Snakes Instead of Rakes

         Greetings from southern Thailand (Krabi). We arrived down south roughly10 days ago with plans to 'continue' farming. Unfortunately (or fortunately..depending on how you look at it) all three of our farms have fallen through. One has family visiting, one was hit with heavy rain and couldn't house us, and one, a certain Ms. Alp, seems to have serious issues using a phone as she answers once every few days and forgets to call back with directions upon her insistance on calling back later becasue she's busy. (She has since emailed me and facebook friended me yet still fails to give her adrress so we can find her). A bit frustrating, but a week of island living, and 3 nights camping in the immense Khao Sok National Park is hard to complain about as a consequence.
       There have been a ton of activities so I will try and keep each short and sweet. We first traveled to Ko Samui in an attempt to stall for Ms. Alp. We spent two nigths at a beautiful beachside bungalow with plenty of street food to keep us healthy. We took a one day boat trip to the Ang Thong Marine National Park, which we turned into two days by bringing our tents and camping on the uninhabited island (besides the park ranger staff and a few other campers). This trip included ferry service, snorkeling, lunch, and two great hikes. The first hike took us to the highest lookout point over an incredible view of islands spotting the sea in every direction, which we did at sunset. The destination of our second hike was a huge cave full of spooky caverns and massive stalagmites and tites. Both were well worth the seemingly endless amounts of sweat pouring down our faces.
           After Ko Smaui we camped in Khao Sok for three nights. There were several great hikes and we were camping right on a pretty little stream. One hike took us to the largest flower in the world, the Rafflesia, which only blooms three days out of the year and reached a diameter of almost three feet. After an hour hike straight up a mountian side we found one blooming flower and several bulbs, so we considered the hike a huge success. Our second hike lasted for eight hours. We were rewarded for our determination with a beautiful little waterfall with a great big swimming pool at the bottom. We jumped off some big rocks and swam to cool off from our hike. Naturally, given there was a waterfall, I decided it was time to try and climb up next to it to look down on the pool. When I got within 15 feet or so of the side of the pool I looked up only to realize there was a 12 foot python sunbathiong on the rocks, still wet from a recent swim of his own. Needless to say, our swimming ended there as it was time to head home anyways to beat the darkness.
       Our most recent adventure took us to Ko Lanta, an island near Ko Phi Phi in the Andaman Sea. We had a great time but made our first blunder of the trip by agreeing and paying for three nights in advance at our tree house bungalows. The rooms themselves were very cool, set high up in the trees, with those same trees growing through the rooms. We quickly came to realize that the staff was a bit pushy and ultimately very sketchy. The details aren't important but we stayed as busy as we could so as not to have to interact with them or pay for the absurdly overpriced food and beverages. We escaped on a one day, three island longboat trip through another guesthouse which could not have been better. We had unbelievable snorkeling (hundreds of different species of incredibly colored fish), a great beach BBQ, swam through an underground channel to a beach (there was a beach on the inside of the small island with open air..like a volcano but a beach at the bottom instead of magma), and finished it off by jumping off a 30 foot cliff into ocean, which I am proud to say all four of us completed. It was a great trip.
      Now we find oursleves in Krabi, pondering our next move, hoping Ms. Alp gets her brain in working order, but ready for whatever comes next. Hope everyone at home is happy and healthy. Miss you all, Love Mason