Hong Islands -- just like a swimming pool, only better :)

Yesterday night I fulfilled a dream of mine--and it was spontaneously done, just a chance encounter. I held a monkey. The cutest monkey ever. And now I can't stop thinking about how much I'd love to have a monkey. In fact, a monkey might be nicer than a boyfriend, even. Just kidding. Sort of--it's just that the monkey was irresistibly cute and soft. The monkey' owner man wanted to take a picture of me and the monkey and have me pay 200baht for the picture. But I was content to just have held him. Anyway, I want a monkey. Thanks, Santa. 

We got the usual for dinner--atleast I did--fried rice with chicken, pineapple, and tomato. I walked up to the street shop, and the lady said, "Same same?" Yes, I'm officially a regular. 

This morning we had an 8:30am pickup for our tour of the Hong Islands. They arrived early, and it was raining :( Bad forecast for the day. We ended up waiting for awhile at the "dock" for the rain to calm. It did, happily. We headed first for Daeng Island. Daeng means red in Thai. Pretty much this was a little island in the middle of nowhere--I kind of felt like they just stopped there so that the group would feel like we weren't spending all our time in the boat lol. BUT it was cool to see a red rock in the middle of the nice water haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got out to snorkel there--definitely not the best snorkeling we've done. Also, it was kind of deep water, plus overcast skies. Do I sound like a snorkeling snob? Also, I lost my anklet there. I felt it come off, so I dove to the bottom to get it, tied it back on. Then when I got back in the boat, it was gone again :( Oh well. Next up was Hong Island Lagoon...oh how lovely. We love lagoons. Yes, we do. Especially since the sun came out for the rest of the day!

Passageway to the lagoon

Apparently when the big tsunami hit, some people sought refuge in this lagoon and were saved because of the set-up. Pretty cool. Also, it's a gorgeous place! The water is this light, sea green. But it's clear, too. 

Mangroves

Elephant foot-like rock :) Also, a man sleeping on his boat

 

Next stop was Hong Island Beach aka Ao Hong. Day just kept getting better! That water was an incredible emerald-green in the deeper areas, and then got lighter and lighter as the depth lessened. As we got in, it was as clear as a swimming pool. Incredible.

 

We fed the fish--I don't know why I like doing that. They swarm me, and then they bite. This time they bit me a couple times--once on the butt :( haha. Little buggers. They really do follow me around. For whatever reason, they like me. Or maybe they hate me. At one point, I sat on the shore and put crackers inbetween my toes so they would feed on them haha. It felt strange. 

Strange lobster shell

 

Right before leaving (we got 3 1/2 hours there), we decided to take the Nature Trail. Right off we saw wreckage they had left from the big tsunami. Pretty depressing. 

 

But the trail was pretty cool. It was from beach to jungle. Amazing trees everywhere, tons of mosquitoes following us, pretty birds. 

And naturally, some spiders. One very large one in particular.

We had lunch there as well. It was great to have ice and Coke. The lunch was pretty good actually :) We also had fresh pineapple and watermelon. Yum. Next stop: Paradise Island. 

 

Paradise Beach was a little nook of a beach on the island. It was great because it had palm trees--most of the islands don't have many of those, actually. Beautiful water again. All day we were spoiled with swimming pool clarity. 

 We got to snorkel some more. It was low tide. Very low tide, so snorkeling was kinda crazy. Also, it was uhhh-mazing. For the first time, we got to see beautiful colors in the ocean vegetation. Colorful coral! It was so cool! Pink, purple, green, blue, etc. A lot of it reminded me of Little Mermaid--the beginning when they're singing and the clams are opening up to show all the mermaids? Yeah, there were huge purple corals. I wish I could have just taken pictures since I can't describe them. We got to touch these cool things that were super soft and looked like they were being blown by a fan since the little hairs moved with the water.

 I got to watch a crab--an orange, big one like the ones we eat--while he was eating. It looked pretty crazy! Later I saw this one that's green, though you can't quite tell.

 We left around 3 o'clock. It was quite the ride back! It lasted an hour--and there were definitely some crazy moments on that ride. The waves were big, so we got some air plus a ton of sea water coming in. I got it the worst, but it was actually nice. I had salt caked all over my arms by the end. In the bathroom back in AoNang, I saw this cute little frog and then another when we were walking around later. I touched him.

After showering and all that, we decided it was time for our goodbye dessert at Swensen's--Malteser sundae with Rock at Heart and Reversible Chocolate flavors. Delicioso! Now we're packing up since we check out at 11. We'll spend most the day at the beach but need to be back so we can catch a songthaew into Krabi and then our VIP bus to Bangkok. It's so sad to be leaving this place. I can't believe it's already been a week and a half. It's been incredible. I'm so grateful for all I've been able to do here in Thailand. I'll miss so many things about Thailand:
--The wai! Man, I wish we did that in the U.S.
--cheap everything!
--The sweet people
--fresh fruit smoothies
--mango sticky rice
--Swensen's
--fried rice!
--beautiful beaches
--tuk-tuks and songthaews
--longtail boat rides
I love Thailand!