Koh Tao

Hi again, how is everybody feeling? Good, that’s nice to hear. Let’s get started then.

We arrived in Koh Tao about 6 days ago, where i did my open water diving course for about 4 days. It started with a day of orientation, getting some theory lessons and all that crap. But eventually on the 3th day we did some serious diving which was really cool. Koh Tao has apparently some of the best dive sites in the world, but also the most crowded i reckon. 52 diving schools on a little island, crazy. But all that competition does keep the prices down, 9000baht (about 190euro) for a full open water course. I think it would cost 10 times that in Australia or something. I got to see so many awesome fishes and all that jazz, no sharks, even though they were around.

We learnt a heap of skills, like taking your mask off underwater, taking the regulator (the thing in your mouth that allows you to breath) out, even taking the BC (the vest with the tank that you fill up with air) off at 15meters deep. Scary shit man! But all went well, we didn’t have any freak outs in the deep. Eventually we even made a human pyramid and did some kung-fu fighting under water. Very nice.

We went kayaking one day, thinking it wouldn't be too hard to go all the way around the island. Yeah, forget that. As soon as we realised it probably would take us a week or something we paddled into this little bay and just played around over there for a bit before going back.

Not too much drinking going in Koh Tao for us. With all the early diving lessons and all. I didn’t want to get sick in my regulator, even though the instructor said you can do anything in there. I wish I tried. I also had too much dodgy thai food, got a bit of food poisoning one day. But all is well now, no worries. I guess we about 2 memorable drinking nights. We met Nadia and Joakim, a Swedish couple going to Australia as well. A quiet night of playing poker resulted in drinking 4 bottles of SangSom and singing made up songs accompanied by Joakims guitar playing. The morning after we weren't the most popular people in the resort as apparently we kept everybody up all night. Ahwell… they should’ve  joined us  then.

But actually we are not in Koh Tao anymore. We got to Koh Phangan today at midday. Got a taxi to Than Sadet where we wanted to check out a place called Mai Pen Rai. It’s the only place in Thailand we know we wanted to stay at. It’s on the quiet north east side of the island, far away from all the full  moon parties and what not. We got this hut just hanging off the cliffs, even to get to the hut is a proper survival course. But that all adds to the charm of course. We are absolutely loving to view we have a nearly 270 degree view of the sea from our hut and balcony, awesome!

We’ll keep you updated, but there’s a bit of a shortage of electricity and internet on this side of the island as everything is run on generators.

See you around yeah!