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Published: October 20th 2009
Well, after I had finished uploading everything last night I headed off to Sunset Bar to watch the sunset. The view is incredible, there is a steep drop off from a hilltop where waves crash onto the rocks below. There were a few clouds that were obstructing the view a bit, magical none the less. As tables filled up I offered the bench across from me to a couple from Austria who are here honeymooning.
Well after sunset I wandered back down the hill, showered and headed off to find dinner. There is a server girl at Sawadee Restaurant who rushes out to see me every time I pass. Her name is Bamboo and she came to work here from a village near Bangkok where her family has owned a chicken farm for years. She said there is much money in chicken farming and that she wants to own her own. She said could make about 500.000 Baht or $15,000 US dollars a year. She kept me company while I dined. I asked her about walking to Tonsai Village from our side of the island. She told me it would take about two hours, there are many very mean monkeys
Sea Gypsy Kids
They just ran up to me, waving and blowing kisses. along the way, if it is high tide I may have to swim/wade through some mangroves to get there, and will most definitely get lost on this very narrow path through the jungle. Sounds perfect I thought. She told me a story of here drinking a beer while on the path and a monkey jumped out of the trees onto the path and snatched her beer. The monkey then proceeded to climb a nearby tree chug the beer and throw the can at her. I thought it was a pretty awesome story. After dinner I headed off to bed. Between getting up at 05:30 every morning and watching the sunrise while walking or running and swimming and diving all of the morning into afternoon I have been going to bed pretty early.
This morning I woke up about 05:20 and hit the beach again. I like running in the quiet before the rest of the world is awake. It is just me and the sea gypsies out at that time, I watch them hunt for crabs in the sand digging with their pick axes and hammers. I caught the sunrise sitting on the beach with two guys from Australia
Maya Bay
This is a new view I have seen around quite a bit. Huge rain clouds rolled in shortly after sunrise and dumped buckets of rain on the island for about four minutes, and just as quickly as it had come it was gone and the sun was back in the sky.
As I was waiting for the rain to dry up I caught up on some of my email and posted videos to Facebook and things like that. About 10:00 I headed up to find my two Aussie friends that had gone missing the night before. I found Sophie as I walked up to their hotel and she agreed to join me for my day. Kirsty had gotten sick the day before and had decided to spend the day relaxing in the ocean. I had plans to go to Tonsai Village today to do a bit of shopping but more importantly to send some postcards out. (I send my little sister, Maleka, a postcard from everywhere that I visit. It is important that it has the stamp from the post office that send it from.)
Sophie and I headed out with Reem, the same drive I had hired previous. Sophie and Kirsty had
not gone to Phi Phi Lae and had no plans to go, so I decided that Sophie needed to see it. With our snorkels and masks in tow we headed off to Phi Phi Lae.
Maya Bay was packed with tourists when we arrived, but still an awe inspiring sight to behold. We walked to the back entrance of Maya Bay as the tide was coming in and waves were crashing through and into the small bay that one can climb up and down to walk to Maya Bay. After a walk back and a few photos we hoped backed into the boat and Reem took us to do a bit of snorkeling in Pileh Bay. My favorite part of this snorkel trip was three cuttlefish. They were amazing, you wouldn’t believe the way they change colors. After a short swim, and many boats passing overhead, we took off towards Viking Cave to have a look.
The most exciting thing that I have done to this point in the trip happened next. We went back to the place where I had jumped from two days before. I told Reem that I wanted to jump again. There were two
others jumping today; both from the short jump, eight meters or so. I went on a jump a few meters above them. The jump was fun, but I really wanted something higher, so I climbed back up. This time I had to climb over several large crevasses to make it to a much higher jump. I made an awesome jump from what Reem thought was 20 meters, or about 60 feet, it felt much higher. The jump was so great; the rush from it has still not worn off. (
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To wind down we went to Tonsai Village to have a bite and so I could sent my postcards. This was my first time really exploring Tonsai, there are a ton of shops and eateries. We wondered through a bit haggling for goods that we liked. I got some great carvings of the “hear no evil,” “see no evil,” “speak no evil” monkeys. After a horrible experience at the post office, where the help took two personal calls and held a side conversation with customers in the shop, we headed to Bamboo Island. We took a brief trip into the coral and had a look at a few of
the fish, the best thing we found was a sea star on the bottom.
After Bamboo we headed back to Don and headed up to sunset bar. There were a few too many clouds in the sky for a spectacular sunset but the company was a great change. I was finally no longer the sole person at the singles table. Kirsty is feeling better and is right now enjoying a cocktail with Sophie and I, after we both had a much needed shower.
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