After Bangkok, we headed to Koh Kood Island. Camille, Aaron, and I met up with our friends from Huangshi, the Randalls, and their family friends, the Kos. We had to take vans from Bangkok to Trat, which lasted about 3 1/2 hours and then got on a speedboat for about 1 hour just to get to this beautiful, relaxing, oasis! It was so worth it!
Here is a picture of our bed inside the bungalow and a picture from the outside. I loved the bungalow and wish that I had better pictures to show you. It had a small porch, a large room with this huge bed, a bathroom, and an outdoor shower. The shower had an open roof so you could see the sky. It was amazing!
The view from our bungalow, where you can see the bay that leads out to the Indian Ocean.
The view from the entrance of the resort and restaurant.
Our first day there, we all went for a tour around the small island where I saw rubber trees for the first time in person. We went on a short hike to see a memorial and then to this fishing village. Unfortunately, this picture of Camille and I in front of the boat is the only one I have of the fishing village.
Just hanging out at the resort with some of my favorite kids, Mercee and Grace.
Hope and Camille. I believe the five of us were waiting for our fruit shakes (smoothies) before heading back down to the beach. As I mentioned in the Bangkok post, I'm pretty sure I got a smoothie every single day in Thailand and sometimes twice a day while in Koh Kood!
Just soaking up the sun, warm weather, and beautiful views!
And here begins our girls' random, funny, and awkward photo shoot! Hope is pretty much the coolest 13 year old you will ever meet!
And then we found a starfish. Hope wanted to keep it and she named him Goober. Sadly, Goober was placed in a bucket of fresh water instead of salt water and he died...oops!
Camille and I went for a kayak ride! They had the boats, oars, goggles, life jackets, etc. at the resort that you could take out whenever you wanted.
Here are the pictures of Koh Kood Resort from the kayak.
Camille and Mercee swimming.
My digital camera can also be used as an underwater camera, which came in handy for this trip!
Grace.
Mercee.
All of the kids. Grace, Hope and Mercee and their family friends Sean and Raymond.
We also went snorkeling! We took a boat from the resort out for about 45 minutes. I will never forget this boat ride...every single one of us was feeling sea sick by the end and it seemed to take a lifetime to get to the end. I though for sure the boat was going to flip over at times because the waves were so big! But it didn't and we eventually made and once off the boat and into the water, we all started to feel much better. This was Camille's first time to go snorkeling so I had to get a picture right when she got into the water!
There were so many fish! All of the boat drivers brought bags of bread with them to feed to the fish so that a ton of them would stay where we were.
What a cutie!
We tried several attempts to get underwater pictures of us, but this is the best we could do! Its harder than it looks!
Aaron. His underwater picture came out way better than ours!
Unfortunately, a lot of pictures have water spots on them :(
The Randalls minus Hope. Back on the boat, headed to another small island to eat some delicious Shrimp fried rice for lunch before snorkeling some more.
Some of the Ko family.
So beautiful! It was a perfect day for snorkeling. Although we were all pretty sunburnt by the end of the day, which is a pretty funny thing to explain to some of my students who see the pictures of me with a red face. Chinese people try to stay out of the sun because they want their skin to be lighter and they don't understand why we want ours to be tan. I guess people always want what they can't have! I have tried many times to explain that their skin is beautiful and that many Americans envy them, but they insist that "pale" skin is the prettiest. It is a part of their culture, but it is sad that they dislike the way they look so much. Many women even use whitening lotions and makeup to help lighten their skin color. Anyway, I then have to explain that when I stay in the sun too long my skin turns pink or red, because their skin doesn't burn like mine or Camille's.
All of the boats were tied to this one rock out in the middle of the water.
The "kids" picture!
We went on another kayak ride. Sometimes I like to "double dog dare" Camille to do things. It started in Beijing when I dared her to touch a live scorpion and she did! I realized that she can't turn down a dare. I had been daring her to do random things throughout the trip that she kept turning down, so when I absentmindedly dared her to jump out of the boat I didn't actually think she would do it...
But she did! I was in the front of the boat. I dared her to jump and then I heard the splash and turned to see Camille in the water! It was quite funny for Hope and me. Even funnier was the foot cramp she got trying to climb back into the kayak! Lets just say it took a while and several attempts.
The sunsets were absolutely gorgeous at Koh Kood and we made sure to see them every night we were there. We rarely get to see the sun in Huangshi through all of the smog and winter drear.
These last pictures are all of us on our last night having dinner together in Koh Kood. The resort had the most amazing food! Fresh fruit and fresh seafood whenever you wanted. I had chicken phad thai almost everyday for lunch, which has now become my favorite meal! We had bbq every night with freshly bbq'd fish, squid, barracuda, chicken, pork, scallops, kabobs, potatoes, corn, and so much more!
Raymond, Sean, and Hope.
Me, looking a little sunburnt, with Grace and Mercee.
Kids Table.
Grown up table.
Two of the cutest little boys ever. They are sons of some of the workers at Koh Kood Resort and love hanging around and playing with the guests.
Koh Kood Island was my favorite place that we went to on our trip. It was just so beautiful and relaxing. We had a blast playing around with all of the kids, too. We are so thankful to the Randalls for telling us about this place and letting us come with them! I wish I could be back there right now soaking up the sun rather than freezing my butt off in Huangshi! Although I would miss my students too much to leave them again!
Up next, the final spot of our trip: Shenzhen, China!
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