Today, October 11th, we were going to go canoeing. Everyone thought that that meant that we would be going in a canoe, and paddling ourselves around the islands for a bit. We were wrong. Turns out we were going to be sitting in a boat, while another person paddled for us. It was slightly disappointing because a few of us actually wanted to do some paddling, but they were okay with sitting there and watching the scenary.
Here is a few of my friends getting into their boat. This was their idea of us canoeing. I didn't really mind because I was feeling lazy, and really didn't want to go paddling for an entire day.
Some of the other exchange students heading into the cave. It was pretty dark, but because I am the amazing person with a waterproof camera, I had been named photographer, so I took quite a few pictures. Everyone thanked me for takingthe pictures though, it felt good :)
PeeBoy-our Rotary Guy, who's pretty much like our chaperone...showing us some of the formations that were within the cave. It was quite amusing, because every formation that he showed us would have a different name, and then he would make up a little story about it. Most of the time his stories didn't make much sense, but it was still fun to listen to.
Another one of the formations that is in the cave. The pictures from inside the cave turned out a bit grainy, due to the fact that it was pitch black, and I was truly just pointing the camera in different directions, and hoping I'd get a cool picture out of it. Most of the time I did, but I do have a few pictures that I have no clue what they are. :)
This is a picture outside the entrance to the cave. The boat that is directly in front of the camera is filled with Fernanda, Courtney and Anna (Brazil, US, US respectively). We were hoping to see some monkeys that frequent the shores (hanging from the trees) so that we could feed them banana's, but sadly we didn't see any. I guess they were hiding from the rain.
Another scenary picture of where we were, this time showing the boats that we rode on. The one that we took is the big red one in the center. I am still amazed at how some of the trees can literally grow out of the rock!
After a splashing fight that went a little overboard, the guide to Anna, Fernanda, and Courtney's boat decided to treat them to the water, and promptly flipped their boat. Fernanda wasn't impressed, she wanted to stay dry, but the rest of us had a good laugh.
Our second stop of the day was at this series of islands. There were lots of little nooks and crannies to explore, and the weather was co-operating. It wasn't raining as of right now, but it wasn't unbearably hot either. It was just right. We weren't the only boat at this location, actually every location we went to there were a lot of boats...anyways, we traveled around here, and spent about an hour here.
Looking down one of the little waterways between the islands. There was a little fishing vessel there (the boat in the center of the picture) and a very nice yaht (the white boat to the right hand side of the picture). I don't know what all to say about this picture, it was mainly scenary.
Haha Another scenary picture, but this time its showing the jagged rocks that were on the side of the island. There were lots of these little hangings everywhere, and some of them were pretty ig, hanging down twenty feet, and creating strange shapes.
So within the little area that we were chilling in, we came across a couple of fishermen. They were fishing for crab, so technically they were crabbing. They also were catching these suckers (there is a better picture lower down). Now I'm not totally sure what these are, but they are related to the horseshoe crab. I took this picture to try and get a shot of the crab, but ended up getting an awesome picture of this ladies discusted face. Hehe.
Here is a picture of the two fishermen, and their boat. They were showing us their catch, crabs, and a few fish, but not much. They fish by net, not fishing rod. How it works is they have this big net that has weights on the end of it, and they throw it in the water, then they pull a rope causing the net to fold up on itself, catching the fish. Ingenious, I know :).
Okay, so here is a picture of me and the horseshoe type crab. They are actually pretty ugly, and look like they belong in prehistoric times, and not in the modern day times. Haha. The other Emily said that she had eaten it before, and that it wasn't all that good. I have yet to eat it, so I don't know, but I have learned not to judge the food based on other peoples tastes, and wait to eat it myself.
So our next stop was at this set of islands, and it was pretty awesome. This area is famous for the Thai people because of the slanted rock wall that you can see in the background of this picture. It has a very long story that tells about how it is good luck for the people, or something like that. I didn't totally understand the translation, so I can't really pass on this information. Either way, it was really cool to see.
