Kayaking!

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I slept better last night than the previous night, and no rooster in the morning thank god. But...the mosquitoes still managed to eat me despite the mosquito netting, and the frogs were just as bad. I kept the fan turned off - hot room.

This morning I ate a giant breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, french toast, and sticky rice with mango. The total was $5 - expensive! Each time the waitress served a dish, she stroked my hand as usual. Haha.

Around 11:30 I rented a sea kayak for the day for $12. There were islands out in the distance that I wanted to see if I could kayak out to. The previous day I had asked the rental guy whether it was possible to kayak out to 'Poda Island'. He said it was 8 km (6 miles) away, and that only in a double kayak was it possible. I decided to give it a try, and after about an hour and a half of hard kayaking I made it to the island.

There were actually lots of tourists on the island - surprising not only because this is the low season, but also because there's only a little bungalow retaurant on the island - nothing else. Day-trippers can take tours to 4 or 5 islands in a day by speedboat, and I guess this was one of the islands the speedboats come to, because they were everywhere.

I inquired at the restaurant whether they rented snorkel gear, and they did! For $3 I got a snorkel mask for the day, and checked out the underwater scenery. Most of the coral looked to be dead - probably from tourists standing on it, but there were a fair amount of fish, some really giant clams, and lots of sea urchins with foot-long spikes and bioluminescent spots. I spent an hour or so snorkeling, and then it was off to another island.

When I got to the second island I was feeling pretty good. My shoulders and pecks were tired, but I was feeling especially big from all of the blood bloating my upper body. I was also getting tan (yahoo), and my hair was matted from the salt water. Basically, I felt like a stud, especially when I pulled up to the island on a kayak rather than a motorboat, wearing my new (fake) Billabong swimming trunks (thanks mom!). It turned out that the island I landed on was only a small all-sand island, and that the real island was a short walk away through ankle-dee water. As I walked to the other island, two asian girls with a camera took a photo in my direction as I approached. Obviously they were taking a photo of me. I realized what a cocky thought that was, and quickly erased the idea.

On this island there was a small bungalow selling sodas, potato chips, and real food. So cute, and so expensive (by Thai standards). It was so cool to arrive at an island with nothing on it but a tiny shack and probably a hundred other tourists (who were all day-trippers coming over on speedboats). As I walked back to my kayak, the two girls who had taken a photo in my direction aproached me and one asked if she could get her photo taken with me! HAHA! Never had that happen before! One friend stood with the camera, and two more friends hopped into the photo! Hilarious. The main girl was upset that her friends had joined her in the photo, so a second photo was taken of just me and her. Turns out she's from Bangkok. Somewhere in Bangkok there will be a photo of me with this random girl, on a random island in Southern Thailand. Hilarious.

I then started the looong kayak back. I got back a little after 5:00. I spent a solid 6 hours out on the water, and kayaked abut 14 miles. I think my muscles ache more than climbing, and this was supposed to be my 'off' day! My first act was to get food - beef panang style with rice. The waitress stroked my hand, again. After eating, the waitress's friend asked me how old I was. The flirty waitress seemed excited to hear that I was twenty.

After 'lunch', the sunburn started to set in. I had been really really good about wearing a shirt most of the time, and applying liberal amounts of SPF 30 sunscreen, but I guess on the water there's little you can do. Thus began the search for cream with aloe. Almost all of the creams had whitening agent in them. That's not surprising for Asia, as many Asians want to be a white as possible, but don't they realize that tourists don't want whitening agent? I finally bought a cream for $7 - not cheap!!

I then retrieved the clothes I had dropped off to be laundered. It cost me a little less than $3.00...and they smell like it cost less than $3. I think they forgot soap....or they let them mildew for a day before drying them. I think they smell worse than they did before. Bummer.

I'm sitting here after my second dinner - Mussaman Beef curry. Tomorrow the plan is to climb again, and then the next day head off to Koh Pha-Ngan. I'm hoping to make it to Koh Pha-Ngan in a single day to hit up the full-moon party that night. We'll see if I pull it off. I'm surprising myself that I'm leaving Ton Sai so soon, but it's kindof lonely with not many people here. Hopefully I'll find a climbing partner tomorrow, but if I don't, I'll hire a guide again for half a day. I'm beginning to realize that half of the fun of climbing is hanging out with good buddies, and I'm not here with any good buddies. (I'll just have to get back!). The other realization that I've come to is that it is a little awkward to be climbing in paradise. I admit this is probably the coolest place to climb in the world because you can go for a swim when you're hot from climbing....but climbing is such a masochistic sport, and sometimes it doesn't feel quite right to be sending your body through such pain when you feel like you should be sipping a pina colada. The Nevada desert seems a more fitting place to climb.

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