The dream paradise island...
Fed up with the insane prices proposed by taxis in order to go to the pier to catch a ferry for Koh Phangan, we take our chance and hitch hike. It is 11am and it is a scorcher outside. With our heavy backpacks we quickly sweat like being in a sauna and find some shelter below trees. Nobody stops except these silly taxi drivers offering a dissuasive fare: 500 up to 700 thb for the ride when it should be around 60 thb. We refuse such a scam and keep standing on the side of the road until one "pick-up" style car stops. It is actually a foreigner living on the island and offers us to sit behind and to take us a little bit further. Unfortunately he was not riding to the pier so we have to try again... After 30min, a normal Thai guy stops and so kindly drops us at the Big Buddha pier.
How lucky we were :-)
Weronika birthday
It is Weronika's birthday and Francois browses through the best rated restaurants around on TripAdvisor. And lucky us, we found the best restaurant so far from our trip in Asia: The Fishermen's. Amazing service quality in addition to delicious food. Francois books a table and we ride our scooter in the evening in our rain jackets and using our bags' rain cover to protect our legs since it is raining like hell and it does not seem to stop. We finally arrive in a nearly dry state and appreciate a pichet of red wine!
Diving
In our quest for the wind that we don't find, we back-up our activity plan with some scuba-diving. Nothing better than a day out diving from the boat. It is a great occasion to meet people and you really feel some kind of achievement at the end of the day. Each dive is always an adventure and even if we got saturated with our LiveAboard made in Australia, it is with pleasure that we resume it.
Windsurfing & kitesurfing
When there is wind, the tides are too low to learn kyte-surf in the lagoon, and when the water is high enough, there is no wind. Grrr!! We are so frustrated not being able to have the chance to start feeling what it is like to board with the wind power.
Desperate but still optimistic, we positive by renting a windsurf board just before the afternoon storm and despite the wind is rather low, we have fun sharing the board, taking nice footages with the GoPro in a lagoon where the max. depth is up to our waist ;-)
Kitesurfing - or not actually!
We kept chasing the kitesurfing experience, we were after the wind that was not coming! ;(
We even got friends with some weird guy on the beach...
Kayaking
100 thb per hour for a double kayak. Great. Let's do it! In less than 10min, we are paddling to another island Koh Tae Nai. We paddle all around the island and go back to the resort after this one-hour workout, with some adrenaline as the waves were quite bigger out at sea, especially when we had to ride parallel to them in order to close our loop.. always a bit tricky..
Elephant
On the way to the wakeboard bay we pass an elephant that is in the jungle...spectalcular view to see wild animal, so big an majestic...
Wakeboard
More expensive, but still much cheaper than in UK-London, we figure out that there is a quiet bay - Chaloklum Bay to get towed behing a boat. The club is recommended in the Lonely Planet guidebook, so we give it a ride. The founder and owner is a young British citizen, very pleasant. Weronika never practiced wake jumps before and it will be the first time. After a few minutes of acclimatisation on the board steering left and right, Weronika successfully attempts her first jumps, both toe-side and hill-side. What a session!
It is a great experience and we hope we will have more sessions once back in the cheese country.
Some last romantic moments on the beach paradise....
My lovely husband was posing for ME!
xxx
We were leaving the island by boat at 7am, so 6am departure, walk on the beach to the pier...
Boat - Bus - Boat Koh Phangan - Koh Phi Phi 7hrs