Gulf of Thailand adventures

The nearby Ang Thong Marine National Park is one of the reported highlights of this area, so Beth and I doped ourselves up on Dramamine and hopped aboard a boat to explore it for the day.  After an hour of sailing across luckily very still waters in the Gulf of Thailamd, we arrived at our first stop near one of the 42 islands in the park.  Time to snorkel with all sorts of colorful fish and coral.  Unfortunately, the water wasn't super clear since the seas had been rough the previous few days, but it was still a neat experience.

Then off to our next stop: an island with the Blue Lagoon.  No idea if this was the one used in filming the movies of the same name,  I'm sure there are many blue lagoons in the world.  This one was accessed by climbing up, up, up some incredible steep stairs (more akin to a ladder, really).  Finally we reached the overlook, and the lagoon was indeed blue and quite beautiful.  Worth the climb for most of us. The girl we passed who was crying as she worked her way down the steep stairs did not agree.  It was an overcast day outside, which was helpful for keeping the temps down but also didn't give us the beautiful blue seas we were expecting. Some mineral or something else kept this lagoon greenish-blue even without the blue skies. Lovely!

Back to the boat, and then a stop for lunch on one of the larger islands in the national park.  This one is home to 300 people, including a school and a restaurant where we ate lunch.  All of their electricity comes from either solar panels or wind turbines.  They somehow manage to get gas to the island since there were motorbikes and longtail boats that run on gas engines.

Last stop of the day: our own private beach to enjoy.  We kayaked for awhile along the beautiful coast, and then headed back to the beach to enjoy the soft sand, cool water, and some sun poking through the clouds.