Day 10: Nov 3rd

This morning we had to wake up at the crack of dawn. LOL just when we were getting used to their way of life.....stay up late and sleep in. Out tour pick up came at 7:15am and took us to Chaweng where we boarded a speed boat to take us to Angthong National Marine Park islands for the tour we signed up for yesterday. The boat ride was approx. an hour to our snorkeling destination. We went snorkeling and it was gorgeous. Got to see a lot of cool creatures. We got to swim around for an hour and then boarded the boat again which took us to the islands (this snorkeling spot was not actually part of the Angthong islands yet). The tour guide told us there was about 42 islands in this Marine Park. A lot of them you can't go to but there are a few. Sometimes you can actually spend the night on the main island in a tent or bungalow although they don't often have electricity available. We had checked into doing this earlier but apparently it is not available at this time due to potential water problems. When we landed at the island we went kayaking for a bit and then had lunch and got to laze around on the beach for a little. They served fried rice, chicken curry, fried chicken and spring rolls. It was really good! After that they took us to another beach where we got to get our work out for the day lol. Climbed some really steep stairs to a really sweet look out spot. It was beautiful!!! On one side you could see a lot of the islands and on the other side there was a beautiful blue green lagoon. After this we loaded back on the boat and returned to Koh Samui. They took us to the elephant farm where we finally got to ride an elephant!! We all got to ride one elephant. Our driver made three rings and a necklace out of palm tree leaves. They were pretty cool! Our elephant was beautiful and we had to purchase the picture they took of us on it to remember this cool experience =). There was a little baby elephant that was on a short leash that we felt bad for. Bruce bought a basket of bananas and we got to feed them all to him. They eat them skins and all. I think he downed the whole basket in about in a couple min and would have eaten them faster if we weren't handing them to him one by one. =) We met a couple from Oregon which is our 3rd time seeing Americans. It would have been nice to get to know them better but we didn't actually meet them until the end of the tour and we never got their contact info. When we got back we went to dinner at a restaurant right next to our bungalows on the beach that we have been wanting to go to for a while. The dinner was delicious, and our table was right on the sand next to the water. During dinner a person came along selling the lanterns that you light, and then they fill up with with hot air and float up into the sky. We bought one, and it was really cool. We have seen several go up a long way down the beach from us, and you can probably see them until they get about as high as the moon...(Brent's estimation). (You can see now why we don't let him contribute to this blog much.)