Our Thailand time is coming to an end. But there are a few more posts I have to do for you! And then I’ll need to make a serious Thailand slideshow so you can see all the images I never got to post on the blog.

If you were to ask Pascaline what her favorite memory of Thailand was, she would say the Sunset Snorkeling Trip. This trip cost less than $60 for our whole family. Can you imagine paying that cheap of a price in Hawaii?

Since kids must be 10 years old to learn how to scuba dive, Brian and I thought we’d start the kids early with snorkeling!

The Sunset Snorkeling Trip started at 2pm and ended at 9:30pm. You start by going to four small islands that look like this for snorkeling,

(amazing islands, huh!)

then you end at that awesome beach I mentioned earlier. Remember this one?

Bats come into play too, but before we talk about bats…

When we did this adventure, Blaze still wasn’t swimming on his own. But friends encouraged us to put a life jacket on him and still give it a try. I wasn’t sure if he’d even risk it with how deep the water was. But with Brian by his side, he went for it!

Isn’t he the sweetest! Oh man!

I have to hand it to this little guy! Neither of the kids have ever been snorkeling, and Blaze was super brave. Some of the fish he saw were almost as big as him! After awhile he decided to coast around on dad’s back.

He climbed in and out of the boat all on his own at every stop! Pretty good for a four year old! (sexy picture of Brian too, huh! :))

Pascaline on the other hand was the mermaid that didn’t want to get back in the boat! She ate this experience up! Brian and I taught her a bunch of hand signals for fish that we learned from scuba diving, and she didn’t waste time doing them with us. It was AWESOME to see her come alive in this new experience!

After four different snorkeling dives, we ended on that fabulous deserted beach. We goofed around with the camera,

played tag with our Thai towels,

hunted for crabs and let the sun set behind us.

Then came the bats, BIG BATS!!! When the sun had set, shrieking calls came from above as hundreds and hundreds of bats came swirling out of a cave from the top of an island nearby. We didn’t have a long enough lens to capture them, but can you see the little black dots I’m pointing too? That’s them!

Blaze, being the actual Batman, was thrilled beyond belief! In the month of March, these HUGE bats leave their bat cave and fly to the banana plantation that is behind our house. They are not interested in people, but love bananas. And locals say that some of them are as big as Golden Retrievers! I was just fine with them being that high above our heads. 🙂

I found this image on the web (didn’t take it myself), and thought it would be great to show you that big, Golden Retriever size fruit bats really do exist! Check it out! That’s the kind of bats that were flying over our heads! Hundredzzzz of them!

When the bats had all disappeared and the sky was lighting up with stars, our hosts lit up tiki torches on the beach and made Green Curry w/ Shrimp and Chicken over rice. The perfect dinner for our day!

Around 9pm we got in our longtail boat and headed back home. But just before we reached the beach, our guide had the longtail boat pull behind the limestone cliffs where it was especially dark. All four of us jumped in for a night dive to see our bodies light up with phosphorous. The kids thought that was off the charts cool! No pictures on that one. To busy trying to stay calm and not lose Pascaline and Blaze in the pitch black dark! 🙂

Seriously, this whole excursion was less than $60. Thailand is the BEST!

We even found someone to take a rare family picture! The picture is hilarious! I think I’m sticking my tongue out, and Pascaline looks miserable. Blaze’s grin cracks me up, and Brian…I can’t help but smile! Got to love those posed pictures! 🙂

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