Day 4
Mar. 22, Tuesday
(part 1)

We slept the night in the coach tossed and turned feeling somewhat lonely as Ivy and I were the only Asian girls in the fully occupied vehicle. The Thai driver had been extraordinarily nice to the two of us when allocating seats. We were arranged in the first row with 2 seats to each of us at both sides of the aisle, so at night we could lie down and sleep. Priviledged as us, it soon attracted envy to the bigger sized Lao Wai (老外). A caucasian asked to sit beside me but was firmly directed by the driver to the back of the coach. Thai's friendliness to Asian people were further validated in our later journey.

At around 5am we got off the coach and were left in a small inn. It was still dark around and the lights in the small restaurant warmly wel-comed us. I Thought there'd be breakfast as we saw the mistress busy preparing some. But 20 minutes passed we were offered nothing. A minute later I figured out why...we had not ordered! I asked the landlady the time we'd leave and found there were enough time, so I ordered breakfast to fill our stomach. In some ten more minutes we had toast, milk and pineapple juice laid out in front of us. Some of the foreigners (I forgot, we were foreigners to the Thais, too) followed suit while others decided that they were not hungry for the 120 baht meal.

At 6:30am we climbed in a truck driving us to the pier where we were admitted to an engine boat. The river looked serene in the morning breeze with the sun reflected in the water. The boat drive took about 2 hours and then in the open sea we were transferred to a larger boat. It was when I saw people from all around the world. They looked the same to me but spoke all languages, Spanish, German, Italian and French and probably latin and others I couldn't tell...and there were only a few people speaking English.

Ivy felt seasick and stayed all the way in the cabin but I stayed on the deck enjoying the view of the diverse people and the broad sea with sporadic little islands along the way.

Around 10:30 we reached the island. Before stepping down the boat, I took a deep breath and looked attentively at the water below. The turtle island is famous for its clarity of the water that allows see-through several meters down, it's true, even at the busy pier where several boats were anchored. At the other end of the dangling bridge there was a whole bunch of local people coming to receive their guest, and I spotted a girl amidst them holding a sign with names including Ivy's and mine on it, next to her was a small truck from the diving resort we registered. When she ticked off all the 6 names we were driven away. Two girls were from Japan and Australia, and the other two were young swedish who were apparently an item.

About 5 minutes on the dirt road we were home, the Japanese girl was dropped in the middle of the way, for, as the Australian girl told us, Japanese had their separate and dedicated resort (just because they are rich, author). The Aussie was a many time visitor and now she came back for the advanced diving certificate.

The reception was a small flat right on the beach, at the time we arrived, it was about 20 meters from the sea water, and it was low tide. The accomodation was a two story building hiding behind the banana trees with a wooden-decked restaurant connected to it. Farther from the sight there were tall palm trees tilting and extending to the sky, gosh, it all was what I'd dreamed for.
关键字:网友情怀
生词表: