Our last few days in Hat Yai were a whirlwind of goodbyes and loose-end-tying, punctuated by a crazy day of playing dress-up. Pitt had the grand idea to get us all done up in Thai costume and have pictures taken. For the guys, this involved about 5 minutes of costuming. For the girls, this was a nearly two-hour process, with costume and jewelry selection followed by makeup and hair. Basically they used an Emily canvas to create a Thai-Barbie end product. It was a lot of fun, and the pictures will always be great to have. A lot of folks turned up at the bus station to see us off at 7 a.m. for an only slightly weepy goodbye. We'll miss everyone!

After approximately 13.5 hours on the bus, we caught a quick taxi to the airport for our red-eye to Korea. Our lengthy layover allowed us to get out and see a bit of Seoul on the 29th. Unfortunately, the palace we were aiming for was closed for the day, but we did have a nice wander around before meeting Kara (a friend I haven't seen since high school!) for lunch. She's teaching English to middle school girls there, and managed to shuffle her schedule and get the afternoon off. She treated us to some fantastic Korean barbecue, and we had a great afternoon visit over coffee and dessert. We were having such a good time, we pulled it a little tight getting back for our flight, and arrived just in time for boarding.

A speedy transpacific flight later, we were ready to start the 29th all over again. Trev's parents picked us up at Sea-Tac, and we headed straight for Gorditos (how long have we been thinking about burritos????). Dave and Vanessa joined us, and we thoroughly enjoyed our second lunch of the calendar day.

Now we're starting to think about things like cars, cell phones, a laptop, driver's licenses, and all the other practicalities. It's enough to make a person want to hide in the hot tub for a week. And did we mention we're FREEZING? We have officially left the tropics. But overall we're really, really happy to be home. We're so excited to see everyone in the coming weeks! The air is clear, the sun is once more our friend, and the PNW is indeed a beautiful, beautiful place.

The decision to splurge on the Similan Tour yielded great rewards. Not only providing some decompression time, it also gave us our best tropical water experience to date.

We have finally uploaded photos from the last few weeks of travelin' fun:

Similan Islands
Khao Sok
Trang

The Similan Islands are world renowned for the clear underwater beauty they provide to many scuba divers, and are shortlisted to become a World Heritage Site. For some odd marketing reasons, they are never mentioned for snorkeling, leading one to believe that all the good sights are too deep for us tankless swimmers. Wrong. The east side (monsoon protected) of the islands provides abundant acreage of shallow coral gardens before rapidly dropping to deeper depths that are still visible in the 20-25 meter visibility we were lucky to enjoy.

This convenient geography allows the snorkeler to get close looks at the complex ecosystem surrounding the shallower reefs while also being able to peruse the steeper drop offs for the bigger creatures of the sea. And you can do it at your own time for however long you want without worrying about running out of oxygen from your tank. Plus, if you are into free diving you can also experience the depths as "any person can free dive comfortably to depths of 30m." This was easy for Olaf (owner and guide) to say right after he did spend a large portion of his first snorkel session poking through corals 15 meters below us. I guess after a couple day course on technique, free diving is quite simple and appears to be gaining momentum in the underwater community. Not having taken the class or gained the technique ("Look at me, I'm about 3 meters deep!") we settled into the more relaxing position at sea level to observe the hard (brain, staghorn, mushroom) and soft (cup sponges, seafans) corals housing parrotfish, clownfish, triggerfish, lionfish, pufferfish, unicornfish and other numerous neighbors.

Whether observing terrestrial or marine habitats, I am usually the one scanning the perimeter more often with hopes of catching a glimpse of the larger inhabitants while Em is deep into a plant or coral deciphering its function. This trip the more sensational creatures treated Em to some private viewings. She got a long look and short swim with a black tip reef shark, and a face to face (hoping the current doesn't do something bad) experience with a sea snake.

Some other highlights were giant moray eels, crown of thorns starfish (Yeah for Andrew Wood) and swimming with large sea turtles. We observed an octopus get pecked at by a group of black fish (apparently must have been in their territory). Most fascinating with the battle was the octopus's defensive camouflaging mechanism: If attacked while on the sand, the octopus would flash white, in contrast to the dark red and purple of its usual coloration. We finally watched it settle in on a hunk of coral, mimicking both the color and texture. But if we had to pick our favorite underwater encounter, it would be swimming along with a green sea turtle. First we saw it slowly moving above the bottom, grubbing on algae and grasses interspersed among the coral. Even though it noticed us, it definitely didn't feel threatened and continued its grazing. We then followed it into the deeper waters where it slowly rose to the surface for a breath of air before being joined by it's mate coming from our right and then swimming slowly off into the blue abyss.

While this underwater world is truly phenomenal, the beauty of the live aboard boat is you can snorkel as long as you please. And there are temptations to not being in the water as life on board is quite comfy: endless coffee, tea, and fruit, bottomless meals of top notch food, full time shade, beautiful views, and the consistent boat rocking back and forth that rivals any Thai massage for deep relaxation to both body and mind.

