Swimming With Dolphins in Chantaburri

---

30th March 2005
Koh Chang, Thailand.

So today I packed up my stuff and finished up my room bill and all and took off on the dolphin package with a plan to go straight to Lonely Beach, which had been recommended to me, instead of staying longer at White Sands. I wanted to see more of the island than one beach. So I loaded up all my bags into the jeep (I was the only one booked that day for dolphin swimming - they don't have very good advertising and most people no doubt never realise it's there) and off we went.

Had to go back over to Trat on the ferry and then about an hour to Chantaburri. Fell asleep a few times, and then we turned off and went in to this park-like place with like a drive-by catacombe of roads to see all of these statues of monks and Buddha-related things. The scenes/statues were all larger than life-sized and well painted, very nicely done, and I wished that I had gotten photos. But I thought that it was the beginning of the Oasis Sea World place with the dolphins and that I'd take photos on the way back. Nup. I did get one, though, with the stone/concrete/whatever monks all praying in front of the Buddha. My guide, Bee Ba, explained all the different scenes as we drove past and it was very interesting. Also had a lot of huts and stone-rooms and such with actual monks, so was a real, working Buddhist temple/farm.

But we finally got to the Oasis Sea World in Chantaburri and watched the dolphin show, which was very good, and then off we walked to another, bigger pool with a floating deck-thing in the middle, and I had to cut off all my nails and rinse off with a tap and on went the life jacket and then I was in the water, swimming towards the floating deck. It was excellent, we (me and about 6 other touists) got to practice tricks with them and reward them with fish and jump in and hold their dorsal fin and be towed around by them - not all together, there were about five points on the raft doing different things, and you'd get ushered back and forth and we all got to do it in a private, singular sort of fashion. It was grouse, absolutely excellent, and my guide was happy to take plenty of photos with my camera, too, which was lovely.

They were vey generous with their time, too. I must have been out there with the dolphins for about an hour. The dolphins, species being Irrawaddy and Pacific Humpback, were both smaller and larger, in that order with the two species, than I expected. All very funny, intelligent animals, though.

Afterward there was a free lunch and then back to Koh Chang where he burned the photos onto a cd for free and I hand-wrote a letter of recommendation. By the end I was feelig very guilty at paying only 1500 baht, which is less than $60AU, for what turned out to be about six and a half hours of his time. I would definitely recommend the package to anybody, very very good value for money.

So after all that I bought some cream for my very very red face (not allowed suncream for dolphin swimming, it makes them sick) and a share-taxi to Lonely Beach, which to my disappoitment is not a sand-beach but a rock-beach. But there is a very cheap Day Spa nearby and still plenty of sun and the lovely hut I'm staying in is only 200 baht, about $8AU, and I've met a lovely English (again, place is swarming with them) lady, Anna, and we get along great and it's all just absolutely lovely. Must go now, though, will write again soon.

---