Koh Tarutao

Koh Tarutao - a rustic national park island with park bungalows, a few park run restaurants, a large interior jungle, and a lot of beaches, shared more with clam digging monkeys than people. Our kind of place.

Beach combing in front of our bungalow.

This lil guy kept crawling about and burying him/herself into a puffy star shaped sand mound.

Shooting star.

The smallest of the monitor lizards we saw.  The largest was about 6 feet long and ran away when I touched it's tail.  

 This thing was tiny, so very hard to get a better picture of.   I couldn't tell if it was a jumping spider or a scorpion.  A long tail like thing but no apparent stinger, and long front ''legs'' with either very small claws or no claws.

 A great hike along a stream.

 Stink Bug?

 Tiny crabs are always busy excavating their holes.  And the entire beach was covered with their little sand balls and pathways through them.

 Riding our bikes around Tarutao to the best snorkeling spots.  We only had 4 nights there so we streamlined everything to make the most of our time.  Patrick rarely took his snorkel off, just in case he found a good spot.

The red spots are massive congregations of tiny shrimps. When you walk through them a thousand little arms tickle your feet. And when a big fish comes, they jump out of the water by the hundreds.

And...the other reality of our stay on this island. 

The inevitable dreaded travelers tummy finally found us. Sigh, and we had been so fortunate in our evasion thus far. Patrick bore his pretty well, and fortunately his came first. His illness caused him to abstain from sharing my fateful lunch- the only meal that had yet gone unshared. It took me down into terrible misery for a couple days, but I finally emerged and was feeling like a real person again by the 3rd day, thankfully.

Pretty interesting being sick on Koh Tarutao. Being sick here means that if you have to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night (or every 10 minutes...), you grab your headlamp (no electricity), unravel the mosquito net around your bed and climb out. You slowly open the bathroom door while scanning with said headlamp for cockaroaches. Just cuz you want to know where they are. If you have the time, use the kitchen sink style sprayer by the toilet to spray the ants off the toilet, (the kitchen sink style sprayer is the Asian version of toilet paper) and you're ready to go. Perfectly comfortable. 

It can be funny being sick during the day there too. Too hot as you lay your bungalow all day? Well, don't think about leaving open the back door for a sea  breeze. Why not? I made this mistake. My podcast of This American Life (serenading my sickness with stories) was interrupted by a crinkling sound in the corner. What is Patrick doing? I moaned and turned over, then sat upright and yelled, "Monkey!" Pause.  "Patrick! Monkey! It's got our medicine!" In dashes Patrick from the porch to save the day and out the back door goes the monkey, a gallon zip lock bag full of all the pills we could ever want and need in our travels. The chase ensued, but thankfully, the theif dropped the goods. And even more thankfully, it's monkey slobber (rabies?) hadn't gotten into any of the meds.

So, it's been interesting. Even paradise has its hardships. After I recovered enough to move, we boated away from Koh Tarutao and bussed into Thailand's southernmost city - Hat Yai. Or Hatyai. Or Hadyai. Or...possibly other spellings because Thai to English phonetic translation can vary. And be confusing to the traveler. 

We had paid a pretty penny (1800 baht! About $55) and booked a really nice 4 star hotel for our overnight here and it was so, so nice. The bell boy came and loaded our grimy backpacks onto his shiny little cart, and they served us iced Thai herb tea in the lounge as we checked in. 

He led us to a room with a double bed ( a REAL double bed, not just two twin beds pushed together as per the usual custom) and a bathtub! A much nicer place to be in recovery.

Hotel sign. 

Durian is a super sulphur stinky fruit.