Day 115-119 - Koh Chang to Koh Phi Phi

Day 115 (Thursday 7th) - The Field Trip Begins

The passenger boat arrived at 9 this morning, laden with students. The lecturer, Wayne, greeted the owner of our bungalows like an old friend, and immediately opened a Beer Chang, which pretty much set the scene for the rest of the trip. We spent the day swimming, drinking and sunbathing - we saw some jumping fish and Hornbills flying overhead, and the mosquitoes are eating my legs, so that's at least some wildlife spotted.

The evening was really cool - someone suggested we go snorkelling at night, to see the Bioluminescent Algae, which is without doubt the coolest thing I have ever seen. Your hands leave trails as you move them, clapping or clicking your fingers produces clouds of green light, swimming in circles produces doughnuts of green stars, all in all it's like "you're conducting the universe" (thanks Ivan). The Myanmar Rum went down a storm, and Kayley got stung on the hand by a Scorpion! She yelped and ran off swearing, and then came back after a few minutes and explained, saying "so that was definitely a fucking Scorpion!" before going off to seek treatment. I no longer feel I can complain about the mosquitoes or Jellyfish larvae that keep stinging me.

Day 116 (Friday 8th) - False Starts and Early Finishes

Today had a disappointing start. We embarked on a hot and sweaty trek across the Island to the mangrove forests, only to find that the tide was in and so it was too deep to wade through. Oops. I also got a spider bit on my leg that swelled up quite a bit, which wasn't much fun. We walked back and spent the afternoon on the beach, playing a bit of Volleyball with people from the other bungalows until sunset, and played Finnish drinking games for a while. Marie and I went for a quick powernap after this which ended up being an 8 hour nap, meaning we awoke at 5:41, having missed all the night's fun. Although if we slept for that long I'm sure we needed/deserved it.

Day 117 (Saturday 9th) - Snorkelling

Todays trip was to the national park to go snorkelling and looking at corals. We headed out along a ridiculously treacherous path, which resulted in one guy cutting his leg, one his foot, and another throwing up, all within 15 minutes. We stopped at one small bay while these guys were taken care of, but there wasn't much to see. The journey to the park probably took about an hour/hour and a half, and at the end we saw some

corals, in various growth stages (Laminar, Tabulate, Submassive and Digitate I think) and also some cuttlefish, which were weird, and sea urchins, tiger fish, and loads of cool little green ones too. The journey back, in splintered groups with me at the helm, took a little over half an hour, and was possibly the sweatiest half hour of my life. We rushed into the sea as soon as possible, before cracking open the Myanmar Gin (which mixes perfectly with Schweppes' Manao Soda) and Pasi's Lao Kao (which mixes with nothing, and is vile). We had a good night of chatting and laughing at the exploits of Pasi, and Wayne told me that he (by which I mean the Mahidol University International College Tropical Ecology Department) would pay for our bungalow for the entire time we were there - I didn't even have to pay half! What a decent fellow.

We went for another nighttime snorkel, and the Algae was at least as spectacular as the other night - Brendan, Marie and I had glow wars underwater, shooting jets of algae at one another. Truly awesome fun, I can't emphasise that enough.

Day 118 (Sunday 10th) - On The Road

We got up at 7, as instructed, to make the 8 o'clock boat. Due to various bits of disorganisation we ended up getting it at 9:30 (much to the chagrin of some people - cheer up Capriya (sic?), you're in Paradise!), meaning I missed the bus to Krabi. I said goodbye to all the Mahidol guys (Wayne had very sweetly tried to reshuffle all the seats on their minibus so that Marie and I could sit together - would have been great if I had been going back to Bangkok) and so I had to get one to Kok Kloy (I watched Pirates Of The Caribbean 3, which passed the time pretty well) then another to Krabi, which was full of Thais instead of westerners, which was cool, then I got a Songthaew to Krabi town, where I am now typing this in the relative luxury of the Vieng Thong Hotel, watching Rio Carnival coverage on Fashion TV. It's only half nine but I'm knackered and haven't eaten all day, so I may have to go and forage for noodles, then collapse until the first boat out to Phi Phi tomorrow.

Day 119 (Monday 11th) - Phi Phi, Finally!

As it turned out, I ended up watching a Thai action movie, shot on Phi Phi, at the noodle stand, and didn't get to sleep until half one or so. I was up at half 7, got a motorbike taxi to the Pier (where I was informed that the boat left at 10, not 9 as I had been told), got the boat and sat on the deck in the sun reading - I have now finished On The Road, it was awesome and left me somewhat dumbstruck at the end. On arrival in Phi Phi I walked around for ages trying to find somewhere reasonably priced that wasn't full, failed, and ended up in a bamboo walled fan room with shared bathroom for 700 Baht a night, the most I have ever paid for a room in Thailand. Still, I can always get up tomorrow morning and go looking for another one - I am right opposite The Rock Backpackers, which claims to have the cheapest rooms on the Island. Jan is somewhere here as well, probably teaching right now, but I'LL TRACK HIM DOWN LATER (those were accidental capitals, but I'm going to leave it as it makes this entry look ominous). I have put everything I own in the laundry apart from boardies and a hoodie, so I can cover it all in a new layer of salt and sand over the next few days. I smell pasta, so I'm going to go on a food mission - due to time/tiredness constraints, I have only eaten a bowl of noodles and half a pineapple since saturday night, which simply won't do.

Ok, I had a wander, had some fried rice on the beach, admired the scenery, and while wandering back I came upon Jan's dive school, so I'm going to meet him when he finishes in about 10 minutes. Awesome