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Longboats
Look nice don't they, we'll they are loud as hell cause they don't put the muffler in the water. Funny how none of the travel brochures show you sweating your ass of in a room with no fan or AC with a lone vicious mosquito as company. Being hounded awake by a whine in your ear as your slipping off into a gentle sleep has got to rank in the top 10 of "Truly annoying experiences". I guess that wouldn't be a very good sales pitch though. None the less these are all some of the perils you face as you slide from chaos into bliss. Ah the rigors of travel.
Our entry point into Thailand turned out be a ferry ride across from Langkawi (Malaysia) to Ko Lipe in which we we hung out at a bar while our passports were stamped! Yup, no waiting in lines, no questions, and thank god no dealing with taxi drivers trying to rip you off. Although dealing with the noise of the taxi boats or long boats as they are called is something else all together.
Ko Lipe is rather small island surrounded by the islands in Tarutao Park. Tarutao Park is a very pristine marine reserve in which generally speaking no human habitation is allowed. Ko Lipe was exempted
Shells are pretty!
Very nice waters around Ko Lipe. since a tribe of local "sea gypsies" had established themselves on the island. So if your gonna visit the marine park most likely you'll end up staying on Ko Lipe.
Ko Lipe is another odd mix of beauty and the beast. It's similar to a Bloody Mary (Caesar for Canadians) I ordered a while back in Malaysia. Overall the Bloody Mary was pretty good and matched my mood perfectly. That being said I was a little bit startled when I stumbled upon the maraschino cherry. It just didn't seem right.
So stumbling down the shore line we jumped into a long boat after our immigration papers were cleared. That's when we really had some time to reflect upon the fact that our long boat was loud as hell. In fact as we glanced about all of the long boats were loud as hell. Looking to the end of the boat we couldn't help but notice that the a small engine was mounted high on the end of the boat. From this engine was a long pipe that the driver held onto in which the propellers where located at the end of the pipe. Kind of neat except for
Crown of Thorns.
This stuff eats coral, not so bueno. the glaring detail that they hadn't discovered what a muffler is. Yup, just a 3-stroke engine blaring out noise and fumes as we sped over an emerald glass sea. Oddly enough, I constantly dreamed about just dropping off the boat so I could drift along with the water with the noise. It's as if the water was hypnotizing my sight until all I could really look at was the flashing colors.
We've become Devotee's Of Rare & Flawless Sights (henceforth to be known as DORFS). And as a reward to our pledge of worship, we were lucky enough to be graced with several cool experiences while we island hopped our way north. The first to come our way was along the ferry boat ride when we saw a Sting Ray actually leap out of the water. We both glanced to each other after it happened to confirm we had just seen what we thought we had. Next on the list occurred during our night dive when we hovered over a moray eel on the prowl. It's so cool to see the eels at night as they lurk about on the hunt. Our eel must have glanced up and known
Lao Liang
Very nice little spot to chill, although in the off season the mesquitos are extra hungry. he had two DORFS starring down at him, because no sooner had we glanced on for new things to look at then he decided to put on a show for us. Quicker then I could certainly move underwater the moray eel snatched a moon wrasse fish (bright blue cute little fishie). Retreating a little the moray eel wolfed down his fresh fishie in delight giving us all an excellent show! It truly pays to be DORF at times 😊 Moving on from the eel we soon found ourselves starring at a giant puffer fish. Granted we've seen allot of puffer fish, but this fish was so big, it was,, *stretches arms out quite a bit*, well needless to say when we told the other dive instructors who weren't on our dive they flat out didn't believe us. They gave us that smug French laugh at how absurd we were. But after we called in the dive leader who accompanied us, they nodded their heads in agreement that it was indeed a very big puffer fish.
We let the next week stretch out for us as we rotated our schedules. It went something like this.
7:00am: wake to the
morning rush hour of long boats that are starting up and then passing our bamboo hut along the beach. It's was almost worst then being in a Canadian suburb on the weekend during the summertime when every little blade of grass is being finely combed over by lawn mowers and weed whackers (damn, forgot to add that to our Calgary blog.)
8:30am: work our way over to the restaurant so we can be get fed and ready for our dive trip.
11:00am: we learn what French time really means since our dive outfit is run by a group of them. Needless to say, nobody ever moved quick or had any remote sense of getting on with the day. It was kind of nice but took a little adjusting to.
1:00am: munch on some pineapple and rice as we take a break after our first dive. I reflect upon how insanely beautiful the dive was while wondering why my air consumption is so damn terrible. Glancing over to clover I harbor some diving jealousy as she always has tons of air left in her tank. She's a breathing Champ and even comes to the surface sometimes with more
left then the dive instructors.
3:00 immerse ourselves in the tranquil seas for a while to cool off, then we head to shade for siesta time.
6:00 poking our heads out the hammock we begin to discuss where and what to eat.
9:00 hang out, have some cigars and listen to chill out music while we play with the local kittens.
Rinse and repeat that for about 1 week. And that, is how you ease in the good life, granted little more mosquito repellent would have been divine!
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Carlito
non-member comment
Excellent Narration
Hey Scooter, That was a great recount of your recent travels. Keep it up it's really interesting. You may want to consider doing a little writing instead of coming back to the oil patch,...it fits you better. Cheers, carlito