Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Tanote bay

After our stay at Hing Wong we decided to try another bay on Koh Tao, Ao Tanote. Our original plan was to stay at a place called diamond bungalows. The taxi ride to this bay is crazy, and my standards for a crazy drive are pretty high. The road, if you can call it that, is red gravel half carved into a steep hill side with wash outs, boulders, blind corners, dogs, scooters and trees all over the place. Thankfully the taxis they drive are 4x4 toyota trucks with off road tires on them and I think the drivers have probably done the drive a million times. We told the driver about half way there we intended to go to diamond bungalows, he kindly informed us it was closed for low season, but we could try Mountain Reef resort. Thank god for informed cabi's. As luck would have it, Mtn Reef was nice enough and had a beachfront bungalow for us. It was in a great location, with a nice view and a great outdoor 2nd story restaurant that overlooked the beach. The bathroom smelled bad though, but that's pretty normal here. We had four nights there which we spent kayaking, snorkeling, reading, laying on the beach, and playing with the resident puppy. The weather was nice, but rainy as it's monsoon season on the gulf. It was fine most days, just a few hours of rain before the sun came back out, but on our last night it got pretty intense. The winds were so strong a chunk of our roof flew right off the bungalow, luckily it was just the patio and we stayed dry. Pretty scary though. We woke up to coconut trees down everywhere, we made it to our taxi pick up and back into town without too much trouble. The ferry ride back to the mainland was not so smooth. We opted for the more expensive "high speed catamaran" thinking it might be a little more comfortable on the rough ocean. We were wrong. The fast moving boat coupled with beg swells made Ginger really sea sick, I was a little better but still pretty ill. We were so glad to get off that boat. 

 Ginger with the friendly puppy, he came right into our hut.

 Wine glass made out of a water bottle, sometimes you have to improvise. 
*Thanks for the knife John, we've used it lots, and really like it.

 Former sidewalk pillar in the shallow water.

 Pretty view.

 Luc snorkeling,

 Ginger snorkeling.

 We saw a ton of fish, I'm not a great under water photographer though.

 They swam in big schools of different colors and sizes, making for a really neat view.

 Boardwalk though the jungle, suspended maybe fifty feet over a  stream.

Coffee, you are my friend.

2 comments:

  1. Love the sign. Also, Luc you are officially living your childhood dream! You get to be a monkey on a boardwalk jungle. Awesome.
    <3

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  2. I'd like to make one for our apartment entrance when we return home :)

    ReplyDelete