long tail baot to koh ngAIh not as wet as other
walk to resort with back packs along very hot beach
met with gay receptin man
room, swimming pool and views are out of this world
swim, walk along beach, hAVE NOname and spicey salad, arrange to meet canadian couple for sea food that evening
walk back along beach plesant, walk up steps hard work
go out realise bit red from sun enjoy a cold drink and meet couple
have red snapper with sweet nd sour sauce v fresh
emma has 1 thai rum, v strong
have interesting convo about all sorts, in depth.she is a teacher having a year teaching in china, but origainlly lives in toraonto. he is a charapractor, both well travelled and have loads of good info.
walk back v scary and pitch black
sooo nice to come back to air con :)
get up early for breaky and hav eggy bread and omlette etc nice
hang by the pool most of day arrange to meet canadians losely later, walk down beach in the eveing stars are well bright and sea looks nice and calm.go for a drink then head back to our plkace for some food, waiters are so friendly and all want to talk to you and know mmore about things.
following moring we lye in, read books at poola dn then go to find out about kayaing and snokeling etc, meet canadian couple and they tell us how the have had a funny afternoon yesterday drinking long island ice tea in sea then colasing fro 12 hours after.we both go to recetio to ask about laudry as all our clothes now can not be recycled anymore, the washing here is to expensive so leave it and hatch a plan to hand wash stuff mean swe have to go on boat trip to buy soap etc..... nect thing we return back to room to figure our washing had been taken anywya!!! shit we gotta pay for it!!! luckly we talk to v nice guy and he pays half for it out of his wages which we both feel guitly about but he did just take it out of our rrom. meet canadian couple that eveing, they say how jealous they are of us staying here longer, our views are amazing. we have agood eveing and at the end say our goodbyes and swop contact details. take a walk back and both realise how lucky we are to be here and cant imagine being back at home and not see the sea anymore!!
next moring we bothg read books, hire aout nokelling gear and head for sea, fish were amazing although not much alive coral lift from al the boats docking in every day. swim quite far out and see so many unusual sea creatures!! takes alot of energy to swim back to shore. have lunch read books on beach and discuss sri lanka. the time does finaly come where we both have upset stomach and spend alot of afternoon in rooms. ana finishes his book in a day and plan to have a quite night.
sunday night .... more hassle over laundry ... the bloke we spoke tro before says ..."emma emma we need to speak to you both" and that the laundry was more expensivce than first thought and that he owed us more to make up his half of the difference .... and so we would therefore have to pay a bit more too ...felt bad for him becaause it semd that as it was his mistake he was expected o pay half of the price of the laundry and tried to hand us some more money....not sre how much this bloike earns but he certainly works hard for it so said we would just pay ......he was genuine..and now they all love us here....v friendly....takes a while to lose the general paranoia you have on entering a new country ....espciallly with thais's history...but the nice people are very nice!
we had a couple of beers at the bar downstairs in our place and got fustrated at the lack of decent music but after severa; loooks and lots of "khap khun khraps"! we couldnt find a way to play some ipod tunes...a shame...
still we went upsairs for dinner....feeling the strain of this backpacker lifestyle and ordered a bbq prawns belly pork and chicken with phad thai...nices meal in a long time!
I order my drink...the usual a large singha....emma wants a glass of white wine....and chooses the jacobs creek chardonnay....
and my worst fears are confirmed when a bottle turns up instead of a glass.....true to form we say nothing and resign ourselves to the 1200 price which i suppose is only the same as back home in a bar.
another day more pool action
today just pool again....sorry mary...although em did have thai massage if that counts as experiencing some other cultures :)
we did speak to some other english couples, one stuck up couple that had some issues with cooking toast at breakfast and then later with some deck chair theft...but another couple who seem really nice....they are going to set up a fishing business in portugal and neiher of them knows anything about fishing.....basically just gonna rent out accomodation on a river that is good for fly fishing...think they both have back up plans which is the key maybe.
resolve tommorow to book snorkell trip and also do some kayaking around the islnd which apparently is only 5 x 2 km so should be doable...if this is the last blog entry then you'll know it wasnt.
