Koh to Koh

Just Protectin' the S.E.A.

Yup, Jay and I finally eat fish.

The debauchery finally came to a halt when we decided to get off our asses and leave Koh Phangan for the island north of it, Koh Tao. We decided to have a few cocktails to celebrate our upcoming departure from Koh Phangan, and that soon turned into another night of bucket-fun. Just when things were looking like a boring night on the beach, Gandalf showed up and summoned a few more buckets much to the surprise of his companions. Unfortunately he wasn't able to cast away our hangovers and so the 7 of us had to endure an absolutely brutal ferry ride up to Koh Tao. After a lot of sobbing, screaming, horizon watching and a little puking, we dragged our sea-sick ridden bodies onto the paradise island of Koh Tao.

Koh Tao is where most of the scuba diving of the immediate region takes place and so our original plan involved at least 5 of us partaking in the area's underwater activities. This plan slowly digressed to the point where, five days later, no one has done more than a little snorkeling and absolutely no diving has occurred. In the meantime we fill our time by playing a few hours of volleyball each afternoon, lounging around our bungalows, listening to James talk about his fan wound and devising ways to get the awful gut-rotting stench out of Jason and I's bathroom.

On a more positive note, we decided to leave a lasting impression on the island by adopting a dog. Jason and I found him eating out of a trash can beside the 7/11 several nights ago, and after luring him home with stale hot dogs, he now officially lives inside our bungalow. According to several recent comments given to me, I should start "putting pictures IN the blog text", so here's the first and probably the last attempt at that.

His name is Spark and he lives off a diet of potato chips, hot dogs, Pad Thai noodles and even a can of dog food we bought him. The exciting part is how, if locked out for the night, he'll yelp and whine outside our door until everyone BUT us gets up to tell him to shut up. I could talk about Spark for a long time, so I'll bring it to an end by mentioning that I feel jealous of the next occupants of our bungalow who automatically take ownership of this lovely animal.

Today we took a longboat ride up to the other side of the island to a park area, with three islands connected by nifty little sandbars. After a bit of snorkeling, we sat on the sandbars, not knowing what to do until finally our Bavarian boat captain appeared and rescued us, where we went looking for his dinner in the form of Barracudas stolen from the national park.

Tomorrow afternoon we shall finally leave this place, and venture southward until we eventually reach Phuket.