Well, today turned out to be superb for me. Had a swim in the sea this morning about 10am, had a shower and then headed up to Paddy's bar to see if they had any of last nights prem games on, which they did. I went back to the beach resort and gave Steve a shout and we went and watched a bit of the Arsenal Newcastle game and had breakfast there. If I come back to this island in the future, I'll be staying at Paddys, their rooms look very nice and their bar and food is superb.
Then we took a moped ride south to go to check out the most central waterfall on the island, Klong Plu. It is situated on the biggest peak on the island, Salak Phet, which measures 744 meters high. It was nice and easy to find and only cost about 3 quid to enter.
We had to walk 500m up through a jungle path of roots and rocks to reach the waterfall, although it seemed like more than 500m! Once we got in sight of the falls we realised they weren't very big, but the pool underneath was large enough for swimming in.
The weather was lush and hot and we pretty much jumped straight in once there. The water was very clear and a lovely fresh cool temperature. It was deep enough to dive into, but you could reach the bottom with one full breath and a swim down from the surface. Steve went and stuck his head under the falls after squeezing through the little gap to get to it, which looked pretty cool, so I had a go afterwards. In the small gap through there were loads of spider webs over head with some weird looking inhabitants hanging above the fall. The fall was quite fast and pretty refreshing, although you couldn't really stay in there long due to the very slippery algae covered rocks under foot.
We swam here for hours and found some good places to hoist ourselves out of the water on the rock face, climb up a few meters and then jump or dive into the lush water. One point on the face was really tricky and took us about 20 goes between us to climb up it without falling into the water. It felt like quite an acheivement, but was basically very childish... haha! ;p
I am battered and bruised from the rocks though. At one point I slipped on the algae when climbing out and landed on my elbow which hurt nicely, that'll have a decent bruise tomorrow! Got loads of little cuts on the legs and feet too... bloody kids!
It was really nice there, I seriously enjoyed the day. We walked the route back wet from the pool, which made it a cooler walk. Jumped on the mopeds and sped off to find the dentist for Steve who has had a filling fall out!
On route we stopped at the little grassy airfield to see about the microlites we had seen flying over the island the day before. The guys spoke excellent English and seemed highly professional. The main pilot is from Turkey originally, and lived in Sweden for years too so speaks plenty of languages. I am right up for viewing the island like this, so booked immediately for a half hour flight which takes in the southern most port or the island and gives views of the peaks from 800-1200 meters, plus I booked for 5:30pm to see the sunsetting from the sky. Can't wait!! It'll be a bit scary taking off and landing, but once up there I'm sure it'll be lush.
Steve wasn't as keen, although he has booked to do 15 mins before me, and if he enjoys it can extend from in the air and pay the balance once landed.
The flight is only about 45 quid all in, which is still great value. They also do lessons in microlite, small planes and paramotoring (which looks insane!). Not sure I'd go that far, but will certainly enjoy the flight...
We are also going snorkeling in the morning to an island off shore, which was the trip that got cancelled a couple of days ago due to the weather. So tomorrow will kick some serious ass as far as days go! Hoorah!
Steve has the dentist after the microliting... fook that!
Laters!!!!
