Crazy crazy mangroves
So yesterday morning I awoke at 730am after going to bed at 630pm due to a tension headache. I had woken up at 230am with mosquito bites on my hands and arms, as it turned out there is a large gash in my window screen. I got out the mosquito net my dad kindly bought me before leaving home, and hooked it up with bungee cords and a coat hanger..
So, at 830am I was picked up at the guesthouse, along with a Londoner, a girl from Belfast named Emma, and her boyfriend from Czech Republic named Karel. We were driven about half an hour overland to a river boat launch. It isn't really a river, but one of many winding waterways that run through this island, surrounded on both sides by mangroves.
We spent more than four hours winding through waterways and around the coast in a boat with an outboard motor. There were the four of us, a driver, a guide, and four Dutch people. We went into a small cave where there were a few hundred bats hanging from the ceiling, saw a big lizard swimming along by the shoreline, visited a fish farm (nothing like the ones back home, which I wouldn't visit in a million years), saw hundreds of eagles gather to feed, ate a delicious lunch of Malay foods and local fruits on a secluded beach accessible only by boat, fed tropical fish in the open water from our hands and, eventually, returned to the boat launch for the ride back to our guesthouse by 4pm.
Soonafter I set out to find my sister Josephine, and our friends Ian and Ron who had not got my email with the details of my guesthouse, and had booked a different guesthouse room a couple of kilometres away. Luckily for me, my guesthouse owner was driving the opposite way and saw me walking in the scorching heat so he spun round, picked me up, and drove me there.
I found Ian and Jos sleeping, and Ron had left minutes earlier to find me at MY guesthouse. He returned about an hour later.
We took photos as the sun went down at the beach, then had a nice supper of Malay food at a local buffet restaurant. We hung out at their guesthouse for the rest of the night and I walked back to mine at around 11pm.
Sorry for the long post, but lots of stuff happened. Tomorrow if plans go ahead, we hope to leave for Bangkok. I now have 3 photo galleries ready on my laptop, and the owner here says I can upload them using my USB flashdrive. I'll do that as soon as I can.
So, at 830am I was picked up at the guesthouse, along with a Londoner, a girl from Belfast named Emma, and her boyfriend from Czech Republic named Karel. We were driven about half an hour overland to a river boat launch. It isn't really a river, but one of many winding waterways that run through this island, surrounded on both sides by mangroves.
We spent more than four hours winding through waterways and around the coast in a boat with an outboard motor. There were the four of us, a driver, a guide, and four Dutch people. We went into a small cave where there were a few hundred bats hanging from the ceiling, saw a big lizard swimming along by the shoreline, visited a fish farm (nothing like the ones back home, which I wouldn't visit in a million years), saw hundreds of eagles gather to feed, ate a delicious lunch of Malay foods and local fruits on a secluded beach accessible only by boat, fed tropical fish in the open water from our hands and, eventually, returned to the boat launch for the ride back to our guesthouse by 4pm.
Soonafter I set out to find my sister Josephine, and our friends Ian and Ron who had not got my email with the details of my guesthouse, and had booked a different guesthouse room a couple of kilometres away. Luckily for me, my guesthouse owner was driving the opposite way and saw me walking in the scorching heat so he spun round, picked me up, and drove me there.
I found Ian and Jos sleeping, and Ron had left minutes earlier to find me at MY guesthouse. He returned about an hour later.
We took photos as the sun went down at the beach, then had a nice supper of Malay food at a local buffet restaurant. We hung out at their guesthouse for the rest of the night and I walked back to mine at around 11pm.
Sorry for the long post, but lots of stuff happened. Tomorrow if plans go ahead, we hope to leave for Bangkok. I now have 3 photo galleries ready on my laptop, and the owner here says I can upload them using my USB flashdrive. I'll do that as soon as I can.
posted by PhotoDiarist at 11:38
2 Comments:
hey chris, sounds like your having a blast! I hope you send photos/make another photo collection thing. very cool. hehe, I'm glad jos and you got there safe. it's 8:15 in the morning, and I'm early for late start by like, and hour and a half... so I'm gonna go study for my science test :) btw, dad was happy you used the mosquito net hehe. love you guys lots, I miss you sooooooo much. cheers
Posted by lisa
that tour sounds rad, as does your guesthouse owner. i have a question for ya, and i know you are a busy, travelling man so i understand if you'd rather be checking out bats and monkeys instead of sitting in front of the computer answering my silly questions.
when you did the euro-backpacking (in the summer, yes?) how much preparation/planning ahead did you really have to do, if any, for stuff like flights/rail tickets between countries, hostel bookings, etc? i really don't know how long i'll be staying in each spot so if i can get away with perhaps just buying one of those month or two month rail vouchers and looking for a bed when i get into whatever city i land in, that would be excellent.
Posted by kelly
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