For all of the James Bond fans out there reading my blog, do you recognize this island? Supposedly it was featured in one of the James Bond movies, and is now named..James Bond Island. Pretty unique name eh? Well we were given the option to go around the island, or to swim out to James Bond Island, but we decided to walk around, because I didn't feel like swimming at that particular moment. We wandered around to the backside of the island, where we found this cute little beach. There wasn't much to see there, but it was really cute. We met a Thai man, who proceeded to tell us his life story, about how he has a granddaughter in the US (we had told him where we were from), and how he went to technical school, and all of these details. It was really funny. He then got a group picture with us so that he could show his granddaughter. We asked him if he golfed (because he was using a putter as a walking stick) and that made him launch into another story about how he was trying to be Tiger Woods, and ended up spraining his ankle, and how he wasn't going to let his putter go to waste, so he would use it as a walking stick. It was one of the most random conversations I have ever had with a man, but it was all in good fun.
I couldn't go to this tourist trap, and not take the cliche touristy picture, so here it is. The very touristy picture of me holding James Bond Island in the palm of my hands. :)
Our next stop of the day was at this little swimming hole. To get in the water, we had to jump off the boat....Okay, so we didn't actually have to, but we were supposed to. Emi (from Japan) wanted someone to go with her, so I volunteered (even though I was scared to jump) and we counted to three. As you can see from the picture, the splash is her hitting the water, and the chicken in brightly blue shorts on the second level is me. It took some of the guys behind me pushing, (and like putting a lot of effort into making me let go of the railing) and then finally some coxing to finally get me to jump. Hehe.
This is the group of us that went swimming in the little swimming hole. The water was nice and warm, and the beach was sandy. It was quite fun.
Now this was another experience for me, that required a tiny bit of persuasion. We had to climb up a log, scale a rock wall, and then crawl over a rock wall in order to get to the rope swing. The water wasn't very deep, so you had to propell yourself off to the side so that you would land in deeper water. If you let go too soon, you ran the risk of being too shallow, but if you held on too long, you ran the risk of hitting the wall. Needless to say, I was slightly nervous.
My camera battery had died by the time that it was my turn, so I thought I would post a picture of one of the other kids jumping. As you can kind of tell, you had to propell yourself way the heck out there in order for it to work. I had to have a little boy (about 12 years old) show me how to do it, while my friends stayed in the water, yelling encouraging things to me. Truthfully I yelled Holy Fudgesicles, which earned me a few strange looks, and a lot of laughter.
This is an overview from the boat about where we went swimming. Beautiful location :) I had a blast here, and didn't even get sunburnt...thats because it was cloudy and rainy, but still!! NO SUNBURN!! Haha.
This is on the way out from the swimming hole, with another boat heading in. I thought it was really cool (the rock formations) so I decided to take a picture and show you. There were these formations everywhere along the different islands. Very pretty.
As we were leaving the swimming hole, the rain started to come. We could see it earlier (there would be dark gray parts to the sky, and you could actually see where the rain was falling, and where it wasn't). As we looked back on the island, we could see the rain quickly take over the island. It was pretty intense. We did get caught up in the rainstorm, and it hurt! We had been outside at the time, so when the rain came down, it felt like hail...not fun...not fun at all, so we booked it downstairs to be under the cover of the boat. It was raining soo badly that we had to escape to the lowest portion of the boat, in order to stay dry. It was pretty fun, though the boat was rocking pretty badly at a few points in time.
So that was pretty much our day, we headed back to the main island of Phuket, and headed off to our seperate host families. Pa Dee (Emi and I's host mom) took us out sight seeing, and we got to go to this mountain type thing, that overlooked the city. This is what Phuket looks like at night....a lot of pretty lights. Haha. We also did things like drive around town, watch people set off fireworks (I'll explain their significance in a later post) and then head back to the hotel for bedtime. It was quite a fun and action filled day. :)
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