I could say we kept the best for last but that would diminish everything we have done so far and I’m not one to take anything for granted.... Every activity, grand or small, so far has made us discover either new landscapes, new food, new experiences or new personal strengths and no one thing is better than the other.
But we did save the grandest of our adventure for last in this beautiful landscape that is Krabi. We rented a longtail boat and driver for the day last Thursday and treated ourselves to a day on the Adaman sea with a few stops along the way!
We had asked our taxi driver friend to pick us up at our house at 7:30 in the morning. Not to brag, but it was the first time in the past four weeks that we had to set an alarm so we wouldn’t sleep in (not that we actually ever got to sleep past 7:15 since we left home, but still...). The kids weren’t too impressed with us rushing them out the door without proper breakfast and time to shake the morning fog off but we really wanted to start our day as early as we could! We arrived at the dock by 8, met with one of San’s friends who drives a longtail boat, bought our tickets, made a pit stop and were ready to greet the sea!
The kids had swallowed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the run as we were getting ready in the morning and were already claiming the few apples they had seen me snuck into our backpack. I kept thinking we should have packed more food... we drove out of the bay and into the great big sea passing boulders of rocks and greenery surrounded by blue waters!
We were heading to Kho Phi Phi which was about an hour and a half boat ride away. Our tour included a few stops at different islands and the first of them was at Maya Bay!
The landscape was incredible, words can’t even start describing it’s beauty... as we drove into the bay, we could see hundreds of brightly coloured fishes swimming in the emerald blue waters!
The older kids had been asking to go scuba diving but we just weren’t sure enough of their capabilities to undertake such an activity as they had just learned to swim without floaties in Bangkok a few weeks ago. I had, however, packed their dollar store goggles and the boat had life jackets so we jumped at the occasion when our driver offered to put out the ladder. I think I was giddier than the kids...
Scuba diving had never really attracted me before. Jeremie has his whole diving certification but I had never even tried a scuba mask on! I grabbed one of the kids pair of goggles and went straight into the waters! The whole underwater world that opens up to you when you put your eyes beneath the surface is AMAZING!!
Zoey and Finn quickly joined me and we just kept repeating to ourselves and each other how amazing this was!!!! We kept putting our eyes underwater and then asking each other if we had seen the big brown and blue coloured fish, or the multi-coloured one someone else had spotted! At one point, Jeremie decided to join us, leaving Keilan on the boat, leaning overboard, watching the spectacle from a distance but feeling way more at ease from his watchpoint. Jeremie is the only one who got to see Nemo...even if we desperately tried to spot him also... makes us wonder if he truly saw the little guy!
Norah had been sitting on my shoulder, enjoying the view from above the water but screaming in my ear the whole time that she wanted FOOD!!!! We could have spent the day in these beautiful emerald waters surrounded by these exotic fishes but had many more things to see... and we were hungry!!!
We went around the island and entered another bay and then the waters changed from blue to white. The sand at the bottom of the shallow water was as white as snow and we could see corals and fishes from our boat.
We drove around the bay then headed to Monkey Island.
Monkey Island is, well, an island where boat loads of tourists stops to take pictures standing in front of monkeys (looking like monkeys ourselves if you ask me ;p)
We took a few pictures but the memory that will stay with us from this island has more to do with our own little monkey... Norah was fascinated by the mama monkey and her little baby. The mother kept searching her little ones fur for insects and feeding herself with her finds. She then came close to Norah, just to sit next to her. Norah was, innocently enough, sitting on the beach, enjoying the show when out of nowhere, another monkey came running to her, pushed her to the ground and threw her a handful of sand! Norah started screaming her lungs out. Jeremie grabbed her from the monkey fiasco and walked away. I had to take her for a short swim to wash off the evidence of the battle that had just occurred! As we walked in front of the spot where the incident had happened minutes earlier, Norah kept screaming : stupid monkeys, stupid monkeys!!!!
We sure had a laugh and kept asking her to retell the events of her monkey encounter which she did with much enthusiasm!
The kids kept asking when we were gonna eat... turns out all that swimming and fresh air had opened up everyones appetite! Our driver took us to Kho Phi Phi and told us we had an hour to grab a bite! We hoped we could have wandered through the alleys of this famous island a bit longer but we were famished and knew an hour would come and go by very quickly.
The kids spotted a Mac Donald’s and wanted to order everything on the menu! We grabbed our food to go, then sat on a bench outside watching people walking these smelly alleys, a few of them stopping to take pictures of the kids... then it was the adults turn to find food. We ordered pineapple rice and papaya salad to go and hurried back to our meeting point. We had our lunch on the boat as we were making our way to Bamboo Island!
By the time we got there, both Keilan and Norah, who finally had full stomachs, had fallen asleep... we had to pay a fee to set foot on this beautiful island covered in white sand and surrounded by the clearest water I have even seen, but the price was well worth it! Jeremie took the older two for a swim and I stayed aboard our boat waiting for the younger ones to wake up, reading At Home in the World by Tsh Oxeinreider which seemed like the perfect read!
They walked along the beach, collected a few sea shells and bits of corals, saw a blow fish and some kind of fishes that looked like a mix between a barracuda and a swordfish (which are both kinds of fishes found in the Adaman sea so who knows what they really saw???)
Our boat driver kept wanting his picture taken with the kids...
When everyone was awake, we went again for a stroll and a swim and then had to head back home as we still had an hour boat ride to go and it was getting close to 4pm.
Everyone rested as we made our way back to the pier... our sun-kissed skin and salt water curls searching for the shade offered by the canopy of our longtail boat.
Our taxi driver was there waiting for us as we walked out of our boat and onto the beach to meet him. Memories from this perfect day will stay with us forever...at least with the ones of us old enough to remember!