July 30, Day 2

Today was a nice relaxing day for the most part. We walked around the next morning and checked out the sunlit version of all the places we went to the night before at the full moon beach, stepping over all the stray dogs, and took a bunch of pictures… From there we took a cab to the northwestern side of the island, a cool beach with only a few foreigners called Hat Yao. The ride was great. We finally saw a little sampling of semi-non-touristy Thailand on it, and got some beautiful views of the beach from the hilly road. Once there, we walked down the beach found a cool little beach resort and set up shop, with a little bungalow right on the beach for 5 people for about four bucks each. It felt nice to actually have a place to chuck our bags in and actually leave them for a while. So we all tried swimming again and I was a little freaked out, but I guess the 12 pills a day finally started working (or my nerves had all been fried off from the night before), because my foot barely hurt at all. The water was really shallow but also really clear and there was a cool rock a little ways out, perfect for trying to reach Zen.

After that we kind of relaxed a little and sat on our porch or beach and watched as another beautiful sunset came and went, and when it was suddenly total darkness we realized just how hungry we were. Luckily the girls had already scoped out the beach and found a cool bbq seafood restaurant. Had some pretty nice sea bass steak, not like I’ve had too many seabass steaks in my day to compare it to, but I can’t imagining it getting too much better. Once we all had a little bass and beer in us, we walked down the beach to a cool black light bar and sat on a big blanket drinking Heineken and chatting until the wee hours about who knows what. As we walked home, me and Mike, like the idiot gringos we are, argued about who got to sleep in the hammock on the porch. Being the gentleman that I am, I graciously conceded and forced myself onto the comfy bed in the air conditioned room and we all conked out.