Koh Lanta

(My blog was starting to look boring without pictures. We did not take either of these. I found them online. But the visuals are cool, right?)

Kris and I are doing a pretty good job of just relaxing on the beach. Today we went on a great snorkel trip. We saw more clown fish, which I'm kind of obsessed with now. I love those little guys. And we even saw a lion fish! You know those white and orange really stripey, spiny fish that you see in very expensive, exotic tanks (in movies)? Well, that's what we saw. We had lunch on an island that, I think, is part of the nature preserve and 15 feet away from our table was a 6-foot long Komodo Dragon! It was so cool. I thought it was a smallish alligator at first. I just did some research online and Wikipedia says they are exclusive to Indonesia. I know they can swim, but I'm not sure if they are supposed to have made it this far. So I don't know how it got there, but it seemed wild. It was awesome!

The water here is so warm it requires no time to get used to it, so there's no reason to not just go in and out of the water whenever I please for as long or short as I want. In Hawaii I'll have to make more of a commitment when I go swimming; a commitment to stay in long enough to get used to the water (usually 2 minutes) and to stick it out as the huge surf pounds me into the beach. Not that I'm asking for sympathy. Hee hee. Life's tough for Nikki B, huh?

Tomorrow Kris and I have no plans but to read our books on the beach. It will be our last day to hang out of our 2 month China-Thailand trip. On Saturday we take a sleeper-bus to Bangkok, which arrives Sunday; then we catch a plane to Beijing; we spend one night there before we catch a flight Monday evening back home! I don't imagine that I'll have a relaxing day until I'm back in Hawaii. But don't worry, I'm still not complaining.