Thursday 17 July 2008

Angthong Marine Park

Went on a speedboat to Angthong Marine Park on a boat that takes 35 passengers. There were 24 of us. One of the Thai crew spoke a little English. The boat was full of Israelis, Germans and Italians who didn't speak English. It took about an hour to get there and when we got there we did one hour of snorkelling. The water is green and the visibility was poor due to low tide but with green water you're never going to get the good visibility I'm used to. There were some corals and coral reef fish. The corals were not as good as those on the Great Barrier Reef. Also they give you masks and snorkels but no fins. They wanted to give me a lifejacket and I said I was a good swimmer and didn't need one. This German guy with a lifejacket got caught in a current and ended up a long way from the boat. T he boat had to up anchor and get him. He was shaking like a leaf back on the boat and couldn't open his water bottle so I opened it for him and calmed him down. They didn't give directions as to which way to swim and experienced diver that I am I started swimming against the current and came back with it. I noticed most people went with the current and had to struggle to get back to the boat.

I went kayaking with the Kayak Leader, Wang Ton (pronounced wonton). He was all muscle and energy and spoke very good English. He wore a colourful scarf on his head and I thought he was handsome. He asked me to guess where he was from and I was saying all these places in Thailand, when he revealed he was from Burma. When I told him I was a social worker he thought that was good because I was helping others and helping myself. When I turned around there were about 40 kayaks behind me. We couldn't go inside the cave unfortunately because of low tide. Wang Ton wanted me to climb the mountain with him after lunch but I needed to rest. And just as well because the climb to the lake was really hard. The stairs were vertical and you had to hold onto the rails and pull yourself up. I went down to the lake and then up to the lookout. It was very hot and I was perspiring profusely.

I was so exhausted when we got back and felt so depleted, I had to have some Bruschetta, Gnocchi, capuccino and heaps of water and went to bed at 7pm. It was a full on day and I had such intense muscle aches in my thighs from the climbing. Even the one and half hour massage didn't take the pain away and I ached with every step I had to climb and there are a lot of steps at Baan Haad Ngam.