Hi! elephant, rat?, snorkeling, etc…

January 24, 2007

HI,

Sorry for the impersonal mail here but that is what happens when we go to Internet cafes…

I hate Internet cafes! I just wrote this once and it all disappeared. Lesson learned, write in Word first... but anyways… I will try to write it again!

All is well. We are now on the island of Koh Samui. It is different from Phuket in many ways, including the fact that it just feels more like Thailand and more like an island also. However, the beaches are not the same. At the first beach, Lamai, everything looked great at first until we saw the garbage and the algae in the water… then we moved to a different place, Chaweng, which is busier than we usually like, but the beach is better and we are having fun, eating out at night and doing some shopping (okay, I am having fun shopping and T is reluctantly tagging along…)

Since we arrived we went elephant trekking, which is something that I really wanted to do. It was great, although at first I was a little freaked, especially when we soon heard the very loud elephant angry-noises (our interpretation) from a HUGE male elephant, with enormous tusks, coming up behind us… but our elephant driver just said, “No worry! Elephant talking, elephant talking…” and he laughed when I was nervous! But all in all it was a great experience actually. (see an attached pic, if it works…)

Unfortunately, last night we also had another encounter with an animal. We were trying desperately to sleep, despite loud music outside, when we began to hear strange noises. I was starting to fear some deadly tropical snake (I actually like snakes, but not around our bed while we are sleeping…) or something else. Anyway, all night we kept waking up from it. Well, at one point T jumped up to try to see it, with the light on, and so I went to the bathroom. There I saw the enormous cockroach… anyway, in the morning we saw that whatever it was had been all over the room, including eating snacks from our bags, dragging crackers around the room (including above our heads on a shelf…) and even taking a bite out of my banana, which was in my bag! Now, however, we have happily moved to a different room, so all is well, except that we are tired!

Today we took a snorkeling tour, a day-trip. It was a great experience, although when we arrived at our destination, after a 1.5-hour boat ride (made me queasy but was otherwise good) it started pouring rain and blowing wind! But still we snorkeled, and it was great! Then we moved to Koh Tao and that was much better, because we could enter from the beach, and there it was actually like swimming in an aquarium. It was great. The fish came right up to our faces and we tried and tried to touch them, but never managed because they were so quick. But they were so bright and colorful, it was really great.

That is all for now. Otherwise all is well, we are eating GREAT Thai food and just enjoying ourselves. On Friday we will probably move on to Phuket again or some other place. I will try to keep in touch.

See attached pics, if this works this time.

Take care and please keep in touch!!!

Love
Rachel & Tomas

Kata Beach

Daytrip to snorkle

Us on elephant