Excuses, excuses

As far as I knew, up until recently, the only readers of my blog were Lisa, Sarah, Maydie, some friends of Krisi, and my mom. But a few days with no posts and some more of you have come out of the woodwork to find out where I've been! Well, it may sound like an excuse, but I've been pretty busy. In the last few days I have scaled limestone cliffs, been attacked by ravenous, pineapple-craving fish, hiked jungle paths filled with hungry wildlife, explored dark caves, accidentally participated in a wild monkey show, and met all the Jewery of Koh Samui at once. Further, high speed internet in the jungle demonstrates neither height nor speed. This will be a long one.....

A few days ago, Krisi and I were still in Railay Beach and we decided to explore the cliffs in the way they were meant to be explored...by taking climbing lessons! I discovered that being frozen with fear is much more conducive to ziplining, where your only choice is go down the zipline or live in the tree forever, than it is to rock climbing. I will not lie. I am not a fantastic rock climber. But I am a great cheerer-onner, which I did for my billy-goat friend Krisi, who rocked the rock. While she got up to the top, I made it about 10 or so feet up before the shakes started and I had to come down. I'm still pretty pleased with myself, and proud as punch of Krisi. But rock climbing was not enough for us that day... so we decided to go on a sunset snorkelling expedition, which left Railay at 2pm, when the other boats tend to start their return home. My first foray was not a great success. Although I have gone scuba diving before, I had never really gone snorkelling and my first dive was met with a nose and mouth full of salty water. But I soon got the hang of it and was blown away by the coral and fishies (but did not realize until Krisi started laughing at me that everyone could hear me talking to them through my snorkel). I discovered that fish enjoy a nice piece of pineapple, and was happily feeding them from my hand until one decided that I was also made from pineapple and bit my finger. Creepy. We went to three sites before we stopped on a beautiful expanse of beach to eat our Thai supper and watch the sunset. At dusk, we witnessed the amazing sight of thousands of bats emerging from the tops of the mountains and flying over us through the air. A longtail boat ride and a few drinks with our boatmates later, and Krisi and I were back in our room packing for our jungle adventure, wondering (yet again) how we could ever top the day we just had.

The next day we travelled to Khao Sok Park: http://www.khaosok.com/ to stay at Art's Riverview Lodge http://krabidir.com/artsriverviewlodge/. We arrived and quickly left on a hike through the jungle where our guide caught lizards for us to see and made us cups out of bamboo. The hungry wildlife I spoke about? Leeches. Yuck. We had to pull a few off our legs as we walked. But we got a chance to learn about the jungle and met a fair number of creepy crawly things. The next day, we were off to Cheow Lan lake, a beautiful man-made lake surrounded by towering limestone cliffs. We first hiked to a incredible cave before going for lunch at one of the floating guesthouses (exactly as it sounds). A great day, but our hour-long longtail boat ride back in the pelting rain left us a bit worse for wear. Like Songkran, we had 2 choices...soaking wet and miserable or soaking wet and happy, so we decided to just yell "happy new year" at all the Thais laughing hysterically at us as we emerged soaking from the boat. When we got back to Art's, we started on the path toward our guest house before hearing a rustle of leaves and a loud thump. "Over there" called a voice from the bar patio above us. "Look at the tree on your right!" Not more than three paces away from me was a grey old monkey. Suddenly, they were all around us...babies, too...curious, but distant...jumping from tree to tree in the monkey show that is a regular occurance at Art's. Although the guests are strictly informed to not feed the monkeys, this gang (group? bucket?) of monkeys is clearly quite comfortable around humans, and we saw them again the next morning as they ran past our treehouse (by the way, we were staying in a treehouse with the coolest open air bathroom with a waterfall shower that we never really got to use because it was too cold whenever we were there...s'okay, though....no matter how dirty I am in Thailand, there is always someone who smells worse than me).

A long car ride and ferry trip later and we were back in civilization (hot showers! floors we can't see through!) on Koh Samui. Our first order of business? Passover.

Now, all my friends know that I am not observant. I will happily eat a ham and cheese sandwich will driving a car on Saturday. However, I am proud of my heritage, and a bit wistful to be missing Passover with my family in Montreal. Luckily, the Chabad House of Koh Samui held a seder and we went! The food was nowhere near what my mom makes, and I missed sitting with my family, but we met a bunch of travellers from all over. There were about 100-200 people there! I even passed along a cherished family tradition by reciting my uncle Sam's famous joke to my small table "I work like a dog all year and come Passover, there's not a piece of bread in the house!" It's all in the delivery.

I miss you all and wish I could be there for the holidays!

I'll try to post more regularly, but there may not be much to say tomorrow. Krisi and I plan to do absolutely nothing. For a change.