The Similan live aboard dive season begins in November but Olaf ran this trip early to satisfy Hans & Natalie's vacation schedule allowing them to get in their third "Similan Tour" and for Olaf to get a look at how the conditions were after the monsoon season. This meant us four guests were outnumbered by crew (all of which were considerate and fun) and enjoyed the solitude of moorings that normally would be shared with many boats, most of them running their loud air compressors and herding up their guests with megaphones. Tough to believe after our silent visit, and all the more reason to patronize the off- or shoulder- seasons!

Just in case we hadn't been spoiled enough, our path back to the mainland intersected with a large pod of dolphins. Whether it was jumping, breaching, fast surfacing races or spinning around longitudinally while playing in the water off the bow of the boat, they were excited to share their zest for life.

We won't be doing such tricks, but we look forward to sharing fun filled moments with our friends and family at home very soon!

Labels: snorkeling, Thailand

The last two English camps were hot but successful - a heat wave hit Hat Yai just in time for Dylan's arrival. After two days of fun with the kids, we were all droopy but happy. Our going away party with the Smart English crew was also a very good time. We all went to one of our favorite Thai restaurants, ate yummy food (some of which P Toi, our manager, cooked for us) and sang bad karaoke. A lot of people had some commendable things to say about us, and we were given some very nice Thai clothes that we look forward to wearing on special occasions at home. We'll miss all of our friends from Smart English!

With school officially wrapped up, we hit the road to show Dylan a bit of South Thailand. We headed first for the Trang coast to Haad Yao Nature Resort, where we had a fantastic self-guided paddle through the mangroves to a HUGE cave. After exploring the cave, we headed back only to hear from Khalil (the resort founders' son, and a great cook) that we'd actually missed the "main" cave, which was up a ladder to the side. Dylan and Trevor couldn't resist heading back, and braved the turning tide and setting sun to do the real thing. I settled in on the deck to read a book. We also had the good fortune to make it over to the "secret beach", which can only be accessed at low tide. With tons of small caves and rock arches, it might be the prettiest little beach we've seen so far. For a small beach, it also offered a lot of prime nature-viewing, with langurs (leaf-eating monkeys), brahminy kites, a white-bellied sea eagle, and the tracks of a small monitor lizard, which we followed in and out of the rocks.

Anxious to get out to the island, we headed for HYNR's sister operation on Koh Libong, where one has the opportunity to boat or kayak into dugong habitat for a chance to see the rare animals. This trip was not possible at the time, and after enjoying the beach and extremely friendly village for a couple days, we decided to head for Khao Sok National Park a bit early.

We checked into the Rainforest Resort, a quiet establishment along the Sok river, and picked two bungalows up on the hillside. We saw a flying lizard on one and a beautiful green tree frog on another, so we decided this must be the lucky place! Our big jungle hike the next day was outstanding. We saw lots of hornbills, langurs, macaques, lizards with horns, and countless other amazing examples of tropical forest life. We swam in a beautiful little gorge on the Sok river.

The next day we decided to go up to Cheow Lan Lake to stay in a floating bungalow. The boat ride to the bungalows alone makes the trip worthwhile: huge limestone cliffs and pillars shoot straight up out of the lake, with thick forest growing on seemingly impossible slopes. We took a lot of pictures. Arriving at Ton Teuy, we enjoyed some fantastic food, and found the staff very friendly, and very encouraging of our Thai!

Unfortunately this beautiful place was struck by tragedy on our first day there. A group of 9 people (2 Thai guides and 7 tourists) was caught in a flash flood through a popular cave near our bungalows. In the evening hours we watched a large-scale search and rescue operation unfold. A single tourist was the sole survivor. The caring, diligence, and effort of all involved was touching and impressive, even if the end result was extremely sad. As the search stretched into the second day, we made plans to leave early, and were an hour away from boating off the lake when the operation concluded with the celebration of finding the survivor. With our concerns of being in the way allayed, and the bungalow staff insisting that we stay on, we opted to stay one more night. We had a fantastic connection with the staff that night, talking about the park, what happened, and their friends who were gone. None of us will forget this experience any time soon.
Back at the Rainforest Resort, Dylan had one last lunch with us before catching a bus for his "One Night in Bangkok" (and one day, too) before flying home. He was there for my 100th Thai bird (the ruby-cheeked sunbird across the river, not the mystery sea eagle on the lake - sorry Dylan)! We were very glad to have him here with us, and think a good time was had by all.

Initially it looked like only the lake portion of the park would be closed, but then it was announced that all parks in south Thailand would be closed for at least a week for a safety assessment. After sneaking in one more short hike, we decided it was a firm sign to head for the beach, and that we should treat ourselves to the fancy snorkel trip we've been contemplating. Our boat leaves the day after tomorrow, and we firmly resolve to sip fruit shakes on the beach until then!

Labels: birds, Hat Yai, hiking, teaching, Thailand