Amazing Sea Life

Camping on one of the Surin Islands was amazing. We went snorkeling almost every day and saw some spectacular underwater life. Among the highlights were HUGE developed and colourful corrals of all sorts, cool fish like schools of barracuda and tones of others I don't know the names of, also I really loved the clown fish hiding in the sea anemone. We also saw sea turtles, an eel and an octopus! The only bad thing was that sometimes there were tiny jellyfish that stung like crazy. We met a couple (Dan and Jose) that we spent a lot of our time with, and found that we have a lot in common. At night we would entertain ourselves with card games and a version of pictionary. All in all the island was very beautiful and a great place to be, but at the end of our week there it became very busy because of a Thai holiday so it was time to go.
By the way...did you know that it has been four years already? Unfortunately we spent our special day traveling but I'm sure we will find time to celebrate later on our restricted budget.
Now we are in Pang Na, further south and hotter. There is some incredible limestone topography here and we plan to do some caves and hiking.

Now for some visuals of the Surin Islands:


oooo, look at all that great water!


ok so basically run AWAY from the beach!


Just steps from our camping spot


camp


Dan Jose and Dan en route to a snorkeling spot


Its a race! Hermit crabs littered the beaches


This one is red hot


pretty nice, we had seven sunny days! I swam twice to the beach in the distance, not too many people go there.


This is my artsy picture do you like it?


Mmmmmmmm so inviting!


and here are the rest of our pictures


We also went to a Moken village.
The Moken are traditionally a tribe of gypsies that travel and live on boats that house a whole family. In the rainy season they set up houses on land to live, but this village has homes for all year. Unfortunately the Thai government doesn't recognize these people as citizens, so they are denied certain rights and land. Also they are influenced by the tones of tourists from the national park that they have to share. They sell carved wooden boats and baskets to the tourists and although they are able to make money this way, it seems all other interactions with foreign culture are degrading their cultural behaviors and health. However it was amazing to see how just one km away from the park HQ a tribe of people live such different lives...


Moken child




Hand carved boats for sale


Yes they are playing BINGO and more Moken photos