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Published: April 26th 2007
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Wednesday: Today we didn't do anything exciting. Rapidly approching the end of our month visa we decided to do a "visa run" to Malaysia which meant 13 hours of travelling on a minibus, 2 ferries and 3 local buses. This meant travelling from Ko Lanta to Trang to Hat Yai to Malaysia border, then back to Hat Yai. Massively tired when we got back!!
Thrusday: We made our way to Pak Barra so that we could get to the Tarutao National Marine Park. It's meant to be the least discovered islands in Thailand, so thought it might be worth a shout!
We got to Pak Bara early in the morning and Fats did some seriously good haggling with a really funny ticket tout, meaning we could actually get over to the islands and back again by speed boat for the same price as the very slow ferry!
Our first stop was Ko Tarutao and for some reason we decided it would be a good idea to start this camping malakee! (We had no roll mats etc, just clothes and lonely planets for pillows! (First and probably only time that the doorstop of a China travel book will come in
handy!)
But the location was brilliant, litterally on the beach, and hardly anyone there, there was only one other touristy couple there!
So we went up to viewpoint, one of the rangers told us it was a great view up, but neglected to tell us that it's impossible to get to the top without a million mosquito bites! When we did get to the top the view was amazing.
Didn't sleep amazingly well as the very hard (&lumpy) ground was a mission to sleep on! Woke up feeling we'd done a few rounds with Mike Tyson!
Friday: We decided to walk to a beach we were told was nice with the other English couple on the island. Bit of a trek, but we found a gorgeous beach with not a soul on it. - Except for a sea-otter that popped his head up at us, bemused with why we were intruding on his beach, before swimming away!
In the evening we looked out and saw the most incredible lightening storm over the sea. No wind or rain (the opposite- it was unbearably hot) but it was great to watch.
Saturday: We made our way to another island that
falls just outside the Marine Park called Ko Lipe. Because it falls just outside the Marine Park people have started developing guesthouses/bungalows on it, so it was more touristy but nicely so, no roads only sandy paths leading between the beaches, bays and bars!
On the way there for some reason we stopped off at the most incredible island half-way there: Ko Khai. A definate picture postcard beach with nothing on it!
We liked it so much the 'cheeky' boat driver tried to leave without us!
We met up with a Finnish couple who were on the same boat and decided to share a hut with them. The hut was amazing! Raised high on stilts and absolutely everything was made out of bamboo! It looked brilliant! But no fan, so the only air-con was from propping open the shutters to try and get a breeze through.
Sunday: A lazy day on the beach. Because it's coming into the Low Season, there were few places open to either stay or eat, but we found a brilliant little restaurant in the evening for dinner. One man and his guitar was doing a great job of singing, then a little way
into the night one of the Longtail boat drivers got up and started dancing. Very comical, we caught some on camera, but he had dance moves to rival even you Alex! Was very entertaining!
Monday: We made our way to Adang, an island within the National Park, so it was pretty much camping or camping. We rented a tent and set it up (a team effort as Ben wasn't paying too much attention during his Duke of Edinburgh at school!). We just relaxed for the rest of the day, finding out what we could do on the island.
In the evening the ranger came over and asked us if we wanted to move into a cabin that they had as it was pouring with rain.
We bravely/stupidly said no and decided on staying in the tent. Luckily it only rained for a short spell and everything was fine, though it was really hot.
Tuesday: We didn't have as much luck on the second night!
We trekked through the forest to see the Pirates Waterfall. Not that spectacular (probably because there were 4 pipes coming from the top to feed some of the islands with water!), but the walk
was worth it alone. We heard monkeys, but never got close enough to see them and saw massive lizzards. We relaxed on the beach in the afternoon. The water here was crystal clear and stunning.
Then in the evening, the lovely looking lightning we'd been watching the previous few nights ceased to be quite so funny tonight. The heavens opened and brought a new meaning to the word pouring with rain! There was no escape like the night before, as it was in the middle of the night. The tent positioned to catch as much of the breeze as possible the night before was now perfectly positioned to catch as much rain as possible. It was a mad scramble to zip the mozzy windows up and pray that our fly-sheet wouldn't fly-off!!
Wednesday: We went on a snorkelling trip by charting a long-tail boat with 6 other people. We thought we were only going to be going to a couple of sites so were pleasantly surprised when our driver dropped us off at 5 of the most fantastic snorkelling sites!
We saw so loads of things: many brighly coloured soft coral, loads of fish, quite a few different types of sea-snake and Moray Eels, clown fish.
One of the sites had a really strong drift, so the driver had to tie a rope betwen two buoys and we just held on! Brilliant!- the ultimate lazy snorkelling experience!
On one of the sites the driver said to me and Fats (after 5 mintues of trying to work out what the hec he was trying to get us to do!) to hold on to a rope and a ladder off the side of the boat whilst he pulled us around an island! - It was brilliant!
The last stop was going to White Sand beach on Ko Rawi, where we all relaxed for an hour, which was great before heading back to Adang after an incredible day's snorkelling. All for less than 3 pounds each!
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