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Published: February 18th 2006
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Bungalow View
View from te Balcony I got robbed last night, and maybe I deserved it…
I arrived onto the smaller of the duo known as the Pernehitian Isliands. The weather was rough that morning and the waves were choppier than usual. It was advised that if you wanted to ensure passage from the mainland, that you take the earliest ferry before the winds take control of everything. 8:30 Fast Boat.
The boat will only take you towards the island where you have to fetch a water taxi nearly 40 meters from the beach. By the time I reached the island, the waves had picked up and the taxis were only working out of Coral Bay. This wasn’t a large issue because its only a ten minute walk by trail across to Long Beach, also known as the nicest beach I had seen in years.
There was one substantial factor preventing Long Beach from being the beach of dreams. There were bungalows nestled into te rocks overlooking the beach, tiki bars and shallow water. But there was trash EVERYWHERE!!! It was such a shame to see candy bar wrappers and tin cans littered all over the beach and in the surf. An even sader
Bocce Ball
That's our bungalow in the background... situation allowed me to find locals burning bonfires of the trash they had already collected in preparation for te upcoming tourist season.
I had arrived weeks prior to the end of monsoon season and the tourists had yet to flock. Its said that during high season in the middle of july, you can’t actually see the beach due all the hung-over bodies everywhere. But its not July, it's February and there couldn’t have been more than 20 western tourists on the entire island. With the rigors of traveling like a fugitive behind us, it was time for some serious R and R.
Breakfast was quickly followed by a meandering game of Bocce Ball that took the course all over the beach. During Bocce, three mildly attractive British girls plopped down on the sand directly in the middle of our undefined course and it was inevitable that our game would revolve around the girls until either Royal or I figured a less than lame reason to talk to them. Our excuse came at lunch time when we overheard they were headed into Thailand following their departure from this island and a few boat drinks later, we all had plans
to snorkel away the afternoon.
As I’m learning, in every touristy destination, you can do just about anything you want, for a negotiable price. I’m not sure if I flashed too many Ringgits when we were paying at the bar, or when we paid for the boat and snorkeling, but at some point during the day Royal and I acquired very large Bull’s-eyes on our backs. The ratio of natives living and working at the Moonlight Chalet where we stayed to tourists was around eight to one, so it was hard to pinpoint the mastermind behind the eventual theft, but someone there knew what was about to happen and that person surely was not me.
Now I’ve never swam with Reef Sharks or Sea Turtles before yesterday and am anxious to do it again as soon as possible. The reef shark was either swimming in circles around some fish, or circling 5 nice little human snacks. Either way, snorkeling was over as fast as I could get back into the boat. (By the way, is anyone noticing a serious fear of sharks in any of these blogs?) The ride in the glorified skiff was fun as we jetted
away over some sizable waves at speeds far less safe than you'd find anyone traveling if we hadn't haggled the price of the trip down to near nothing. While we cruised around the island, we were privy to some beautiful scenes of the island and secluded beaches that really made me regret not bring a camera but the speeds and amount of water inside the boat eased my mind in my decision.
When el capitan finally slowed his frantic pace on the sea, the search for Sea Turtles becaume priority number one. Our boat cruised around for a solid half hour attempting to spot turtles and every time captin said he saw one, we all jumped into the water as fast as possible, without ever being able to see the damn turtles. I finally was able to see one and nearly touched its shell 10 meters underwater before it realized I was behind it and swam away faster than I knew turtles could swim. I would like to thank the creators of Finding Nemo at this point in time because the characters of the Sea Turtles on the EAC are absolute classics and Royal and I have been quoting
that movie endlessly throughout our travels.
Snorkeling turned into more boat drinks which turned into a BBQ on the beach back at Coral Bay for the grand total of about $10. We had Mackrel, Baraccuda, Lobster, chicken and lots of other little goodies that had been freshly caught that day. Dinner conversation with the British girls consisted of Royal and I attempting to straighten out some stereotypes the girls had about Americans that had been sparked by movies such as "She's All That" and " American Pie". Three hours later all we could establish that Proms were fun, Frat Parties really could look like that, but not with bikini clad girls everywhere, and not everyone in the states owns either a shotgun or a mercedes. We said goodbye to the girls a little after midnight, we headed back to our bungalow.
Its my own stupidity that got me robbed. I wanted to hear the sounds of the ocean as I fell asleep so I left the windows wide open. I told Royal that if someone wanted to rob us, they’d have to climb into the window and onto my bed, where I would surely wake up. Anyone that
has spent any significant amount of time in my presence will attest to teh fact that I can fall alseep nearly anywhere and will not wake up for even a hurricane. Well I didn’t wake up and the monkey that climbed into my window made off with nearly $100 cash. No cameras or anything else of value including our wallets was taken so today I count my blessings, but I’d surely like to smack the shit out of the monkey that robbed me…
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Stas
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Mingers
It must have been one of those British dirty birds that snagged your cash, or did you give it up willingly? You got biscuit arsed by a birmingham screwdriver.