Wanderlust

Florence, Italy.

It’s been an interesting couple of days. Mostly good, really. I feel like I should go back a bit and sum up our last few days in Thailand…

We spent the rest of our time on Koh Tao laying around and snorkeling. We did a day long snorkeling trip where we went by boat all around the island (and to the little private island just off the main island). It was really fun. We saw a lot more fish, learned about the fish and coral in the area (we took the only tour company on the island that advocates education and sustainability as part of their trips. And they didn’t even cost more. I can’t remember their name…but they’re part of a swanky resort and they advertise all over). It was a good day. I took some more underwater photos, and they turned out okay. It doesn’t do it justice in the least, but what do you expect from a cheap underwater camera?

The ferry and bus ride back to Bangkok was okay. Steve didn’t get sick, and we both sat up on the deck. It was in the morning so I think that made a big difference. Being back in Bangkok, I realized how noisy that city is! Or at least the touristy area we were staying in. It was hard to have a conversation while walking around in the street. I felt like we were screaming to each other just to communicate. We got our last cheap massages, and they were wonderful. Probably the best yet. We didn’t go for the traditional Thai massages since I read that they’re more torture than relaxation. So we got Swedish massages. But they threw in a little Thai flavor at the end. I was all happy and relaxed and then I was told to sit up. My massage lady had me lock my hands behind my head. Then she proceeded to put me in a full nelson, wrap her leg around my lap and break me in half. It was terrifying! To be fair, it felt amazing on the first side because I didn’t know what was happening. But then when she put her other leg onto my lap and started pulling me the other way I got nervous and it wasn’t so fun. It didn’t exactly hurt. It was just a little freaky. Steve, on the other hand, loved his torture ending. So everyone’s different.

On a sad note, my camera broke. The lens cover won’t open when I turn the camera on. I tried fiddling with it with a Qtip and it worked again for about two days. So now I’m basically camera-less. But we’re going to take it to a Panasonic place today in Florence to see if they can fix it. I’m sad. But hopefully it’ll work out okay.

Our flight from Bangkok to Dusseldorf went pretty well. We didn’t have our own tv monitors at our seats, so that was a big disappointment. But they fed us a lot and played movies throughout the 12 hour flight, so it wasn’t too bad. When we got to Dusseldorf at 6 pm we changed into warmer clothes and called our friend Florian who we met in Ecuador. He came and got us at the airport and we had a fun night walking around Dusseldorf freezing cold. We didn’t sleep on the plane, and with the time difference we were very tired. We only slept a few hours at his place before we had to get up to get the train back to the airport. We had a bit of a scare when the online train schedule turned out to be wrong and we had to wait at the tracks for a while for our train. But we ended up arriving at the airport on time and everything was okay.

When we arrived in Milan we got a bus to the central train station and decided just to take the train to Florence instead of trying to figure out the bus. The buses were cheaper, but in the end we were way too tired to try to deal with it. It was nice to arrive in Florence again. I like it just as much as I did when I was here 6 (or 7?) years ago with my friend Joe and his parents. Even though now it’s a lot colder and it’s raining. But the food is delicious, the city is gorgeous and the people are very friendly. We’re having a great time pigging out on bread and cheese and wine. I had the most delicious pumpkin stuffed ravioli in a cream sauce with fresh mint last night. It was a big splurge (which we’re making up for today by eating market food and pizza–so we’re still not suffering) but definitely worth it. There’s a few things trying to rain on my parade, though. The rain, literally, for one. It was clear skies when we got here, but since then there’s been a constant drizzle. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop while we’re here. It’s also freezing cold. It’s a nice change, but we had to buy some warm clothing. Luckily we found a secondhand shop and I got a warm hat, a scarf for each of us, a wool turtle neck, and a Woolrich button-up that reminds me of my nana and very much looks like it belongs on a horse farm! I also was pooped on. Stupid pigeons! Only in Florence could I be shat on and still be happy, I think. Luckily I was wearing my raincoat, so it was a pretty easy clean-up. We also got kicked out of our first hotel! We found this cute little hotel for only 24 euros a night. We slept there the first night and then went out the next morning to walk around the city. When we got back to the hotel that night we walked into our room and there were people in our bed watching tv! I think we were all shocked and lots of Italian followed. When I asked the reception guy what was going on, he said that we were supposed to check out that morning because they were all booked for that night. We, obviously, were never told that we had to check out the next morning. The man who checked us in never mentioned it when we checked in, and the same man didn’t mention it when I spoke with him that morning before we left for the day. Check out was at 10 am. We left after 10 am and he said nothing. I was furious. Especially since we were tired and cold from walking around (this was after I bought the new, warmer clothes but before I had a chance to change into them). The man helped us find a new hotel, though, which was nice. And he informed us that it was only that night they were all booked up, so if we wanted to come back…. So stupid. This sort of thing just really annoys me. If they would have just told us, we still would have stayed there and we would have come back. It was a cute place and it was cheap (our new place is 30 euros a night). But now we don’t like them, so we’re not going to go back.

