On Tap

DSC01399fish.JPG

This blog entry about the events of Wednesday, February 09, 2005 was originally posted on February 13, 2005.

DAY 480:  Noelle had been taken in by a group of British divers that were on the ship during her two-day PADI Advanced Open Water certification course.  The night before she had gone drinking with them for happy hour at nearby Bernie’s, while I stayed in and worked, the Blogwriting nerd I am.  During happy hour, Noelle had befriended a British couple that invited her to share the cost of a private longtail boat to go snorkeling at some of the five islands off the coast of Ao Nang.  I was invited as well, to split the cost four ways instead of three, and gladly accepted.  We were to meet the British couple at The Irish Rover in the morning at eleven o’clock.

“Are we being stood up?” Noelle questioned at close to 11:30. 

“Yeah, I think so.”

The couple never showed, even by noon, but it was no matter; we ventured out on our own, with borrowed snorkel gear from Phra Nang Divers again, and went down to the beach where all the longboat guys desperately tried to get fares.  During the non-tsunami high season, the rate should be around 1200 baht, but Dash, the friendly Thai woman of The Irish Rover, said that we could probably get it for 600.

“Longboat?” asked one of the longboat touts as they always did whenever we walked by.  This time we actually gave them a positive response.

“How much to go to Chicken Island?”

“Five hundred baht.” 

“Okay.”  Wow, that was easy.

Well, it wasn’t that easy; the driver took us in his boat to what he said was Chicken Island, but it didn’t look like it from the pictures we had seen on the posters.  Chicken Island was named for the chicken head-shaped rock formation on one end of the island, which I thought looked more like a turkey.  “They should call it Turkey Island,” I’d say.  After some picture analysis after the fact, it appeared that he took us not to Chicken Island but to Tap Island, which was just as good as Chicken anyway, I assumed. 

We landed on Tap and arranged a pick-up time, then picked out a spot on the beach.  Noelle and I were just a couple of snorkelers amidst only about a dozen on the secluded island.  Noelle felt like the minority in the small group for, “I’m the only one wearing a bikini top,” she said.  Nearby were two topless British women trying to get rid of their tan lines in the bosom region.  For one of them, it wasn’t working, she just turned red like a lobster — with a tan line.

The sand on Tap Island was white and fine and reminiscent of the kind on White Beach in Boracay, Philippines, and it graced the floor of the shallow crystal waters hugging the coast.  Underwater there were plenty of tropical fish (picture above) swimming above the rock formations, and they swam around and under me as I took pictures of them with my little spy camera in the clear waterproof AquaPac camera case I bought at Tokyu Hands in Hiroshima.  Afterwards I sat on the beach with a pen and notepad to continue my duties as a Blogwriting nerd since I was behind, until I felt asleep under the warm sun.


AFTER OUR AFTERNOON ON TAP, we were back in Ao Nang to check out the scene for it was our last night in Thailand together.  After some Pad Thai at a food stall, Noelle went over to Bernie’s to see if her English dive group was there again for happy hour like they said they might, but there was no one to be found.

“You got stood up again,” I said.  No matter, we were redeemed by “tap” again, this time by the drinks on tap at The Irish Rover, namely the Strongbow English ciders they proudly served.  Better than that, we simply took our drinks up to our room — one of the great perks of staying at an inn above an Irish pub — so that we could veg in with booze while watching music videos on Asia’s Channel V (9 p.m. Astro, 8 p.m. Philippines) and The Man With The Golden Gun on bootleg.  Normally I wouldn’t have bought such an old DVD, but I did it solely for research for that last entry of the Blog.

Didn’t I mention I was a Blogwriting nerd?  (At least was working with a pint in my hand.)

SAVE THE DATE; DAY 503 IS COMING.  MARCH 5, 2005, NYC.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TRAILER. 
PLEASE R.S.V.P. WITH YOUR HEADCOUNT BY POSTING A COMMENT HERE.






Next entry: Back To The Future

Previous entry: Searching For A Third Nipple




Commenting is not available in this channel entry.

Comments for “On Tap”

  • Wow, Buying and watching “The Man with the Golden Gun”!  That’s really taking one for the team.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/13  at  12:30 AM


  • I wouldn’t really call it watching - the computer was having a hard time with letting us watch the movie all the way through… I’ll watch the whole thing at a later time!

    It was a futile effort.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/13  at  12:39 AM


  • always like the under water pics…underwater the fish don’t stink!

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/14  at  05:02 PM


back to top of page


SHARE THIS TRAVEL DISPATCH:


Follow The Global Trip on Twitter
Follow The Global Trip in Instagram
Become a TGT Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the RSS Feed



This blog post is one of over 500 travel dispatches from the trip blog, "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World (Or Until Money Runs Out, Whichever Comes First)," originally hosted by BootsnAll.com. It chronicled a trip around the world from October 2003 to March 2005, which encompassed travel through thirty-seven countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was this blog that "started it all," where Erik evolved and honed his style of travel blogging — it starts to come into focus around the time he arrives in Africa.

Praised and recommended by USA Today, RickSteves.com, and readers of BootsnAll and Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, The Global Trip blog was selected by the editors of PC Magazine for the "Top 100 Sites You Didn't Know You Couldn't Live Without" (in the travel category) in 2005.


Next entry:
Back To The Future

Previous entry:
Searching For A Third Nipple




THE GLOBAL TRIP GLOSSARY

Confused at some of the jargon that's developed with this blog and its readers over the years? Here's what they mean:

BFFN: acronym for "Best Friend For Now"; a friend made on the road, who will share travel experiences for the time being, only to part ways and lose touch with

The Big Trip: the original sixteen month around-the-world trip that started it all, spanning 37 countries in 5 continents over 503 days (October 2003–March 2005)

NIZ: acronym for "No Internet Zone"; a place where there is little to no Internet access, thus preventing dispatches from being posted.

SBR: acronym for "Silent Blog Reader"; a person who has regularly followed The Global Trip blog for years without ever commenting or making his/her presence known to the rest of the reading community. (Breaking this silence by commenting is encouraged.)

Stupid o'clock: any time of the early morning that you have to wake up to catch a train, bus, plane, or tour. Usually any time before 6 a.m. is automatically “stupid o’clock.”

The Trinidad Show: a nickname of The Global Trip blog, used particularly by travelers that have been written about, who are self-aware that they have become "characters" in a long-running story — like characters in the Jim Carrey movie, The Truman Show.

WHMMR: acronym for "Western Hemisphere Monday Morning Rush"; an unofficial deadline to get new content up by a Monday morning, in time for readers in the western hemisphere (i.e. the majority North American audience) heading back to their computers.

1981ers: people born after 1981. Originally, this was to designate groups of young backpackers fresh out of school, many of which were loud, boorish and/or annoying. However, time has passed and 1981ers have matured and have been quite pleasant to travel with. The term still refers to young annoying backpackers, regardless of year — I guess you could call them "1991ers" in 2013 — young, entitled millennials on the road these days, essentially.




Spelling or grammar error? A picture not loading properly? Help keep this blog as good as it can be by reporting bugs.

The views and opinions written on The Global Trip blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the official views and opinions of the any affiliated publications.
All written and photographic content is copyright 2002-2014 by Erik R. Trinidad (unless otherwise noted). "The Global Trip" and "swirl ball" logos are service marks of Erik R. Trinidad.
TheGlobalTrip.com v.3.7 is powered by Expression Engine v3.5.5.