Nang Yuan Island

Today we took a 10 minute water taxi over to Nang Yuan Island. It is really three small islands joined together by white sandbars. It cost about $3 to enter the island, but was well worth the price. We had heard great things about the snorkeling off this island so before we left we rented some fins (we already had our own masks & snorkels- thanks Pete). We also heard the prices were steeper on the island so we bought a large water to bring with us. What we didn't hear was that Nang Yuan Island doesn't allow fins (to protect the coral) or plastic water bottles (to stop people from littering). We had to leave our fins & big water at the entry point, but again it was worth it.
A rickety wooden stilted bridge trail type thing goes around most of the island. It also has a few paths jutting up through the jungle type vegetation to some breath taking views from a higher elevation. We did about a twenty minute walk on this trail, which we found had some dangerous looking red ants & quite a few missing planks.

When we came back down to the water, we passed a mom with a couple boys about 7 & 9. One of the boys asked Levi in an accent, "Hey mister, is that a snake over there." Sure enough there was a long green slithering thing along the hand rail of the bridge, Levi was pretty sure it was a snake so he confirmed, "Yes that's a snake," while getting close enough with the camera to take a picture. The little boy said, "Aren't you afraid of snakes?" Jen told him that snakes won't bother you if you don't bother them, so it was probably safe to take a picture, but not poke at it. Levi asked the boy if he had snakes where he was from and the boy said that no, they didn't really have snakes in Norway. It was a neat exchange.

We spent the rest of the afternoon snorkeling, reading & napping on the beach. We ate lunch at the resort, which Jen really enjoyed because of the resident cat. We have seen tons of dogs, but only a few cats so far. Bans, the resort where we are staying at, also has a resident cat, which Jen has got to cuddle a few times. It of course reminds us of our cats, thanks again Mom for taking care of Cloudy & especially Lucy (our diabetic cat that needs two daily insulin shots).


We decided to stay on Koh Tao for a couple more nights to take advantage of the cheap diving. We are signed up for 5 more dives over the next 2 days as part of an advanced divers course that will allow us to dive down to 40 meters. We have been told that is where the big stuff lives & we really want to see the elusive Whale Shark.