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The second day saw me island hopping amongst the many limestone formations that dot the bay. It wasn’t easy jumping on and off the longtail boats that ferried me from island to island, but it had to be done. It reminded me of the sight I saw as we were flying into Krabi: small water craft flitting here and there, like small insects darting about in the water.

After spending the whole day under the sun either snorkling, relaxing or exploring, there was one island that I enjoyed most. And that was Poda Island, situated near Chicken Island (Guess where it got the name from).

Poda Island was not paradise, but it was quite close. It was the last stop for the day and was a perfect place to kick back and soak up the sun. The water was crystal clear, and there were palm trees dotted along the shore that provided some shade.

I plan to come back to Poda Island to do some serious relaxing.

[Location Map]

Today my guide took me kayaking in the mangrove swamps that play a vital role in the ecosystem of the region. The whole area is a National Park and a sanctuary for much of the wildlife in the region. Even so, I was told some of the wildlife that used to exist is no longer there. For example there was a cave called Crocodile Cave for obvious reasons, but now I think all the crocodiles that were there are probably someone’s handbag or shoes.

What surprised me about some of the caves was that they were occupied by humans around 3000 years ago. Cave paintings adorn the walls of one particular I visited. They certainly reminded me of cave paintings I’d seen in televised documentaries. (And wouldn’t you know it, but the pictures didn’t turn out for these paitings)

After a day of paddling about in the mangrove swamp, I was glad to return to Tha Pom to swim in the fresh springs that flow from the limestone rocks in the area.

[Location Map]

I have been thinking about what to do for the final day of my stay in Krabi. Due to all the kayaking I did, I still haven’t got around to climbing, so I was debating whether to go to Railay Beach for some climbing or not.

In the end I decided it would be in my best interest to just sit in the sun for the whole day on Poda Island and have a good rest before returning to Melbourne. So that’s what I did.

[Location Map]

After a full day in the sun and being almost the last person to leave the island, I was ready, as I ever will be, to go home.

With my boarding pass, passport and departure tax paid (500 baht), I boarded my flight at 12:30am (Bangkok time). I arrived back in Melbourne at 1:10pm (Melbourne time). The flight took about 8 hours of hell.

Having had the window seat for all the flights I’ve taken throughout the trip, I scored bigtime and got middle seat in center row (i.e. 2 people on either side of me). Two kids in front. And a projector screen two rows in front of mine.

I’m a light sleeper at the best of times, so for this flight it meant no sleep at all. To top it off, the girl next to me was running a temperature and had a fever. I couln’t help but think SARS or bird flu. Half way through the night she did the techni-coloured yawn, luckily into a barf bag.

Apart from all that, it was all peaches and roses. Now, I will just have to wait and see what my fate will be.

So, now that the trip is over and I am home with a decent connection, I will gradually go through the pictures and post them up in the gallery for anyone who wants a peek. Register to gain access to the gallery.

I will also add images to previous entries. As they say “A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words”.

[Location Map]

The Australian Red Cross is winding up it’s Asia Quake and Tsunamis Appeal. It’s good to see the appeal has been a huge success. The full press release can be found here.

It’s funny but for the last four weeks I didn’t mind Mondays. As a matter of fact during the last four weeks I rarely even knew what day of the week it was.

But alas, my vacation is over and once again I have to keep tab of what day of the week it is, if only make count down to the weekend that little bit easier.

Well, I’ve been busy after returning home, sorting out the 1,000 or so pictures I took. I’ve already added a set of photos from Hanoi and Ha Long Bay to the gallery.

The blog entries from my trip have also been enhanced with various images from the trip. Go back and have a look, you’ll see what I mean.

There’s still more photos I need to sort and add, both to the gallery and blog entries. The time I spent in Hoi An has to be entered into the blog as well.

Hopefully all this should be completed by the end of the week.

Time for z’s!

In the last couple of days this site has been inundated with comment spam. So, I’ve upgraded to the newest version AuthImage, which incorporates VeriWord.

Veriword is a PHP CAPTCHA system that generates a question in the form of an image with random baffle text or in another form such as an animated Flash object. The class is capable of picking a random word, generating captcha and storing the word in an encrypted session variable for posterior validation eventually in a form on which it is used to prevent robots from having automated acesss.

Essentially, this will make it harder for those damn spambots to leave annoying spam all over my site. The only difference you will see is a change in appearance of the code you have to enter to leave a comment. It might be a little harder to read, but it shouldn’t be too illegible.

I will also do a major site upgrade soon. Hope it won’t be too painful.

The easy part is done. Now for the nitty gritty…

Hmmm…maybe it’s because I haven’t slept since yesterday morning? I hate it when I stay up too late to work on my projects. Sometimes you have an idea or in the middle of something that can’t be interrupted and you just have to forge on to get it completed.

Now I have managed to complete most what I have set out to do and in the process discovered extra things to do. But, at the moment my brain is not functioning anymore and I’m rambling blah blah blah.

So, in order to be able to get up for a BBQ by the Yarra today, I’d best go to sleep!

This video clip (G) speaks for itself…