NOW I'm leaving

It's after 10am on the 23rd and I'm just hanging out, waiting for my boat to show up. I checked out of my hotel AGAIN and then hiked the length of the island with my giant backpack (sweating all over the place) to the pier. Bought my ticket for 550 baht and then came to this internet cafe once again.

Immediately after I posted yesterday the sky got dark and it started to drizzle. I ducked into a restaurant nearby to read and wait for it to pass but it got a lot worse before it got better. Most places here require you to take your shoes off before you enter, so I left my sneakers near the entrance (in the sand), and they got destroyed by the storm. They were completely caked in sand. To add insult to injury, mine were the only pair that were left where they were. Everyone else knew enough to bring their shoes in with them. Hmmmm.

After the storm stopped (it took an hour or so) I hiked over to the other side of the island to swim and snorkel. The storm had washed a ton of debris and trash into the water and the bay where I was headed collected quite a bit of it. The visibility was ok and I had fun but the waves had picked up as well. Several times I was carried by a wave towards a rock or part of the reef I didn't really want to be dashed against.

I've always been kind of scared of the ocean to be honest. So I decided to overcome my fear and press out into open water yesterday, further than I would normally go. I dove down and got close to the reef and a frickin' huge fish came out of its hole/hiding place and scared the shit out of me. It had like, weird crap hanging off of its skin to help it blend in with the reef (thank you very much evolution) and that made it extra scary. I realize almost everything here is harmless but I wasn't prepared for it. It came out, peeked at me, and then disappeared back into the shadows and I fled with the wind. If there was wind underwater I mean.

That's not quite an interesting story, but it was all I did.

The night was spent like most nights here. Like I said earlier, 4 or 5 restaurants play movies nightly and after I get done swimming I walk through town and check out their signboards to find out what's playing. Last night this is what my options were:

At El Toro: Babel at 7pm and Borat! at 9:15
At (this other place): A History of Violence at 7:30
At Seashells: A Long Weekend and then The New World at 8:30
At Choppers!: At 7pm both Man Push Cart and 300 were playing, and at 9pm, Little Miss Sunshine and Zodiac
At El Toro II: At 7pm Music & Lyrics, and later, 300

So those were my options and if you're trying to picture what my life like here is like, every night consists of walking by these restaurants and bars to check out what's playing. I went to Choppers! to see 300 but went into the wrong room and watched Man Push Cart instead. It's about a Pakistani guy in New York who owns a push cart and has crap he's dealing with. It was ok.