Day 19-23

gonna try to make this quick!

Evening of the 19th

FINALLY found a hammock to buy! only $6! green mesh, comfortable. love it! we have it hanging on our porch in ko tao now. gonna try to hang it on our porch in texas too!

mojitos at yellow bar.

saw the climax band at shamrock- they were pretty good. guitarist was boring but the bassist and female singer were great lol

Day 20 - ko tao

breakfast and lunch at beer's house - yogurt, muesli, fruit and fried rice.

van to ferry

waited more (island time you know).

ferry- fairly comfortable.

off ferry- immediately bombarded with taxi touts. got a pick-up to hat sairee (beach where we wanted to stay). pick up truck taxi just had benches along the long sides of the bed, no railing!

went to sairee cottages first and they were fully booked! so i hung out in the restaurant with our stuff while jens hauled it up the beach checking at every place for an hour. he finally found a reasonably priced bungalow at wind beach resort (still in hat sairee so that's good). while i waited i had a really yummy mango shake and banana pancake!

jens came back and took me and our stuff to the bungalow. it's pretty nice! medium sized porch, large room, queen size bed, fan, shelf, bathroom with plastic skylight, toilet flushes well!, good shower head and hot water :o) what more can you ask for? we hung up the hammock, tried it out and then explored sairee "village".

LOTS of great looking restaurants- every kind of food you could want! lots of shops, internet places and diving schools. most people come here to scuba dive. it's like $500 a person though so we're gonna pass this time and just snorkel.

walked along beach a bit- kinda narrow, water is shallow WAY out into the ocean but it's kinda nice. the water is really calm with several long boats floating in it. the sand on the beach is a bit grainy but the sand under the water is really soft! there are palm trees, beach front restaurants and bungalows all along the beach. and LOTS of dogs! this is not only paradise but a dog-lovers paradise! there are lovely, friendly dogs of all shapes and sizes everywhere you go here :o) we love it!

hung out in the hammock til dinner.

dinner at hippo- we had bruschetta, ribs, mashed potatoes and salad! so good! there dog followed us down the street a bit after lol

bungalow- bed.

Day 21

the new heaven cafe for breakfast- apple black currant smoothie, turkish breakfast of toast, fried potatoes, fried egg, onions, feta cheese and olives! yum!

hung out, read, wrote, etc.

got my photos put on dvds. my camera is acting up and i'm really worried :o( the functions of the buttons keep switching and many times you have to push a button like 10 times before it'll work! i use rechargeable batteries but maybe it needs a new one...no idea where to get one :o( prob not on this island...dunno what to do...

interneted

lunch- thai massaman curry (yellow with veggies), rice, tea. watched bbc news on their tv.

back to room- napped.

got up- swam some. nice, clear water!

showered and went to dinner at our bungalow. got cushions and a table right on the beach. had their bbq chicken and veg. kebab and it was GREAT! came with grilled corn, baked potato and salad :o) looked up at the moon and stars after we ate.

then we went to the reggae bar just down the dirt path from our bungalow. it's basically a roof over wooden bar and benches with all kinds of random decor everywhere lol the guys who work there are really layed back. it's small bar so it almost seems obligatory to strike up a conversation with the person next to you. over the course of the night we talked to a french woman named tan (gypsy name) who lives in china and mixes traditional chinese music with electronic music to make it more accessible to the younger generation, hannah the english woman who used to work at a wine packaging factory but quit when they moved the factory and has been traveling around s.e. asia for several months, learning to dive, an australian girl named carla who used to work at a wellness center but is going to go back to school for youth work (helping troubled teens, etc.)- she dives, her friend malin from sweden who has lived in australia long enough to have a solid ozzy accent- she lives in sweden now but wants to move back to oz and work at the swedish stationary store where she worked before, boaz the atheist israeli who has an american mother and an american accent but lives in tel aviv and thinks there will never be peace in the middle east, and the funny swedish couple leo and katarina who had us cracking up over nothing lol he works in construction, she's had odd jobs including working a "franking machine"(whatever that is) and they both think we're the cleverest americans they've met since we know the capitals of many scandinavian countries :o)

it was a great night but jens drank too much so the next morning we had to take it easy lol

