May 11th, 2008 - Ko Tarutao, Tarutao National Park

The island of Tarutao is the island upon which they shot Survivor Thailand, and it would have been the embodiment of paradise if it hadn’t been for the weather. Monsoon season arrived early here this year. It rained and it stormed and it generally lacked utterly in sunshine except for one half-hour on our proposed last day, which once we reached the beach (excitedly sunscreened up and in our bathing suits), immediately turned back into a thunderstorm. We rushed back through the rain and packed our stuff, giving up on the potential of good weather after 6 days of bad. Then however, even though they’d claimed we could catch the ferry out, it turned out it was too windy and wavy. No boat would be arriving today. We, along with several other people, had an enforced last night’s stay (fortunately free).

A Belgian couple we’d met earlier were given the other half of our duplex-style bungalow for the enforced evening. They were much more hardcore than us – they’d continued to sleep through the storms sans mattresses in their tent, and even hiked over to other areas of the island – surviving only off the dried instant noodle packages they’d brought and the odd coconut they found. If we’d ever had it, Nepal took that kind of stamina out of us – we had no interest in living off cold instant noodle packets, exciting though other areas of the island might be.

The Nepal cards came in handy on that last day, what with the Belgians back from the lands of dried noodles and joining us for our additional night of enforcement. As it poured with rain we gathered at Ev’s & my side of the communal porch, chatting and in their case smoking like chimneys (they’d run out of cigarettes while on the other end of the island and were trying to make up for it!). The cards were eventually brought out, still inexplicably missing the 7 of clubs, and we played Govinda’s simplified pair game, Rummy (until I kicked ass!), and of course the odd game of Go Fish… Amazing what a pack of cards can do in terms of whiling away an afternoon!