I also have a cold. Which isn’t surprising since the drastic change in weather and temperature, 14 hours on planes, and not sleeping for 48 hours. But otherwise things are good. We’re taking a train to Ancona (on the coast) on Thursday, where we’ll get an overnight ferry to Zadar, Croatia. We’ll spend the night there on Friday and then take a bus to Gospic on Saturday where we’ll meet Bozidar from Linden Tree Retreat. I’ve looked into the Croatian food situation and looks like they have very similar food to Italy. So that’s great! Although all of this bread and cheese after no bread and cheese for so long is a little overwhelming! But I think I’ll get over that! Speaking of bread and cheese, it’s time to go to the farmer’s market and get some yummy food for lunch. Then we need to see about getting my camera fixed and we’re going to buy our wedding rings! We picked rings out the other day on the famous jewelry bridge in Florence. So despite the rain, I think it’ll be a good day (unless the camera man gives me bad news. But I’ll deal with that when it comes).

Koh Tao, Thailand.

Wow! This place is amazing! We’re definitely enjoying our island paradise. It’s just what we needed after 8 months of traveling around. Koh Tao is beautiful. We took an overnight bus from Bangkok and then the speed ferry from hell. The bus ride went pretty smoothly. We didn’t sleep much, and it arrived hours before it was supposed to (which shouldn’t be a problem, but we expected to arrive at 7 am, but we arrived at 3 am which meant a lot less time to try to sleep on the bus). We had about 45 minutes of waiting around on the pier before loading onto the ferry. It was still so dark outside (being 3:45 and the sun doesn’t come up until 6:30 here) that walking down the pier was a little frightening (in sandals, with my heavy bag on and not so closely spaced, flimsy looking boards making up the pier). Stephen gets seasick, so we were already prepared for a not-so-pleasant ride. Happily, Stephen did not puke. But I think that everyone else around me did. At some point Steve decided to go up top to sit on the deck to try to get some fresh air and ease a little of the stomach flips (the boat was just slapping up and down in the water which at first was sort of fun–butterflies in the stomach and all–but it got old quick). I don’t get seasick, but I was so incredibly tired that I felt generally crappy and exhausted. I leaned my head against a little window sill and tried to sleep/ignore all of the commotion. Shortly before Steve left the girl in front of us started puking. Her boyfriend had asked us if we had a bag of some sort for her. We did, but it turned out it had a hole in it (sorry!). I was surprised that little barf bags weren’t passed out or readily available anywhere for us. After Steve left all gastro-intestinal hell broke loose. I swear I was surrounded by retching. It was awful. I plugged my ears, closed my eyes and tried to go to a happy place. Luckily Koh Tao was the first island stop, and we disembarked soon after all of the sickness. It was still very dark when we got on firm ground and we decided to just wander and find a place to sleep since according to our guidebook there were a bunch of bungalows just down the street. It took us a few minutes to find our way and to wake up a sleeping guesthouse owner to show us a bungalow. But just as the sun was coming up we were lying down to finally get some sleep and trying to ignore the fact that it felt like the bed was still moving!

We woke up around 10:30, got some yummy Thai food (it’s so good!) and started to explore our little island. We were staying in the main area of the island, near the piers, where there were lots of bungalows, dive shops, internet cafes, and people. After reading the book a little we decided that we wanted to go to a more private area for a few days of solitude and snorkeling. We wanted to get over to Tanote Bay to check out the accommodation before committing ourselves with our heavy bags. So we decided to hike across the island to check it out. It ended up being more than we bargained for. It was hot and the dirt roads were so washed out from the previous rainy season that they were treacherous even to walk on. We got turned around a couple of times since the free maps of the island weren’t very accurate. But we had lots of water and snacks and we made it to the bay before dark. We stopped at a restaurant in the mountains overlooking the bay. It was yummy food and a gorgeous view. We made a reservation for a little bungalow on the far side of the bay and we scheduled to have the guest house pick us up for free the next morning. We got a truck-taxi ride back to the main part of the island and went to bed! It had been a very long day!

