January 14, 2007 Railay, Thailand

January 14, 2007
Railay, Thailand

I woke up around 8:00 this morning and lunged in bed for a bit. I started reading my now book, Down Under in preparation for my trip to Australia. After an hour or so of reading I made my way down to the restaurant for some breakfast. I met up with Paul and his Swiss lady and we all had a nice meal (though the service was incredibly slow).

Once I was done eating I took care of some business at the travel agent and jumped on the internet for a few minutes. At about 11:15 I ran into Lisa and Matt. We made a plan to go kayaking in the afternoon.

Lisa and I then attempted to call Jackie and say hello. Sadly, she did not pick up. Instead we grabbed some cookies and milk from the store. However, as always, the milk was super weird. It had the flavor of yogurt and I did not find it very good at all. Why is it so hard to find normal milk in Thailand?

We then met back up with everyone and made our way to the beach to rent kayaks. On our way there we ran into a large troop of monkeys and watched them play in the treetops for a while. Shortly thereafter we made it to the beach. Unfortunately, the first beach we visited did not have any kayak rentals.

We were forced to backtrack and visit a different beach to get the kayaks. At about 1:20 we finally got in the water. Paul and I shared a boat (Lisa and Matt shared a boat) and we set out into the sea.

First we circled around several of the islands and examined some of the awesome stalactites hanging from the island. We then ventured into some of the sea caves. It was quite awesome! After our examination of the island we decided to stop in one of the inlets and go for a swim (expect Paul, who is afraid of swimming). We swam around part of the island and into a tiny opening. Incredibly, it opened up into much large cave. Had I had a headlamp on me I would have explored deeper into the cave.

Once we were done swimming we headed for the mainland and paddled around some large rocks in the water. From there, we began the journey home. We got out of the water a little before 3:30 (Lisa and Matt stayed in a bit longer). Paul then headed back to his room and I went for a quick swim.

I returned to my room and was sad to find that I had a mosquito infestation. For some reason there were tons of them in my bathroom. I went to war with them and tried to kill every single one. It was a difficult task and they managed to bite me a few times as I was waging war on them…

The plan for the rest of the day is to pack up my things and then grab some food. Everyone is tired from a day of paddling in the sun. I imagine that it will be an early night tonight because we all have to get up early tomorrow.