Storms, Sharks and Sunburns...
Well, we are still on Koh Tao here in Thailand. We are enjoying relaxing, eating and snorkeling, Our bungalow has been great, the weather however, well that is another story.
As i am writing this to you now, Steff is reading using a head lamp and i am sitting illuminated by the laptop screen, the only other signs of light are intense flashes of lightning outside the window. We did have a bit of a wind storm, which is now being followed by a thunder storm with some spectacular lightning and unpredictable fits of rain. Anyhow, the wind storm uprooted a full sized palm tree a couple of hundred feet from our bungalow and dropped it down on the power lines leading to us. So the power is going to be out for a while. Mind you, the nice folks at the front desk supplied us with a lantern, which on the way up to the bungalow leaked fuel all over me, interesting. I am scared to light it, certain it will burst into flames shattering its delicate glass all over the deck and turning the bungalow into a burning inferno of holiday nightmares.
Since i am on a bit of a 'negative-nellie' rant at the moment i should tell you about my snorkeling experience yesterday. Steff decided to stay at the bungalow and do some work on putting together our new portfolio for the wedding biz, i decided to go out for a snorkel. I walked down to the water and then hopped in for a great little snorkel session where i saw lots of different types of coral and fish, the visibility was ok but not great, due to another severe storm we had yesterday. When i returned to the rocks i set off from i found that someone had stolen my flip-flops and t-shirt! What is the world coming too when people are stealing your 2 year old flip-flops?
We did have a great day today though. We went and cruised around the island a bit on the off road motorcycle that we've rented, that was great on some of the steep, rutted, and occasionally washed out dirt roads. We spent a couple of hours this afternoon snorkeling in Shark Bay, which very happily lived up to its name, we swam with a shark! Ok, he was a small guy, maybe only a little more than 2 feet long, but he was very cool. He was pretty interested in us too, he swam about 5-6 feet from Steff and then circled around us a few times. He was the highlight to a truly spectacular snorkel. We have been left with more than just a great memory of the day though, Steff has a spectacular sunburn on her entire back side, from head to toe, despite lathering on copious amounts of sunscreen! You may be somewhat familiar with the notorious fake products coming out of Asia, well we are now fairly certain that our Banana Boat 30spf sunscreen is not actually real, the packaging is however, very convincing.
Tonight was supposed to be a good night out with some friends we met; a good meal up on Sairee beach followed by drinks and hopefully dancing at a bar that has a DJ spinning house music, but it's all become a wash out. Not to worry, we can hang out here, in the bungalow with no power, maybe for a bit of entertainment we can light up the lantern and see what happens, perhaps the fire dancers (usually out on the beach when its dry) staying somewhere across the bay from us can watch in envy at our very own pyrotechnic display.
Thats all for now, lots of love to our family and friends. And don't worry, we've been told that the monsoons don't hit this side of Thailand(!)
As i am writing this to you now, Steff is reading using a head lamp and i am sitting illuminated by the laptop screen, the only other signs of light are intense flashes of lightning outside the window. We did have a bit of a wind storm, which is now being followed by a thunder storm with some spectacular lightning and unpredictable fits of rain. Anyhow, the wind storm uprooted a full sized palm tree a couple of hundred feet from our bungalow and dropped it down on the power lines leading to us. So the power is going to be out for a while. Mind you, the nice folks at the front desk supplied us with a lantern, which on the way up to the bungalow leaked fuel all over me, interesting. I am scared to light it, certain it will burst into flames shattering its delicate glass all over the deck and turning the bungalow into a burning inferno of holiday nightmares.
Since i am on a bit of a 'negative-nellie' rant at the moment i should tell you about my snorkeling experience yesterday. Steff decided to stay at the bungalow and do some work on putting together our new portfolio for the wedding biz, i decided to go out for a snorkel. I walked down to the water and then hopped in for a great little snorkel session where i saw lots of different types of coral and fish, the visibility was ok but not great, due to another severe storm we had yesterday. When i returned to the rocks i set off from i found that someone had stolen my flip-flops and t-shirt! What is the world coming too when people are stealing your 2 year old flip-flops?
We did have a great day today though. We went and cruised around the island a bit on the off road motorcycle that we've rented, that was great on some of the steep, rutted, and occasionally washed out dirt roads. We spent a couple of hours this afternoon snorkeling in Shark Bay, which very happily lived up to its name, we swam with a shark! Ok, he was a small guy, maybe only a little more than 2 feet long, but he was very cool. He was pretty interested in us too, he swam about 5-6 feet from Steff and then circled around us a few times. He was the highlight to a truly spectacular snorkel. We have been left with more than just a great memory of the day though, Steff has a spectacular sunburn on her entire back side, from head to toe, despite lathering on copious amounts of sunscreen! You may be somewhat familiar with the notorious fake products coming out of Asia, well we are now fairly certain that our Banana Boat 30spf sunscreen is not actually real, the packaging is however, very convincing.
Tonight was supposed to be a good night out with some friends we met; a good meal up on Sairee beach followed by drinks and hopefully dancing at a bar that has a DJ spinning house music, but it's all become a wash out. Not to worry, we can hang out here, in the bungalow with no power, maybe for a bit of entertainment we can light up the lantern and see what happens, perhaps the fire dancers (usually out on the beach when its dry) staying somewhere across the bay from us can watch in envy at our very own pyrotechnic display.
Thats all for now, lots of love to our family and friends. And don't worry, we've been told that the monsoons don't hit this side of Thailand(!)
posted by Steff + Justin at
04:18
1 Comments:
the sketchy lantern reminds me of a similar situation when i was in guyana... the organization i was with sent us group leaders out on community visits to make initial connections with community leaders re potential volunteer projects. we were sent out with new white gas camp stoves, kerosene gas, lots of dried beans and the assurance that our stoves had a conversion kit and could be used with kero. uhhhhh, not so much. my staff partner and i spent way too much time going through way too many matches and reading the stove instructions way too many times before we realized that no amount of singing our eyebrows, dodging fire balls and swearing at the stove was going to cook our dried beans. i don't even remember what we ate for dinner, but there was some definite crankiness. hang in there intrepid travellers! :)
Post a Comment
<< Home