We spent the last two days snorkeling around our little bay. The first morning we went out right away and headed towards some rocks that the guest house worker pointed out to us. We saw angel fish, hard coral, and Steve even saw a little reef shark! It was beautiful, but the sky was a little cloudy and it ended up raining a little in the afternoon (we napped!). The next day we headed out to the middle of the bay where we had seen a bunch of people snorkeling the day before. It was absolutely amazing. So many fish. Such beautiful colors. There was mostly hard coral, but all different kinds! Some looked like brains, others were neon green, there were big columns of coral with rounded tops and hollow bowls at the top where little fish swam. We saw a couple of soft, purple coral with little purple fish swimming in and out of them. There were schools of hundreds of little fish which we would chase and they would break apart into smaller and smaller groups until you weren’t sure where they all went! It was beautiful. Steve had so much fun diving down and chasing after fish! I am an amazing floater–really, I just hang out and don’t have to move and I float–but I can’t dive down for anything. So I just slowly float around, stopping in places where there are lots of fish and just watching until they all surround me. When I was little we had a giant fish tank in my house and we had all different kinds of fish in it (all fresh water). I used to love to watch the fish and to go with my dad to aquariums to buy new fish. I’m surprised it took me this long to realize how much I’d love to snorkel! But I guess I never had a chance to try it out until we went to Baja two years ago.

One of the highlights of snorkeling for me was when this pretty fish about the size of my hand was swimming along and I was just slowly following it. It noticed me at some point and swam up in front of me. I stopped swimming and looked back at it. It came so close to my face that I could see its little fishy bucked teeth! We just stared at each other. I wasn’t moving so not to scare it, and it was just slowly waving its red fins. It was so close to my face that I could’ve touched it. It was awesome. After a little while it lost interest and slowly swam away. I followed, hoping to get its attention again. But then it found this pretty white fish with long finger-like tentacles around its mouth that was rooting around in the sand. The red fish followed this fish around, hoping to get some leftover food I imagine, and I followed the two of them around until I lost interest. It was so amazing that the fish seemed curious about me, too!

We ended the day, yesterday, when some sort of cloud of sperm came into the bay. It was crazy. We were swimming around and all of the sudden it was like we were swimming through a cloud of purple specks. It was everywhere. I couldn’t find my way out of it. When Steve dove down it wasn’t there, but towards the surface it was everywhere. We finally had to call it a day because we could barely see anything through it–and there were tons of fish having a feast!–and it was sort of gross when you thought about it. When we got back on shore the water looked dark purple from all of it washing up. And there were lots of dead shells trailing what looked like a long line of eggs. So we’re assuming that it was some sort of sea creature spawning. But it was sad that it ended our day of snorkeling a little early. It turned out my back was a bit burnt, so it was good that we stopped. We spent the rest of the day reading and lying in the hammock. Steve went out to give snorkeling another try, but he wasn’t out very long.

Now we’re back in the more populated part of the island. There is another bay called Mango Bay which is supposed to have amazing snorkeling, but it’s at the far Northern tip of the island and I’m not sure how we’ll get there. We can hike out, but there’s nowhere to stay (well, there’s one place that sounds very expensive) and we wouldn’t want to do the hike with our bags, anyway. So we might get a boat taxi or do one of the snorkeling day tours that they offer all around. It was great having a little secluded beach almost to ourselves for a couple of days, but we’re looking forward to being in a more populated area now, too.

We have our plane tickets all taken care of for Italy (Thanks Laura!). We fly out of Bangkok on the 29th. I can’t wait to eat yummy Italian food! I’ve been hungry for pizza for a while now, but I’m holding out for the good stuff! We also got confirmation from Linden Tree Retreat about WWOOFing there for two months. So after Italy it’s off to Croatia and snow and work. After all of this sun and beach I think we’ll both be ready for it.

We’re off to look for our next bungalow and to do some serious lying around on the beach!