Its so hard to keep fit while you are away cos no routine, and also a bit embarassing to run along the beach just in case you run out of steam after 500m which i probably would, but i read a good article about NEAT yesterday which basicaly means jogging and gym work etc pale into insignificane in comparison whith your daily routine...for example an active job such as mining .... or any other manual strenous job wold burn off more calories than the small percentage of extra curricular excersice... and it also raises your metaboli rate alot more. so it is suggested that you try and incorporate activities into your otherwise sedANTRY job....some company has designed an upright desk which basically has treadmill and a desk top so you can walk while you type....if i carry on working from home then this is what i will try and set up i think :)...maybe hook up to a dynamo and save on leccy bills too! reckon alan would be up for that ...right up his street although he may have to attach a baby holder...lol
brought to bar ipod down with spekers that i twisted with pliers to fit plug ....locals loved it and us, i am meeting tomoorow to play guitar with one of them.
jordy girl boyfriend chip on his shoulder aout mainframes
met good chef from cape cod and his family two kid v. funny
well into thai food have thaichef fromback home in resteraunt,...say nothing better , but good to hear himspek about food and life
talk about meeting snakes that can kill you in 20 seconds
another londerner couple , met went over to other side of islland had good time ,.....we shoudl go....everyone met up bit stressful
ana wakes up with bad head,finish my book about a boy with asujers syndrom. conatiue to read my surfering book.
next day get a kayake out and paddle to the rock shown in picture takes us 20 mins to get there and then tie up our kayake on the rocks and explore some caves then snokel for an hour, ana telling me that the fish we saw that aatcully surrounded us bite so i believe him and was scared of them all the time, loads and loads of fish swim with you where ever you go and there ar eso many amazing colous shapes coral and creatures i could defo spend all day looking at them and would love to learn to dive and get underwater camera. the paddle back is tough work and takes twice as long as water going other way. we finsh day with length of pool. both ana and i have toilot problems at this stage :) lovely
finish the day with a drink at hotel bar and meet up with amercian family and again play our music fro the bar and the waiters, tie the waiter eventully brings his guitar to the bar and ana and him play for one another sitting on the steps, ana says he was so incredibly enthusastic and the other waiter lad plays with i pod listening to hip hop, meanwhile i meet a couple mum and dads age at the bar and the man is v funny from liverpool making all sorts of crude jokes, a swiss couple join us later with some birthday cake and we talk about diving etc was v fun night and the young lads of the family were full of funny information.
following day begin with organising next leg of journey, we have a quick swim then go for a walk around the back of the island where youcan get quite far round when low tied, see many many crabs of all sizes and lots of jellyfish, disuss our plans and have lunch.
head to the bar for our evening beverage and bump into one of the waiters he tells us with much enthusuim that he has a big speaker for us to plug our ipod into :) we head down to the bar and he tsakes our ipod from us and sorts it out it was cool, we have a drink with iris and christine and family and talk about all sorts form harry potter and ali g to a tornado that hit htere home town cape cod.the bar staff are waiting for ana to help them copy there songs from i pod to there bosseslap top and ana takes a few journies in the golf buggie to the room and badck to get various cables etc. they love ana and listen to every word he says trying to understnd him. tai brings his guitar down and sits on steps playing and singing loudly, he loves west life stlye, other guy loves his hip hop :))manage to copy our music and more guys begin to come down form work fish and listen.talk to them about where they are from, spell there names ask there agea ( they laugh at me and anas ages) berma is where most of them are from and have not been home for 3 years they all can only travel to the islands in trang and make 4000 bat a month,working every day 6 til 11. we say we will look after to them if they made it to england, they laugh and smile so much its infecious even ana has his picture taken with him and has the biggest smile ever. we will miss them alot when we leave :(
another good day in ko nghai , go for swim in sea, swim in pool and lunch at co co cottage...as a side note we have had so much nice food here it is untrue....some sample dishes would be .
triple crispy spicy salad (dried shrimp,squid and chicken all fried),
spicy beef salad,
cashew nut salad (a favourite of emmas)
play boy salad (dont ask!)
mango with sticky rice in coconut milk
fried pork in red curry (basically short ribs in a red curry sauce)
and crab curry which emma said was tasty but fiddly to eat :)
anyway there are plenty of meals to be practicing wwhen we get home and we havent even been to sri lanka yet!...gonna need lots of plain food for a while when we get home i think.
we have a special evening meal plan for us by hotel which consists of 4 different types of thai curry dish rice and fruit for dessert plus a photo with the serving staff, khaw lin te runs over and jumps in right next to ana. we also spent the evening with christine and kriz and boys and have a full fun packed night of all kinds of conversation!! end the evening with the boys from the bar and have loads of fun and jokes while playing the guitar plugged in with a mike, we swap email address and mob numbers and told them we will text them when we are home in england and listeing to music, they defo made this part of the journey for us and as tai said to us 'ever remember' we will always remember them and hope they live a good standard of life with whatever they do.( without sounding patronising) they are such smiling people.
