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Published: September 11th 2007
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road out of Cambodia
good condition hey!! i think not- half way through i had fallen asleep half out the window and a big wave cam in and soaked me and everyone else- opps! So it came to the stage that i was ready to leave the ancient empire of Angkor and head West towards the Thai border and then south towards Koh Tao to do some diving!Booked my ticket in town the night before and then went for a bite to eat and then an early night because i didn't want to risk missing the bus being as i had already paid for it! Got up with plenty of time to spare so packed and went to wait outside the guesthouse for my pickup!
Waited some more and some more and then eventually the guest house rang the bus company to check where our buses were because Steve and Claire, who were getting a bus to Phnom Penh, were getting a bit nervous that it would not turn up! Eventually my lift to the bus, that i had paid extra for turned up, in the form of a man who walked me to the bus stop that was about 50 metres from my guest house!!!
Waiting for the bus i met Vien, a vietnamese guy who lives in Sydney, and got chatting to him about his plans and it turned out
Koh Tao
The island- my first taste of paradise that he was kind of doing the same route as me but he had planned to do it all him self rather than trusting one company for all the legs, which on this rare occasion was what i had done!So we wait around in this little cafe for ou bus to turn up and mean while i have some breakfast of fried beef and rice! When the bus turns up it is really was a shock because it was slightly larger than a mini van and packed with foreigners and all there bags- inside as there is no external storage on this bus!- so things were a little bit friendly inside. After the first hour of reasonable roads they just seemed to disapear and got replaced with bare dirt tracks and very wet ones at that! anyway after a few hours of bumping along we reached the Thailand border and walked across the border to transfer to our next bus which turned out to be a 5 star bus which was shared between only about 10 of us- great- i got a comfy seat at the back and got to lay across all four seats for what was a comfy
Koh Tao
sunset after the storm sleep- when i woke up i started chatting to a Dutch guy called Khoun and an English girl called Kate who i ended up spending a bit of time with in Bangkok.
We went out for a few beers then i decided that i was going to get a taxi to the train station and try and get the night train to Chumpon- the port where you get the boat to Koh Tao- and as it happened i got there with abotu 10 mins to spare and when i walked into the train i spotted Vien again, who i hadn't seen since the Thailand border crossing, and then next thing i know Vien is waking me up and we are at our stop!!
7.8.07 We arrive in Koh Tao early morning and after travelling for over 24 hours we are starting to get a bit hyper from sleep deprivation and start to conduct interviews with the dive shop touts on the ferry- v. funny! Manage to get a good deal on the open water dive course and get them haggled down to 8,500 baht and that include breakfast and 5 nights accomodation. Bargain.
8.8.07 Did my first
Koh Tao
Morning after the storm dive this morning and it trully was awesomes- was only at a depth of about 6 metres- it was soo cool to be under water and breathing because obviously that isn't a natural human trait! and there is soo much stuff to see down there and once you get a thing called neatural boyancy sorted it is awesome because you can hover a few feet off the bottom with your legs crossed and you don't sink or float! We went back to the dive shop and did a bit more theory then we decided that we may as well get the exam out of the way so we can just have two days of diving so we did them and both got 98%!!
9.8.07 Did two deeper dives this afternoon which was awesome and haad good visibility.
10.8.07 Had a bit of a lie in today and then did our last two dives which were great other than one of them was in really strong current and we had to use a lot more air than you normally would due to working harder- is really strange to see the difference it makes to be working because normally you
Koh Tao
Leaving the island behind just use more to naturally!
11.8.07 Left Koh Tao and headed to Koh Phangnan which is the next island in the chain of 3 on the east coast. Arrived in Koh Phangnan and took one of the free rides offered by the touts to there bungalows on the quiet side of the island- the west coast- and when i got there it was brilliant, had practically its own private beach and it stretched for miles aswell and whats better it was only 150 baht a night which for the islands is fairly cheap. I hired a motorbike from the guest house to get around the island and then procceded to spend about 3 hours in the sun getting a nice level of sun burn- D'oh- in hindsight not a good idea to get lost on an island at the height of the suns heat! oops
That night i decided to go out for a few beers and as i was leaving, Tik, a girl who worked at the guest house offered to take me to a nice reggae bar that she knew- so i decided to take her up on the offer as chilling out to reggae could
Koh Phangnan
my view from my bungalow hammock be good fun. When we arrived the bar, called No Name, was really quite which turned out to be due to the fact that it was Mothers day in Thailand. I met Dan and Dan, a couple of English lads who were a great laugh and Zak the owner was pretty cool too.
Stayed in Koh Phangnan for a few nights and met some really good people and went to a few cool parties. Headed to Phuket (west coast) and on the way i got slightly conned with my lift due to being tired and not really thinking straight- so when i did turn up in Phuket in the middle of the night i wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind and i hated the place- so so sleazy! that night i actually got home sick which tells you how bad the place must be!! lol!
First thing in the mornign i got a songthaew (kind of local bus) to the post office and then picked up my card and headed straight to Koh Phi Phi which is the main island on the west coast. Arrived in Koh Phi Phi around mid afternoon and found a nice
Koh Phangnan
view from door hostel which was cheap as they had the dorm- 16 beds an all!! Great place called the Rock- also a partial evacuation point in case of a Tsunami, Koh P P was one of the worst hit islands due to being on the west coast.
Koh P P was awesome and i had so much fun just chilling out and relaxing watching Muay Thai fights etc. i also went cliff jumping with some guys from my dorm and it was awesome fun!! unfortunately no pictures but Christian has it all on camera somewhere in the UK.
Really nice weather on KPP after the first few days and me and Christian decided to swim out to monkey bay on a second occasion and it was such hard work but deffinately worth it for the snorkelling on the way- and then when we got there we found and old shipwrecked bamboo raft so we decided to sail iut back- what a night mare but sooo funny- i hope that christian manages to get the photos off his underwater camera developed as it really was soo much fun!
Met loads of people on KPP and most of them were heading
Koh Phangnan
my next hooper to Koh Phangnan for the Full Moon Party so i was persuaded to go back for it- so off i headed with Christian back to Koh Phangnan.....
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Mumsy
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message from Grandma
And I quote 'sincerely hope u lft the bedbugs bhind in asia stop when U R in oz they will show U wot not 2 do in hot sun and how 2 mend yr heel. keep well stay safe from L T No C Grandma LUV U' It took her about half an hour to do this in her version of txt speak for you!! not sure what the reference to hot sun is!!ha ha! spk soon mumsy xx