day 128 and 129 Ko Mook 30 and 31 October

The next two days are spent lazing on the beach, playing in the slightly murky pool and enjoying the good weather and surroundings. Several torrential downpours of rain remind us that we are heading towards Malaysia and monsoon season and we are beginning to regret sending home our rain macs!

 Rowan ought to have developed webbed feet by now as she spends so much time in the water and is turning a sickeningly gorgeous chocolate brown colour (check out that tanline on her derriere!)

Very quickly we have fallen into a steady routine of breakfast, beach, lunch, pool, shower, supper, bed - a bit like our usual 2 weeks away. We are all ready to move on again. These photos were taken on our last pool evening, around sunset, as the girls make the most of their last pool time before we reach Kuala Lumpur!

day 126 Ko Mook 28 Oct

Ko Muk and Tham Morakot are the most prominent points in the Trang Sea. Ko Muk is mostly occupied by sea-facing towering cliffs to the west. Located on the eastern side of the island is a village of fishermen who have still maintained their ways of life as islanders. On the island, 800m around the coast by sea from our beach, is Tham Morakot, a unique sea cave which is where we are off to today. We've  friendly with two french couples and they join us on our trip and we motor out by long tail boat which collects us from the beach. We reach the famed Emerald Cove, a somewhat captivating quirk of nature - a sinkhole rather than a cave, the Cove (sounds better than Emerald Sinkhole) was formed when the roof of a partly underwater cave collapsed, allowing light to flood in and jungle to develop. The only way in is by sea and the girls don life jackets and we plop into the sea. The interior beach is reached by swimming through an access tunnel that leads from the 

outside world. We swim into the mouth of the cave and then swim in the dark  about 100m. The girls are so brave as we blindly follow our guide with only a small torch to show the way, we just kept swimming not knowing how deep the water is or what is also in the water below us.   

Suddenly we seem to round a bend in the tunnel and light from the sinkhole floods in. We swim through the arch at the end of the darkness and into an extraordinary inner beach surrounded on all sides by jungle covered cliffs. The water is a brilliant blue colour and we swim to the shore to rest on the sand and read the inscription on the stone on shore. 

We spend half an hour or so here until our guide signals that the tide is changing and that we must return to the boat. We swim back into the darkness and although we are much closer to the cave roof due to the incoming tide, the girls swim more confidently now and follow the tiny light back out. The best is surprise is yet to come! As we near the exit towards the boat the light from the outside floods in and illuminates the water, now turquoise green and almost glowing.So unusual and beautiful. 

We swim back to the boat and motor on towards Ko Kradan where we snorkel for an hour or two off the side of the boat. Sadly a lot of the coral is dead, but there are countless fish of every shape, size and colour and spiny black sea urchins. The girls cope well and rest from time to time in the boat to adjust their masks and take a breather.

We land on Ko Kradan and have a snack lunch and well earned drink and the girl play on the beach before we start our 40 minute motor on the long tail boat back to Ko Mook.

As we head out to sea it starts to drizzle so we huddle under the male shift cabin until we are back on our beach.

We play on the sand and in the pool for the rest of the afternoon and as the day turns into night the sun sets on another great adventure.

day 125 Trang to Koh Muk

 Our day starts with a trip in a minivan out to the ferry station. This involves a trip across the river on a cable ferry and then another drive to get to the boat.The girls impress us with their thoughts as they draw parallels between here and Fiji. The two places are very similar and the makeshift jetty and ramshackle assortment of buildings housing a shop and streetside food stalls seem very familiar. We wait on the jetty before boarding the long tail boat which will take us across to Ko Mook.
 
We are accompanied by boxes of fresh produce and supplies which are piled and stacked in every spare inch of space on board. The water is incredibly dirty, rubbish strewn on the banks and a thin layerof oil floats on the surface - however this does not seem to deter a group of local children from a morning dip!

 

We head out to sea through the mangrove lined channels of the river and suddenly the water changes from muddy brown to clear blue green and we can see Ko Muk in the distance - it's karst peaks rising from the water. Muk is the Thai word for pearl, so Ko Muk means Pearl Island.

 

Once back on dry land we now have to negotiate our way the 4km across to the other side of the island and our hotel. The only way is by pedicab. This is a glorified motorbike and an open sidecar affair - which probably wouldnt pass any MOT! But we have no choice and a ride is commandeered and a price negotiated. with a driver who rides side saddle and carries  a pair of crutches in the cab.

 

The girls and bags are loaded into the sidecar and David mounts the bike and off we go. The drive probably rates as one of the shortest we will take on our trip but is one of the most uncomfortable as we feel every bump and pothole in the unsealed dirt tracks across. At one point the grown ups have to get out and walk so the bike can make it up hill and over some particularly muddy patches - we are obviously very trusting as we watch our precious cargo of children, bags and valuables disappear in a pedicab into the distance and out of sight!  

We do all make it to our hotel though and are left to explore our surroundings. We are staying at Charlies Resort which is located on one of the 10 best beaches in the world ( alledgedly!) It is a truly stunning place and the girls waste no time and head straight out onto the beach spending the afternoon playing in the water, hunting in rockpools and pottering on thesand.

 They search for hermit crabs and we hold our own crab racing tournament. 

 

The girls confidence has grown so much that they are happy to be left on the beach while David and Nicole walk in the surf where they see hundreds of stunning patterns made by sand crabs. So beautiful and so perfect, almost hard to believe that they are a naturally phenomenon.

 

 

We play in the water to cool down when we need to, enjoying the soft white sand and the clear water.

We wander out for supper to a little open air local cafe/restaurant just outside the hotel grounds which looked popular when we passed by on arrival. Here we meet our driver again, we never did find out his name. He arrives on his pedicab mid meal and we watch as he very slowly makes his way in on his crutches with an obvious disability. He becomes a regular cafe companion throughout our stay here sharing his sometimes sad story with us over the coming days. He was a professional diver and from the tales he relates of his adventures is obviously widely travelled and hugely knowledgeable. A really charismatic and gentle man in the true sense of the word, sadly suffering a stroke 10 years ago which left him unable to dive, which is why he now drives the cab. The cafe turns out to be connected to him through family and and we dine here exclusively (apart from breakfast). The food is fresh, local, delicious and above all cheap!