Done with Koh Lipe

We are back in KL, Lipe was great. On the dock in Langkawi while we waited on our speed boat to get its gas tank replaced we started talking to a couple of Swedish Girls. I wont give their names since we just referred to them as 'The Swedish Bikini Team'. Neither of them had the last name of Lundman, nor did they know anyone by that name. We ended up hanging out with them the whole time in Lipe. The ride over was scary. The driver was probably high on gas fumes, and because of this he never trimmed the motors or boat so we rode the hour pouncing through waves with a mean port list. Once there we booked our bungalow at the first one we found. It is way cheaper than the states, but Thailand costs more than Malaysia and more than what we were used to. For two nights Josh and i each paid $10 for our hut. After the second day we moved locations. We took the Bikini Team with us and we all moved into a group of huts that also happened to be next to the generators that power the entire island, this was bad because of the continuous noise, but good because we had 24hr power and fan. Here we paid $5 each a night. The other downside to this place was we think that nearby there had to be a big black pit that was full of the entire islands sewage, because when the wind would blow our way the smell was atrocious, but then on the good side, our huts were also the Tsunami Shelter point, so we had that feeling of safety. While in our new digs, we met our neighbor and new friend Raquel from Espania (that is Spain for those of you who do not know) The five of us became buddies. We would go together to breakfast and then either walk two minutes to Hot Beach, where most of the people hung out, there was no breeze and the sun seemed to be just a few feet away, or we could walk two minutes in the other direction to Windy Beach. This had bigger waves and you would have to struggle to get your towel to lay flat on the sand. We spent equal time at both. One day we walked North, or at least what felt like north to 'Porn' beach. There is a porn resort on porn beach. Porn, we all decided means something different in Thai than it does everywhere else. This beach was mostly older couples with kids, who were all clothed. Though we did see a few disgusting speedo wearers AKA banana hammocks.Yuck!!
One day we booked a snorkel trip, this was fun. We took a longtail boat out to a couple different coral reefs and tooled around, We all got way too much sun, but had fun. A longtail boat is what the locals use, it is an all wood, thin shaped boat with a huge car engine on the back with a propeller that extends out the back some ten or so feet. The are surprisingly maneuverable and can go in very shallow water. After our day of sun and snorkeling we decided to eat some of those lovely fish that we saw. For dinner i had an assortment of shells, a squid, and a small grouper. I was tempted to eat a trigger fish, these guys are very colorful and known to bite through your wetsuit when you come too close to their lairs. I didn't want to mess with my fish karma since i would be diving among them very soon. Dinner was good.
Koh Lipe was a good time and we are thankful for meeting up with the Swedish Bikini team and Raquel, cause it made it way more fun then if it had just been Josh and i. We are now back in KL until we meet Josh's friend Lori on the 28th. We will then fly back to Borneo and wait for my friend Ann to come in, then finally we will be on our way to Sipadan for some long awaited diving. The main reason i came on this trip.
I had a list of notes from my stay on Koh Lipe, but i left them back in the room. If they still seem interesting i may do a second recap on our time in Koh Lipe