Eat-to-your-heart-content

The Bamboo Island is the best snorkeling spot of all, mainly due to the fact that the marine fish there were so much fatter! Hahaa... And I managed to spot a lobster hidding in a cave amongst the corals. Its antennae are about 30 cm in length for both sides together. It's not the brownish black or greenish brown lobsters that one will see in the normal chinese restaurants, but it had white antennae, and the body was blue.. Amazing... A more common and smaller fish were swimming all around us and 'bit' my friends (but not me). Only bit me once when I was in close proximity of my friends. Weird!!? Saw a couple of clown fish and tailed a beautiful silverish blue fish with strips of turquoise and green.. At certain angles when the scales caught the sunlight, and refracted it off its body, the fish looked so angelic with a wondrous mixture of colors. Too bad I didn't have an underwater camera :( I managed to catch a glimpse of a school of fish, which were greyish in color.. They were feeding in a group, pecking at bits of food on the corals. Led my friends in search of this school, and one even mischievously dived down to disperse them. *LOL*

Most of the time I was snorkeling alone, especially at Bamboo Island. At one point, my mind began to run wild, wondering if there were water snakes or piranhas lurking around in the deep waters of the sea, hiding in some dark corners of caves or coral reefs waiting to sink their teeth on unsuspecting 'snorkelers'. Was kinda freaked out for awhile as not many people were snorkeling at the area where I was and those ugly sea urchins beneath weren't any help to calm my nerves. They were heaps of them sprouting out from all over the places!! Ewww.....

But after awhile I managed to suppress this thought, rationalized that this area should be a safe spot for tourists since they have been patronised by people for many years and no fatal accidents seemed to have happened. Finally I would like to warn all who intend to snorkel in the future to put tonnes of sunblock lotion, and I really mean lotsa of it, before going on the tour. Bring along an entire bottle to re-apply during the trip. Or else you'll end up looking like a boiled lobster. And the pain from the sunburn will last for at least a week!!

I would also like to take the chance to recommend the hotel that I stayed at in Krabi. It is called the Krabi La Playa Resort (www.krabilaplaya.com) which is along the Ao Nang Beach. We paid about SGD 80 per night for a twin sharing room. And if I am not wrong, you could get a room with your private pool and jacuzzi for an additional SGD 40 per night. We were lucky to get the Pool-side Deluxe room for a day, and we made sure that we made full use of the pool and jacuzzi before we were demoted the next day! Sobz.... The pool bar was just outside our balcony!! How cool can it be?!? My friends were joking about ordering refreshments from our balcony. *LOL*

We also visited Krabi town, where cheap roadside food stalls congregated there. It is alittle like Bugis Street, but those were foodstalls instead of clothes stalls, and is more conjested.

In Phuket, we stayed in the Karon Princess for 2D2N, which is along the Karon Beach... DUH... This beach has pretty huge waves. It was larger than the ones at Patong Beach, though the latter has clearer seawater. Karon Beach's waves actually knocked me off my feet a couple of times, and I wasn't knee-deep in the waters!! So you can imagine how strong the waves are. Moving further into the sea, the waves could bring you a meter up from sea bed. It was like a thrill ride in theme parks! The first time when I was caught by the wave and pushed underwater, I swallowed so much seawater and my nostrils felt like it was filled with salt... yuckie... I had to go back to our beach chairs to gulp down water to clear my windpipes.. "-_- After that I was more seasoned and made sure that I closed my eyes, pinched my nose and closed my mouth tight on seeing a wave coming. Next time I would bring goggles!! Such a waste that I can't see the waves engulf me...