Paradise by the sea and in the sky
Sunday, January 15, 2006
December 28, 2005
During our last day in Ao Nang, Kat and I were both hoping to do a little relaxation. The past few days had been so packed (in a good way), that some downtime was definitely in order before our flight left for Bangkok.
While Kat wanted to stay a little closer to “home”, hanging out on our local beach, I was still craving a pristine, white sand beach. After we had passed so many small islands with beautiful beaches during our scuba trip, I figured I could just hire a longtail boat for a quick spin over to one of them.
Kat headed down to our beach to read in the shade, and I headed towards the mass of eager boatmen, queuing up in front of a long stretch of boats. A man approached me and I told him I wanted to go to a beautiful, white beach that wasn’t too far away – Kat and I had agreed to meet for lunch around 12:30 so I had effectively 2.5 hours to explore. Luckily, he promised me that the closest island to us, Ko Poda, had a gorgeous white sand beach. For around 300 Bht (a little under $8) I could hire a boat to go there and back. The timing became a little more tricky because I was traveling solo, the boatman wanted to wait until his boat was full so he’d make the most of his gasoline use. He wasn’t too pleased that I wanted to return to the mainland around noon, as most people are just arriving at Ko Poda then.
At any rate, I managed to get over there around 10:30 am, and was met with one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen. Brightly-colored longtails were anchored to one side of the beach, while sunbathers stretched out on the pristine sand and snorkelers zoomed about under the surf. The colors were so stark and bright, I couldn’t believe that I was really seeing them clearly: nothing could be that beautiful and not digitized by the magic of Hollywood. The water was truly a pale crystal turquoise, and when I actually walked into the ocean, I was met by hundreds of tiny black and yellow striped fish swimming around my legs. The water was warm and incredibly inviting. It took me about 20 minutes in the tide to get it out of my system, before I returned to my towel and grabbed my camera.
I spent nearly the next hour and a half wandering along the beach and the interior of the island, trying to best capture it’s practically *unreal* beauty with a mere camera lens – a very difficult feat. I had planned on laying out a bit in the sun as well, but the beauty of the island made me restless and I couldn’t be satiated unless I had explored every ounce of the tropical nature preserve.
Sand trickling between my toes, I strolled along the coast, snapping photos of the gorgeous longtails dancing about in the waves and the intense cloud formations that hovered above them. Everywhere I turned there was another magnificent view that had to be captured, and I wasn’t the only person with this idea – I saw people wade into the water with their tiny digital cameras, hoping to get proof that they had indeed been in paradise itself.
Inside the shore there was a grassy park area, where monkeys roamed free and small grass huts provided respite from the sun. I think there might have also been a tiny restaurant or two. Ko Poda is a private island and therefore no one is allowed to spend the night there. As a result, its integrity is kept in tact and it receives thousands of visitors every year. I had actually picked a good time to go visit, as there seemed to be only a few tourists (mostly as a result of a cruise ship outing of 20+ people) with the same idea as me. The larger boats of snorkelers and island hoppers seemed to arrive just when I was leaving.
When it came time for me to head back, the original longtail boat was nowhere to be seen – this wasn’t a problem for me as there were many other boats equally willing to bring me back to shore. The problem was for my first longtail boatman, because I hadn’t paid him yet (you usually pay them after they bring you back to shore). After waiting for about 15 minutes after our scheduled meeting time, I reluctantly agreed to take another boat back, and was about 20 minutes late to meet Kat.
Luckily, she was in a good mood and forgave me easily – we truly were excellent traveling companions! We walked along the waterfront promenade and selected an outdoor/shaded Thai restaurant that seemed to boast a wide variety of choices. After our last delicious meal in Krabi, Kat and I decided to spend the remaining afternoon at the swimming pool where the diving school was – they had a lovely cabana area for massages, and we couldn’t resist taking advantage of more relaxation. I had actually forgotten to mention that after our rock-climbing on Christmas, we stopped at a massage place to soothe our sore muscles, so this was our second massage experience in Ao Nang.
We laid out on the mattresses and fell into a deep comatose while the women went to work. I only had a foot massage, but Kat did the whole Thai shebang – she really became a fan of these stretch/yoga deep-muscle massages. An hour later, we rinsed off in the pool showers, piled our stuff together, and returned to our hotel to secure a taxi to Phuket.
As easily as we had gotten there, we found a man to drive us the two hours to the airport, and we settled back in the air-conditioning, watching the Krabi countryside fly by, saddened that we were leaving the beach, but excited for our next adventure in Laos.
Our flight was a little late in leaving Phuket, and we knew we’d be hungry before we arrived in Bangkok, so with little debate, Kat and I gave into the Burger King restaurant at the airport. It was a strange cultural experience, and one that I think our stomachs regretted later, but at the time the fries dipped in chili sauce was heavenly :).
Once in Bangkok, we waited in the heinously-long line for taxis, and sped off for our home-away-from-home, the Swiss Lodge. Since this was our last full evening in Bangkok (where we didn’t have to get up before sunrise), we decided we should check out Vertigo – a bar at the top of the Banyan Tree Hotel that boasts incredible views and a luxurious atmosphere. Not recognizing that there might be a dress code, and having no desire to clean ourselves up from the beach-kissed events of the morning, we grabbed our purses and walked to the bar with little thought.
Inside the hotel we weren’t sure they’d actually let us in (we both had on sandals and I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt), but we easily snuck by and were met with some fantastic panoramas of Bangkok at night. My mom and stepfather had visited this bar during their trip in November, and couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks, and it was suddenly clear why as a woman escorted us to a beautiful table under the stars. Vertigo is on the 60th floor of one of the tallest hotels in Bangkok, and it literally is situated on the roof. There is nothing obstructing one’s view of all the city lights below. The Chao Praya river winds its way along the horizon, and stars peek out in the humid mist.
Kat and I ordered one of the special drinks – nearly breaking the bank compared to what we had spent in Krabi, and took in the views. There was a group of particularly obnoxious Americans at the table next to ours, but we did our best to ignore them and ogle the other exotic foreigners who were clearly better dressed for the evening than us.
After we reached the bottom of our glasses, we paid our bill and wandered around the restaurant to take some pictures to once again try to capture a paradise that was clearly uncapturable. I played around with some of the bulb settings on my camera and for the most part was really happy with how the images came out. It was helpful that there were so many pillars throughout the place where we could rest our cameras upon to reduce camera shake.
The day had truly been a large dichotomy between sea and stars, and Kat and I were both pleasantly exhausted by the time we returned to the hotel to catch a good night’s sleep before departing for Laos in the morning.
Posted by kalabird at January 15, 2006 12:15 AM