Day 22

up late, breakfast at this bar i dunno the name of. we got two huge plates: english breakfast and steak and eggs breakfast to fill us up so we could go snorkeling! (the steak was just a small hamburger patty lol

we interneted and then got a truck taxi to hin wong bay.

man was THAT a treacherous ride! i was holding on for dear life! it seemed we were driving up and down at 90 degree angles at points! lol all on rutted and rocky dirt roads! at one point we were going down such a steep hill that i just sat in the bed and let the cab keep me from falling to my death lol it was INSANE!

but we made it to the bay alive. we told the guy to pick us up in 5 ours but we soon regretted that statement lol the "bay" was a super rocky coast with fairly strong waves and lots of trash. there was a restaurant of sorts but that's it.

we had seen a sign for view rock resort on our way over there and our friend jen has stayed there a couple years before and loved it. so we decided to hike over there, snorkel and come back for the taxi. it was quite a hike, esp. in the heat but it was kinda fun. we saw a big lizard and coconuts sprouting new coconut trees!

we finally made it to view rock resort but then we had to take like 100 stairs down to where the porch was lol they really make you work hard to get to this place! we made it down and there was the sweetest friendliest dog on the island to greet us so that made it all worth it. that and the GORGEOUS view! the place seemed deserted; there was only one guest sleeping on a lounge chair on the porch and 3 staff members. so we basically had the place to ourselves! we got fruit and hung out on the lounge chairs and just enjoyed the view for a while.

later we went down some stairs to the water but again- it was too rocky and wavey. jens got in but i was too chicken. he didn't snorkel long though because he said the waves kept pushing him into rocks and there was some trash he kept thinking were jelly fish and it freaked him out lol plus his snorkel kept filling with water for some reason (it was cheap) so he got out and we decided to ask the staff to call us a different taxi and we'd just go back and tell the other taxi guy nevermind.

overall it was nice to see that resort and bay. it was really beautiful but such a shame to see the trash in the water and on the rocks :o( i dunno if it's the locals or the tourist who are throwing their trash on the ground and in the water or both but it's uncalled for. i wish they could get a cleanup crew and more signs and trash cans around to encourage people not to litter. one obstacle is that whatever can't be burned has to be taken off the island for processing or land filling. so that's a lot of plastic, glass, metal, etc. that has to be taken away.

anyway- i'm making this too long! gotta go soon!

we dangerously taxied back to our beach and tried snorkeling there but then MY snorkel kept filling with water and both my feet cramped up from using the fins so snorkeling that day was kind of a bust. we saw a wonderful sunset though! absolutely gorgeous!

we showered and then went to dinner at portobello- a mediterranean/italian restaurant and it was to die for!!!! SO GOOD! we got bread with various dips: olive tapenade, aioli and veggie dip; tagliatelle with blue cheese sauce and italian ham, tagliatelle with mediterranean vegetables and basil pesto, salad, red wine, espresso and a delicious creme brulee. OOO LA LA! amazing! lol

i know it's weird not to just eat thai food in thailand but we haven't had a lot of different foods since we've been living in korea so we wanna eat all kinds of food! Po:

i do think it's pretty crazy that you can get that quality of italian food on tiny ko tao and you can't even get decent cheese in korea! c'mon korea! get with it! lol i won't have to put up with it much longer though so whatever lol

after dinner we were so stuff and sleepy that we just went back to the bungalow lol

Day 23 - today!

breakfast at new heaven - apple black currant smoothie, coffee, apple coffee cake, breakfast burrito, surprisingly good salad, and fruit plate!

bought new snorkels.

now i'm interneting and later we'll snorkel at jansom bay. hope it's good!