Day 78- 84 Surin Islands 3/18/14-3/23/14

After an hour long speedboat ride from kuraburi we arrived at the surin islands. Surin is made up of two main islands; on one lives a small clan of Burmese villagers called "Moken", the second consists of two campgrounds, the national park headquarters, and a restaurant. There were about a hundred people camping on the island; half Thai and half foreigners. Everyone camping used the tents provided by the national park. We were happy that we had our own; this allowed us the freedom to camp further away from the crowd. We set up camp at the end of the beach in a selcuded cove surrounded by jungle. Every morning we would wake up to the sounds of wild jungle animals. The calls of horn billed birds and macaques would echo through our campsite. At night we could hear hermit crabs crawling over leaves, and  the sounds of flying foxes taking flight. Before coming to Surin we were told by our friend Mark, who we met on Ko Rok, that we should buy a plastic container to store our food, to keep safe from monkeys and rats. With his advice we arrived on Surin prepared, and were happy we did. Our first morning we could see that the rats had chewed through the most absurd of things, like empty foil wrappers, and sandals. Getting advice from other people before traveling is always a good idea, but sometimes there are things you learn on your own, like never leaving your tent open in the jungle. Our first night at Surin, Ryan and I were lying on our sleeping bags in the tent when he reached for the flashlight to shine it on a fly that was pestering him. When he did this I noticed a huge centipede a couple of inches from his head. We read before coming to Thailand that there were Centipedes, and if you were bitten by one you would swell up severly and be bed ridden for a week. Luckily we saw it before it bit us and we turned into umpalumpas. From that point on we made sure to never leave our tent open. Surin had some crazy insects and spiders, but it was also home to one of the coolest mamals ive ever seen; flying lemurs. Unfortunately we didnt see them while they were flying , but we did see a mama lemur in a tree holding a baby under its stomach. They were fascinating creatures. Like Ko Rok Surin also had water monitor lizards, although they were much smaller than the ones on Ko Rok, they were still fascinating to watch. The island also had cobras and pythons, neither of which we saw. The wildlife on surin was abundant, and even more so in the water.Two of our six days on Surin we joined a snorkeling group on a long tail boat and went further out to sea where we encountered, jellyfish, white and black tip reef sharks, sea turtles, and hundreds of different fish. The snorkeling was good, but in comparison Ko Rok had better visibility and a healthy coral reef. Surin use to be the best place in Thailand for snorkeling, unfortunately the tsunami in 2004 changed that. When we werent snorkeling or capturing centipedes in the tent, we were swimming, exploring the mangroves, hiking the jungle,and playing games. No longer novices to the island camping lifestyle we became pretty good at island life. Not that its a hard task to accomplish, but I will take pride in our innovative island games ,like coconut ski ball. A game we created by drawing circles in the sand, giving each circle a different point value. Then using coconuts that had fallen off the trees, we would roll them into the circles.The first person to reach 21 would win. We played this game everyday, along with our usual Frisbee. At night we would lay on our bamboo mat under the stars and play "would you rather"; taking turns asking each other a variety of thought provoking questions as well as some ridiculous ones, like; would you rather have spaghetti for hair or olives for fingers and toes? For two of our daily meals we kept it simple;dried fruit, nuts, or peanut butter and bread. The third meal we would buy from the restaurant. The restaurant reminded me of a large cafeteria.They offered a few convenient amenities such as free water, both hot and cold, and a few power strips for people to charge their electronics. With a hundred people on the island,using the power got pretty competitive. There were times when Ryan and I sat for an hour, waiting for an open outlet to charge the gopro. The hour wait was worth it; considering how many amazing memories we were to capture because of it. Like the rest of our vacations in Thailand our time on Surin was unforgettably amazing.