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Even though we arrived in the evening, the heat in Bangkok was overwhelming. Thailand was in a bit of a heat wave. That helped us figure out our first move, to the beach, and fast. We caught a bus down to Chumpon to get a ferry out to Ko Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. We thought we had it pretty well figured out until the bus arrived 2 hours earlier than we expected and not at a bus station. So, there we are, in the middle of a deserted road at 3:30 am, no pier in sight. We took the first (overpriced) offer. oh well. On the way out to the island, we watched a pair of tornadoes dance around the sea. A local claimed in his 8 years on the ferry, he had never seen anything like it. Ko Tao was just what we wanted; a chilled out island with great Scuba diving and snorkelling. The schools of fish were amazing. At one place where we snorkelled, they would just follow you around like a fish entourage, maybe for protection, maybe for food, we couldnt figure it out. I got a few dives in and we moved on. We dropped in on Ko Pha Ngan on our way to the Khao Sok jungle, but the heat wave ended and it started raining loads, so we kept moving.
The Khao Sok N.P. area was very light on tourists,the prices were cheap, and the guesthouses were great. It was friendly little paradise. We started a 15km hike through the jungle mid morning. Half way out, we found a nice swimming hole to stop to eat and cool down. Soon after starting back up, the rain set in. Which wouldn't have been a big deal were it not for the leeches, Tons of blood-sucking Leeches. It became a constant battle to catch them before they really got started. All in all, we scraped off around 40 of them between us, including one on Klotz's neck that had filled up to the size of a vienna sausage, and one that was on myface going for my eye. I'm not gonna lie, I was screaming like a little girl while Sophie was trying to save me. We decided we had had enough of the jungle and headed back to Bangkok to get visas for Laos and Cambodia. We eventually decided Cambodia would be all we have time for. We are on the long sweaty bus ride now, wheee.
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...or To see the slideshow with the GPS locations click here:
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