Snorkelling in Koh Lipe

In the morning I went down to breakfast that was supposed to start at 8.

I was told, yes, that’s correct, go ahead and order. And once I ordered, I was told, nah, breakfast starts at 9. Without explanations given.
I asked reception again, what is correct, 8 or 9.
Apparently, Sundays are 9, the rest of the week is 8. That’s fine. Only would have been nice had that been communicated in advance.

I scrambled around the area to find something to eat in the pouring rain because I was due to go snorkelling as part of a group in a few minutes.

I only found heavy food and wasn’t very happy with what 7 Eleven had to offer, but I needed something to sustain me.

I was almost wishing for the snorkelling not to take place. It was raining rather heavily.

But it went ahead.

I arrived at the meeting point at 9, as I was told. I had gotten an email a few minutes prior to that stating that no one else booked the half-day tour that I chose, so I’ll join the full day tour. No complaints from my side.

So I waited at the office. And waited. 9 came and went. The staff again didn’t say anything, in spite of questions, they answered them with the most unhelpful short syllables.

They told me 9.30 is the new time.

9.30 came and went.

This was honestly maddening.

10.00 came and went. Eventually, a few more people dropped by. 10.15 we finally walked to the boat.

Let’s just emphasise that I specifically booked an English tour.

Guess which language the guide absolutely didn’t speak in the slightest? Yep.
One of the girls present was from Thailand and was able to translate occasionally, when she wasn’t whooping around ALL THE TIME. It was deafening whoops and the others were startled every time. That’s the sound someone usually makes when there’s danger afoot. But no. She was just happy, I guess.

The first snorkelling spot was in a quite wavy spot. I also got seasick on the spot. Which I couldn’t communicate to the guide with my best efforts. He kept gesturing I go in the water, I tried my best not to contribute to lowering the water’s pH by opening my mouth.

I did try the snorkelling there - it was better than on the boat - but not great either.

The reefs were meh. Grey and brown, an occasional blue. Honestly rather disappointing.
The second spot near a few rocks was better. Lots of sea urchins I hadn’t seen before, but the corals were still grey. Luckily, the water was calmer there.

We went to an island for our lunch - lots of pine trees around - it smelled lovely. Before more people started smoking. While eating lunch. Because, why not?

There was one more snorkelling spot - there was a swarm of fish there that interacted with us because our guide held the skin of the watermelon we had had for lunch underwater and gave us a few pieces. The fish swarmed to the bits of watermelon and readily nibbled on them happily.

That was quite adorable, I’ll say that.

And that was that, the tour was over. A tour that was supposed to have 5 snorkelling spots. Something definitely didn’t work out there…

But since I had only committed to the half day tour originally, it was fine.

That left me time to go to a massage parlour and enjoy being kneaded for 1 hour.
While it was certainly annoying that one of the staff was listening to instagram videos at full volume - the massage itself was enjoyable.

In fact, I went out of that parlour looking only slightly like I was on drugs. 😄

The day wound down with me at a restaurant directly at the beach. My table was so close to the water that the waves kept washing over my feet. And with every wave, my chair sank deeper into the sand… I couldn’t have been that heavy, could I? 😮Read more