Yesterday was just amazing. We woke up at our beach bungalow and commenced day 2 of sea kayaking. The day before we explored stalactites, this day was the sea mangroves. The scenery was absolutely incredible, and I really wish I took pictures of it on my phone so I could upload them. I used my entire disposable waterproof camera on it because it was so cool. We entered the mangroves through narrow limestone canyons. The mangroves got thicker and thicker as we got deeper in, so we had to steer the kayak just right to get through. Along the way we saw baby macaques and a monitor lizard.
After the mangroves the boat took us over to railay beach, a place accessible only by boat. Despite this, it's a pretty touristy area. Limestone cliffs tower over railau beach on both sides, and on the east and west sides lay the two small beaches. We checked into our resort once we got there. I have to admit, this is the first place we've stayed where I was able to truly relax. The swimming pool and wifi kept me occupied for the first couple hours: I was tired from kayaking. After relaxing I strolled along down town and checked out some shops. I've realized that everything is pricier in Southern Thailand, at least pricier at Railay beach. Jake and I found some fisherman's pants, and thanks to his haggling skills we got them for 50 baht cheaper.
At around 6:15 we came to the west beach and watched the sunset, I got some great pictures. After some chicken curry for dinner i went and tried a Thai pancake Milk wanted us to get. It's a basically a fried crepe, I got mine with nutella.
Today was SCUBA day! I'm writing this on the boat that took us. A girl named Laura and I were the only ones who scuba dived, everyone else snorkled. I was very glad I decided to bring my prescription goggles, they helped a lot.
Our dive instructor was a Swedish guy named Conny. He gave us a briefing before our first dive, and we went over the kinds of fish we would see.
We boated over to the amazing Phi Phi islands to do our first dive. The water is amazingly blue and clear at these islands. The first dive went really well, I saw a lion fish, some clown fish, and tons of other schools of fish swimming in coral reefs. There were these certain fish that I hated though, they aren't normal fish; they have attitude. They look innocent and cute, but they would attack me it was annoying, and scary at first. But I got used to them and would flip my flipper at them so they'd go away.
After the first dive we planned to dock the boat and have lunch in the bay where The Beach was filmed. Unfortunately it was too windy, so we docked at a big port instead. The city at Phi Phi we explored was insanely busy and crazy touristy, making Railay beach seem like a small time place. I had Indian food for the first time and I really enjoyed it, I tried the chicken masala with garlic na'an bread.
The second dive was even better than the first. This time there was a current that took us, I felt like a lazy river it was relaxing. I saw a ton of sea urchins on this one too.
Now we are headed back to Railay beach where nothing sounds better than a relaxing time at the pool and some great dinner. Oh yeah, and there's some sort of paint fight thing we are doing... So I'll let you know how that goes!
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