Another adventure we decided to take was to rent kayaks and paddle around the point to do some shopping in Ao Nang. Ao Nang was the place for cheap souvenirs, but make sure to touch up on your bartering skills because they would surely be put to the test here. This was one of my favorite days because it felt great to be out on the warm blue sea with nothing below us but clear water, chunks of coral, and beautiful fish. It was nice to get up close with some of the magnificent geologic formations that seemed to rise from the water like molten sentinels, their sides oozing ancient volcanic history, and the purple crabs scurrying about their their sloshy shins. Fish underneath, crabs at the shins, swifts in their abdomens and eagles and gulls at their top, each of these majestic pillars was its own ecosystem and bobbing nearby in our kayak, we were a part of this, too.