7 Isles

Since it was my last weekend, I was determined to do as much as I could. I knew I wanted to do the "James Bond Tour," so called because it's the location of The Man with the Golden Gun, because the picture of the island had been my backdrop for my now useless computer for the past 6 months. But I wasn't sure what to do with my 2nd free day. Fortunately, some of the other volunteers solved the question for me. They decided to do the 7 island tour, which was basically the same one I had done but longer and with dinner. So we all went to Ao Nang for the weekend and found a hotel (we split the 1,000 Baht, around $33, bill) that was basic but pretty nice with the skinniest pool you ever saw and, miracle upon miracles, air con and hot water! We booked the 7 islands for Sat afternoon and I booked Bond for Sunday.
It was a perfect Sat, great day for the beach. That afternoon, we piled into the back of an actual truck (that was adventure #1 as some of the others had never ridden in the back of one) and went a couple of miles down the road to the pier. It was a bit choppy, a few times it felt like we were jumping out of the water, but our guide kept dropping down from his rooftop perch to tell us "okay okay!" Railay was our first stop, a resort island with a nice beach, followed by snorkeling at Chicken Island. We had already dropped off the two sisters (it was definitely a family tour, they were all either related or dating) at one of the islands to start cooking our dinner. The snorkeling was much better than the last time I did the tour, when we didn't even stop because it was too hard to see. This time I saw all manner of coral, multicolored fish, and sea urchins. Unfortunately, one of the girls in our boat didn't see one and stepped on it. There was nothing we could do for her, she had to wait till we got back to find a clinic, but she said it didn't feel too bad and didn't let it stop her from still having a good time. We stopped one more time for snorkeling at a different island, but it wasn't as good. Our guide had also pointed out a jelly fish before we stopped, so now I had two criturs to be paranoid about.
Our next two stops were for marvelous beaches with breathtaking views. We had our dinner, barbecue chicken with a bit of a kick, and watched the sunset at the second beach. It was fantastic.
After we piled in the boat after dinner, we thought we were done. But we had one last stop. At Railay, our guide got out a spot light and swiveled it around, asking, "You see jellyfish?" I thought maybe they glowed or something, we had heard of some kind of glowing deal in these waters before. When we didn't see any, he said, "okay, time for swimming. Who first?" We laughed. He was joking. Then he jumped in the water! And he was making fairy dust in the water, bright green magical dots appeared all around him! "Plankton! Come on! Come swim! Plankton glowing!" Three of our party jumped in. It was amazing to watch the light show. Then someone else jumped in with a snorkel and said he could see them. This was too much for me. I jumped in with a snorkel. Sure enough, you could see minuscule neon orbs, and the more you moved the more you saw. Then I heard someone swimming very fast next to me, obviously trying to get back to the boat. Something had bit her she said. We were all back in in a flash. She had been stung by a jellyfish. Guess we hadn't looked hard enough. Everyone felt terrible for her, but there's not much you can do for jellyfish stings except let them sting. So we rode back to the pier under the stars, and I for one felt extremely thankful for the day and no injuries.