Koh Samui and Fishies

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For those of you who are keeping track, I am not actually writing this on February 14th. I got lazy/busy during my travels and didn't bother to write any blog updates. Fortunately, this thing lets me post things at a previous date. So I will be doing some time-traveling here.

Our time in Koh Samui is almost over; tomorrow we're headed to a new island, Koh Phangan, supposedly the ultimate backpacker paradise of the Gulf of Thailand. Yesterday we went on a ridiculously expensive snorkeling tour of the other main island in this ocean, Koh Tao. We left the hostel early and got on a ferry, then switched boats at a small dock near Koh Tao for the real snorkeling tour. Our guide was a Thai guy named Nelly, who spoke a funny broken but comprehensible English that it seemed like only us four or five Americans understood or cared to understand. He was accompanied by an Australian guy who seemed to me at first to be the head of the show, because he came out on our way out to the reef and made a pretty distasteful joke about how he had come to this island many years ago, found Nelly swinging in the trees, shaved all his hair off and started a boat tour. But when we went back to talk to him later (one of my friends wanted to rent the underwater digital camera, whose pictures are below), we found out he was just the photographer and had nothing to do with the administration of the tour. Just an asshole racist Aussie, I guess. Nelly was way cooler, and we tried to get him to come out with us later that night. Impressions of his ridiculous, obviously much-rehearsed patter still persist among our group. Anyways, the reef was amazing to me, but not so impressive to my friends who had gone on snorkeling tours before. Apparently a lot of it was destroyed in a big storm a few years ago, and hasn't really grown back yet. But it was pretty cool to swim in a coral reef for the first time, even if it was mostly decimated.

The tour took most of the day, and we all got home exhausted and sunburned. Being on the beach all day can be really tiring. That night we were all psyched to go to one of the infamous Moon Parties that these Thai islands are so famous for, last night being one of the "Black Moon" variety. So we got all pumped to go swim in throngs of people on a dark beach, but instead ended up at some cheesy inland tourist resort where the party was being held. The whole thing was geared to rip off tourists, and was very lame. Terrible music, expensive entertainment, and not a lot of people. We were duped. We met an interesting and mysterious girl from Malaysia who was immensly cheery and chipper, yet seemingly had come to this party with no friends and no way to get home; and we got to shoot Airsoft rifles at balloons, so at least something came of it.

Today our boat leaves for the next island. I love motoring across these oceans; they are unlike any bodies of water I have ever seen, and the mountainous green islands sprouting out of the glassy water makes it even more amazing. We have no reservations on the next island; just the names of some cheap hotels. We don't even know where we will be landing. I'm a little anxious to be traveling without a concrete plan, but this country sort of requires a carefree attitude. More on Koh Phangan later.

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