Have you ever heard of people dying stung by sea creatures while swimming in the ocean? I guess you have heard about that before as it is quite common and has been reported many times. But people are not serious about it and tend to ignore them. I used to treat the issue lightly as well, but let me tell you my story.

I went to Phuket for my holiday with a friend of mine. We stayed there for two weeks. When we got there we could hardly breathe because the weather was extremely humid. It made us feel annoyed so we took a taxi right away and went to our hotel. We stayed at the Aim Patong hotel which was built recently. It was nicer than I had expected. When we got in the room, we dumped our luggage and went out for lunch. I was so hungry that I felt like that could eat the whole restaurant. There were many kinds of restaurants and bars. We went to a Thai restaurant and ordered pineapple fried rice, phatai, and so on. It was very nice. There were so many delicious foods in Thailand which is actually why I’ve been in Thailand so many times. After lunch we walked along the street to look for a tour company. While we were walking along the street, many masseuses beckoned to us so we got a Thai massage… We were so relaxed that we completely forgot what we had to do in town. After the massage we booked our tour and went back to the hotel. We took a rest and went to bed early and our first day in Thailand was finished. Nothing special happened on the first day and I felt wonderful until an incident happened on my second day.

We woke up early to go on a tour. After we got ready, we went outside our hotel to catch a bus which took us to a speed boat terminal. We got on the speed boat and left the land. Most things were beautiful enough to touch our hearts. We admired a lot of islands. When we got to Kai Island, our boat stopped at sea. We were still quite far from the Kai Island and the staff gave us some free time to swim. So I started swimming towards the island, but it proved hard. The distance was longer than I had thought. When I got there, I thought that I should have stayed on the boat. After looking around, I left the island. While I was swimming back to the boat, suddenly my body started getting hot and I experienced a lot of pain. I was so scared because the pain was spreading quickly. I instinctively swam faster to leave the water. When I got on the boat, all the staff approached me quickly and checked my body. They told me I had been stung by a jellyfish and they put some vinegar on my body as the first aid. Fortunately, it was only a small jellyfish but the pain continued for a week. It was a really terrible experience. I could hardly sleep at night. The jellyfish messed up my holiday. And now I still have some scars on my body even though it happened two months ago. It still looks gross. I would like to emphasize that while you’re swimming in the sea, you must be careful of sea creatures. Do not ignore them.

Jason, Upper-Intermediate B