able to appreciate the jungle hut, learching in the jungle canopy. Was a pretty awesome place to stay.
Read onto the next postcard for the national park....!
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