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Day 20
Oh yeah – that hurts. Sunburn was as bad as I expected. This was the last day of the tour, and after breakfast I set about the serious business of lying in my hammock reading my book, stopping only briefly at 11 to bid farewell to Lorna and Charlotte, who left today for the mainland, and ultimately for Lorna, Edinburgh via Bangkok and London. Later on in the afternoon I realised that I probably didn’t have enough money to pay for the extra night plus all my drinks charges, so I considered returning to the mainland for some cash. It would have taken ages though, and eventually I managed to borrow a thousand baht from Steve. I couldn’t bring myslf to ask, but fortunately he offered.
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Day 19
After breakfast we left the island for another, smaller one nearby. This turned out to be a picture-perfect, deserted, idylic tropical island, selected for its coral reef. Snorkling gear was produced, and we spent the morning gazing down at the coral formations and schools of fish. I was slightly disappointed by the reef, but it would be tough to beat the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. After a couple of hours a boatload of Thai tourists and a couple of property surveyors arrived and made our island a lot less deserted, although no less idyllic.
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Day 18
Day 18 was a completely free day on the Gecko itinerary, but I had some pressing needs to attend to, such as finding something to wear on my feet. I walked over to the local village on the other side of the island with Lorna, with rope and shoes on my list. I needed the rope because I had bought a hammock in Sangkhlaburi that, as I discovered later, only had one piece of rope with it. The island had three major settlements. The one we left behind was the tourist village, spread out and fairly sparse. A path led across the island, through a big rubber plantation, and into the first of two local villages. This one was small, about the same size as the tourist village I would guess, although it was much more compact. Bits of old rope were lying about all over the place, but none were long enough for my hammock. I picked up a small fragment which I hoped might help me make my intentions understood when we finally found a shop. There were none in the first settlement, and we quickly left it behind, continuing on the path.