I want winter!

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We ended up booking a snorkeling trip from Trang to go the Emerald Cave which is something we've been looking forward to since the beginning. It was a bit expensive but worth it. Our boat was pretty big. They told us there were 200 people booked on the same trip the day before so they had to use 3 boats and our trip had 9 people which was great. It wasn't crowded at all and we met some nice Thai families. The view was awesome. Huge cliffs that jut out of the water and little rock islands that are narrower on the bottom than the top. Caves dotted the cliffs and bats hung from branches everywhere. They took us to 4 islands to snorkel which was amazing. We saw tons of fish and coral and the water was calm so I didn't panic at all. There were jellyfish in the water however, and they stung Craig 3 times. I somehow managed to evade them but I was definately scared. His neck is still red from the last one that stung him. There seems to be a lot of them on the Andaman coast. We ate pineapple and some strange Thai food while sitting on the boat and then we headed for the last stop, the Emerald Cave. We all put on lifejackets and put our cameras in the guides dry bag and then we all swam after him as he led us by flashlight thru this 800m cave to a lagoon on the other side. It was surrounded by huge walls and had a little beach. It was so nice. It was near the end of the day and getting a bit chilly so I stayed in the water and sat on my lifejacket like it was a little flotation device. There were tons of Thai tourists on the beach and in the water and this rather large Thai lady came over and grabbed me and was hugging me and swinging me around and showing me to all of the others while saying things in Thai. I was a little wary at first and then I started to get downright scared that she was trying to drown me. She was tossing me around and splashing me and I couldn't get away from her. Meanwhile, all of the Thai men were laughing and yelling 'go home' at me which was horrible I thought. Craig was off taking pictures and missed the entire thing. Thankfully they didn't drown me. The Thai tourists eventually formed a huge line holding onto each others life jackets and left, singing the whole way thru the cave. I was glad to see them go. We spent a bit more time there, playing in the sand that was a kind of quick sand that pulled at your feet. Then we went back and started the long trip back to shore. We started talking with this family from Bangkok. Mom, Dad and their boy of about 7 or 8. They told us their son had a teacher from Calgary and that they were going to send him to school in BC when he was in grade 7. We exchanged emails and cards and they told us to contact them when we get back to Bangkok so they can show us around. They were very nice and even offered us a ride home but we already had one.
We went and ate some more terrible food after that as Trang is not known for it's amazing cuisine and then we went to bed, tired from a long day at sea. The next day we got a tuk tuk to the bus station and took a bus to Hat Yai. We were crammed into a tiny mini bus with no room and I had another Thai guy sleeping on my shoulder. We had thought the trip was 40 kilometres but it was actually 140! I was starting to get really claustrophobic and then we were there. Hat Yai is a bit more of an active city. We found a cheap room for the night and set off to find some food. The first place we ate was out of the lonely planet since there was only 3 restaurants in the book and we had no idea where else to try. Not a ton of english to choose from. The food wasn't too bad and we spent the afternoon reading books in our room. We tried another place out of the lonely planet for dinner and it was awful. I saw a sign on the wall advertising tomato soup and grilled cheese and I should have known better but I was way too tempted at seeing two of my favorite things paired together and at a decent price. I thought I would give them the benefit of the doubt and there wasn't much else for me to order. It arrived and my heart sank. The soup was really, oddly sick and the strangest shade of no-color I have ever seen. I made Craig try it first and he didn't keel over so I tried it and it tasted vaguely of tomato but it was definately no campbells. The grilled cheese was a tiny piece of white bread with three tiny strips of white cheese melted on the top. I choked down a few spoonfuls of soup and the bread but I was still starving. I ordered some southern style rice with salad and it arrived as a pile of rice with horrible sauce on top and some strange stuff that resembled sawdust all over it. There were bean sprouts, little slivers of cucumber and other vegetables around it. I ate a few of the beansprouts and a mouthful of rice but I couldn't eat anymore. It was a very disappointing meal to say the least. So it was really not my fault that we went back to the room and had to buy ourselves a magnum which is an amazing ice cream bar covered in chocolate that Corey, Amanda, Craig and I got addicted to in Cambodia. Let's just say we will be coming home the same size as we left.
Craig woke up the next day on the complete wrong side of the bed. The traffic kept him up all night I guess while I slept like a baby somehow. I don't think I've ever seen him so crabby. It was a bit funny but I tried to stay out of his way. We found the bus station and booked a trip to the border. We had to wait awhile and then we had to walk about a kilometre to the border and then we signed out of Thailand, into Malaysia, back out of Malay and back into Thailand. Took us about a half hour and then we walked back up to the bus station. We also realized that we crossed the border on the wrong day and we had to leave on the 3rd instead of the 4th, when our flight is booked for. So now we either have to pay a fee or try to change it again. Silly!! Anyway, we had no idea how we would get back but we sat at the bus station for 15 minutes and all of a sudden this public bus roared up and the lady called out 'Hat Yai' and we hopped on. The bus was awesome. It had huge speakers and they were watching an english movie with Thai dubbed over it so it was quite funny. They also had the volume up waaaaay too loud. We sat in the back with boxes and boxes of food they brought from Malaysia. It was roomy and the open windows provided fresh air that was so much better for my carsickness than being in an air conditioned van. It only cost us 40 baht as well which was less than a 1/3 of what it cost us to get there! I wish we knew about that on the way there. We arrived back and booked another bus to Krabi which was uneventful for the most part. Then we had to take a big truck tuk tuk for 45 minutes to another town called Ao Nang. Then we caught a longtail boat to Railay beach where we stayed for 2 nights. It is beautiful there with huge cliffs all around and a few different beaches. It is a huge rock climbing town but we figured we don't really have the strength or the cash for that right now so there wasn't much to do. We hiked thru the jungle to another beach which was a horrible hike for me as I am nowhere near in shape and it was blistering hot but we made it and realized we could walk a much shorter distance back thru the water and on the rocks. I wish we knew that in the first place! I suppose it was good for us though. We had a swim in the crystal clear waters with soft sand and watched these two jellyfish that had crabs inside of them. They baffled me so much and I couldn't figure it out but I guess the jellyfish wash up on shore and the crabs climb on and then the tide comes and takes them back out, giving the crabs a lift until it is beached again. Very strange. I got some photos that hopefully turn out ok. We watched a Will Ferrell movie that was quite funny at this restaurant one night. The food wasn't that good but I found mango and sticky rice which I had on Koh Tao with Megan and it is now my most favorite thing ever. I can't believe i never tried it till then. It is on my mind always now. We left this morning on a long tail boat where we got soaked but it was nice since it was so hot. Now we are back in Ao Nang and spending a night here before we head off to Phuket tomorrow morning. I can't wait to get home!!

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