Reverse Heart of Darkness and Getting To Know Your Dinner

Hi Blogosphere,

Special thanks to Duncan "I should have been a Phuket Tour Guide" Russell because we had a fantastic time yesterday on our sea kayaking trip. Our day began with the slightly painful side of early (when you're on vacation, that is) with the 7:15am arrival of our pick-up/van. Actually this was yet again a big pick-up truck with long benches along the side of the bed and an open air roof...what passes in Thailand for group transportation.

45 min later we arrived at our port (basically a few shacks serving breakfast, a gravel parking lot, and a large concrete dock) and after a lovely cup of instant coffee with no cream (God, do I miss normal good ole drip coffee... here its all either Americano or instant) we got on a ferry that took us out to our vessel, the SS Paddle Asia (our creatively named tour company).

Tom, our guide, said we had another 20min to our first kayaking site. This is where the fireworks began. Imagine a sunny day out on pristine blue water, the landscape dotted with various small mountains/big hills that sprout out of the ocean at odd angles. The little islands are covered with various trees and plants despite the fact that, as far as I could tell, they had no dirt on them.

We spent the rest of the morning paddling around our first island, Sus and I in our vessel, "The Marriage Tester", Duncan in the "I can't remember what I named my boat ", and Russ in "Upright." Our team quickly got the hang of kayaking and Tom took us into the first of 2 lagoons we saw during the day. From a distance it looked just like a slit in the island's rocks... inside the water was calm and the vegetation even more lush. We made for a large Banyan tree with its branches/vines/tentacles hanging down close to the water (it reminded me of a daytime version of the kissing scene from "The Little Mermaid" -- note: this is definitely NOT JB writing here... no way... definitely not him). Tom instructed JB in the fine art of swinging from the banyan branches out into the lagoon. See action shot here:

And the mushroom cloud-like aftermath here:

At lunch we had a Thai picnic on one of the small beaches. Deee-lish.

The afternoon saw more island-hopping, kayaking, swimming near random little beaches created by the timing of the tides. The pictures do not do justice to the sights. It was an amazing experience that none of us will ever forget.

We made it back to the villa for a last second glimpse of yet another breathtaking sunset. After showers and cocktails we proceeded to what our driver Pau had told us was the best seafood restaurant in the area. The slightly scary drive down a long desolate dirt road told us we were either in for an off the beaten path treat or we were about to be killed. Lucky for us it was the former.

The restaurant was a large open air space on the water. The hostess walked us over to large tanks and said "you choose" and proceeded to start pulling out random creatures for us to look at. The large lobsters had amazingly long antennae and were colored an off white with dark spots. The shrimp (king prawn) were about the size of a large bratwurst (hmmmm... I miss bratwurst too). We settled on 3 fiesty groupers and Russ ordered some oysters. When we got to the table, the menu had all the various ways the fish could be prepared--fried, steamed, stir-fried--our choice! We went with two stir fry dishes, black bean and tamarind sauces. When the food came out Russ's oysters were huge, bigger than jawbreakers, and he had to cut them and eat them in separate pieces. Susanna's "stir fry" came out as a whole fish -- head still attached -- and she was sufficiently freaked out until the very nice waitress noticed her discomfort and proceeded to filet the fish for her. The food itself was exceedingly delicious and obviously as fresh as can be. We went to bed last night full and happy.