Day 32 - Pink Dolphin Bonanza

The alarm went off at 6.15am, which would have been early but for the fact that I had been awake reading since 1.30am & Jackie had been just dozing.

We were out & on the road by just after 7am wearing our fleeces because it was damn cold on the scooter. About 40 minutes later we arrived back at the Pink Dolphin Pier at Laem Prathap. We parked up & my heart sank when again we saw that there was no-one around.

After walking along the length of the pier, I saw an elderly lady sweeping in a house, so in my best Thai I called to her “Pink dolphins?” She seemed to understand what I meant & shouted something to the man in the house next door. I think the man was on the toilet, because he was shouting back, but didn’t emerge for several minutes & when he did he soaking wet & wearing just a pair of shorts.

I had read that the price of renting a longboat & driver was between 1,000 - 1,500 Baht for 2 hours, but the man was adamant that we would be paying 1,200 which was non-negotiable. Jackie & I then stood around for about 10 minutes not really sure what was happening until another man appeared with 2 life jackets & told us to follow him.

We did until Jackie slipped on a patch of wet mud, both her feet went from under her & she crashed down on her backside, getting both her ‘Daisy Duke’ shorts & our beach bag covered in mud. When we got to the longboat, I stepped in & the boat sank below me causing me to lose my balance & fall in, scrabbling around on my hands and knees on the bottom of the boat. This was not a very auspicious start to our trip!

At just after 8am, we chugged out away from the pier & followed the coast westwards. We had given ourselves the best opportunity to see the dolphins, because the optimum time was between 7.30am & 9am & the sea was like a millpond. Apparently there are about 60 pink dolphins that live in this coastal region & no one has come up with a definitive explanation for why they have a pink pigment.

We stopped for some waterside repairs, a fellow longboat fisherman had a flat battery, so we passed our battery to him to jump start his engine. We then continued along the coast surveying the horizon with our beady eyes & our fingers crossed. The Raja Ferry port came into sight & our driver suddenly shouted “Dolphin, Dolphin”.

It was then full steam ahead towards the ferry port & we got our 1st glimpse of the pink dolphins. Annoyingly the few passengers on the ancient ferry, which we would be catching in two days time, could also see & were photographing OUR dolphins. Our driver cut the engines & we watched a number of pink, some grey & some mixed race dolphins chasing fish in the port waters.

For a glorious 30 something minutes we floated around in the port waters watching the dolphins pop up & down. We attempted to photograph them, but again with absolutely hopeless results. Our time came to an end & we motored back to the Pink Dolphin Pier feeling very pleased with ourselves & glad we made the effort.

It was still only 10am, so we took a slow ride back towards base. We by chance found a National Park just south of our hotel, which had an exhilarating winding coastal road with serious peaks & troughs as well as a couple of nice viewpoints.

Our last stop before lunch was to a waterfall recommended by Aiye. The ride started fine up a paved road, it then turned into a gravel path before deteriorating into a rutted crumbling seriously steep track. Our 150cc Honda screamed as I tried to unsuccessfully accelerate up & stay on the track. Jackie wasn’t comfortable & insisted on getting off, but she got her leg stuck on the saddle & actually fell off. It was made all the worse when the bike rolled backwards & I stood on Jackie’s foot.

I didn’t wait to hear the volley of verbal abuse, so I revved up & sped up the remainder of the track & waited for Jackie to huff & puff her way up. The waterfall wasn’t worth the effort & we had similar problems on the way back down.

We stopped at a little local restaurant, Nong Sao’s Kitchen to quench our thirst with Changs & we ordered a meal each, chicken with cashew nuts & fried pork. All delicious.

The lunch after such an early start took it’s toll on us & we were reduced to having a siesta in our air conditioned room. At 3pm we forced ourselves back up & spent a couple of hours chilling in the gardens of Leeloo, before having another really decent light dinner back at Suchada Villa.

Song of the Day: Dolphins by Fred Neil.
I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down by Elvis Costello & The Attractions.
(Whilst researching my Song of the Day, I discovered that ‘Pink Dolphin’ also had a slang meaning relating to the noise a dolphin makes!)Read more