Rain in Koh Adang

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-Koh Adang- The sky is pissing a piss as if it went out drinking last night, stumbled home intoxicated, and passed out before relieving it's bulging bladder. OH the relief it must feel. It's lucky it didn't pee it's cottony cloud sheets before it woke up for the day. How emberassing had the sun woken up and had to wash piss soaked cloud sheets first thing. If theres one thing the sun hates, its having to clean up after the sloppy sky after a night of his debaucherous drinking! That is NOT what she signed up for when, so many many moons ago, they eloped in vegas, elvis officiant and all.

So as you may have guessed, we have arrived on Koh Adang. And yes, it is in fact raining. Why, right now as I write this I can hear the piddle paddle of raindrops on the tent like toddler feet scuddling on a linoleum daycare floor. Getting here was an adventure in it's own right. Lepe sucks Andre the Giant's presumably giant testicles. So crowded and over-developed. Very sad.

It is currently a Thai holiday. A 4 day weekend extravaganza in the name of Lord Buddha!! Our "ferry" yesterday, thought to be a mere one hour tour, ended up as more of a pleasure cruise for Thai tourists. The boat was packed! 400 baht per ticket for standing room only by the time we made it aboard. And, oh yeah, did we forget to mention were stopping to let everyone off at a random island so they can give the piece sign under a natural stone arch and snap 18 million photos to prove that they were in fact here, NOT swimming, NOT snorkelling, and not REALLY appreciating or even seeming to notice the natural beauty all around that is being damaged by irresponsible tour operators just like this one? Oh HEY! Mr. Boatman! Could you please throw that massive anchor into that struggling coral right there? I'd like it to be my whirlwind tour of the islands that finishes the job, thanks! It is very sad how oblivious many local people seem to be to protecting the environment. It just must not be in any way part of the education over here, which is a real shame. Especially since so much of the economy relies so heavily on tourism. And no tourists will come once the beaches are all trashed, the coral is all dead, and the environment as a whole is destroyed.

Finally, our ferry pulled into the bay on Koh Lepe, and we were dropped off on a piece of cement and rubber off the shore; A man-made turd floating in god's toilet bowl; Someone forgot to flush. We stood around, packed in like sardines in a can, waiting for a longtail to the shore of Lepe so we could try to use the internet to glean some needed information. They first wanted us to pay a 30 baht "environmental fee" to set foot on Lepe, which clearly must have gone directly to keeping the environment of Lepe drunk, stupid, and clueless.

We made it to shore, used our over-priced internet, gleaned our useful information, and got the hell outta there. But not before longtail drivers tried to charge us 200 baht per person to take a 5 minute, 50 baht trip to Adang. I could have thrown a rock across the channel that seperated the two islands. We've only been on Lepe a half hour. We aren't THAT drunk and oblivious yet, thank you very much.

The sea, during our short trip over, was like an angry soccer mob after a devestating loss, cursing us and spitting in our faces. By the time we pulled onto shore we were all thoroughly drenched in the salty spittle of the sea.Thankfully she had not been chewing winterfresh gum, and her mouth and spittle alike, felt a balmy 98.6 degrees.

We checked in at park headquarters, dropped our extra gear behind the counter, and scampered off to find a tent site and erect what was to be our dormicile for the next 4 nights. And now, we are here, being spat upon again, or pissed upon I suppose, by this BORING, uniformally gray sky. HAH! Anyone with any fashion sense at all knows every outift needs a pop of color or flare to intrigue the eye and make it stand out. Wheres your smear of sunrise pink? your patch of sky blue? your streak of lightning yellow? I thought you far more fashionable than this, sky!... FAR!!!

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