April 2nd

I had a lousy sleep. I kept waking up with chills, a fever, and various gastrointestinal issues, the details of which I’ll spare you.

I’d planned to get out around 8 with a kayak, but was feeling lousy, so didn’t finally decide to suck it up and get out until after breakfast around 10:30ish. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and already hot as I paddled out, east from Ao Bang Bao to what I think was Lonely Beach or Hat Wai Chek – anyway, and isolated, deserted looking beach that I’d seen in Lonely Planet and from the boat on the way to the dive site.

As I was paddling out, I’d occasionally hear and see schools of tiny fish (maybe a couple inches each in length) jumping out of the water. It was really cool to see them sparkling, and hear the tiny splashes. One time, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, and saw a bigger fish, about a foot long, heading back down from about 15 feet in the air!

Paddling along, I was fairly near to the coast, which was mostly rocky cliffs or slopes. At one point, I could see a notch, and so I ran the kayak up into it just to explore. As I pulled in, I could see and hear a ton of bats flying around a grotto, with a wide chimney going straight up, and a small narrow cave at the back. So I parked the kayak up on a couple of rocks above the waves, and carefully walked up towards the cave (bats**t is slippery). I took some pics and video, and then considered exploring the cave at the back of the grotto. But, since there was a lot of random junk and bats**t raining down, I decided against it. As I had that thought, a bat with diarrhea flew over me and dropped a bomb on my shoulder. As I hastily made my way back to the kayak, cursing bats in general, I slipped and kicked a rock with my big toe, hard enough to make it bleed from under the nail. Truly annoying.

After washing my shoulder I paddled on to the beach. There was a family of three, who soon left, and an old white guy with his very young looking Thai girlfriend. There seemed to be a bit of a creek coming in on the east side of the beach, so I dragged the kayak over the shallow sandbar at the mouth and headed upstream. It turned out to be just a big lagoon, with maybe a mix of freshwater and tidal overflows. Not that I tasted it to check or anything. So I headed back to the beach, and wandered, out on some rocks, taking pictures, etc. Swam for a bit, napped for a bit, and just generally relaxed. By about 3:00 I was ready to head back, and the wind had shifted a bit, so I ended up paddling slightly into the wind again. But it was a good workout, and I took my time.

When I got back, around 4:30, the electricity was still off, which meant no running water. So I took a few pics of the random flowers growing around the bungalows, and read in one of the hammocks for a bit in the warm afternoon light. I was also encrusted in salt from head to toe, from saltwater, sweat or maybe both. After showering I went for one more massage, and the woman kept massaging the cut on my leg and my sore toe, even though I kept telling her not to. Annoying. Packed for the trip back and slept.