Advertisement
Published: March 20th 2006
Edit Blog Post
We arrived into Bangkok airport at about 3pm after a good flight then we were taxing across the run way we looked out the window and there was a golf course in the middle of it!! We thought of you Dad but I'm sure that's a course you would be quite happy not to play on!
Once we wandered out of the airport into the Thai heat (which felt great compared to the cold, icey, wet weather we'd been used to in the UK!) we got an airport bus into Bangkok to the Koh San Road. We headed to a couple of hotels to check for vacancies but they were full up so when we came to ours we were hot and bothered and quite frankly couldn't be bothered to walk anymore so we checked into the Kawin Place just off the Koh San Rd. Looking back we realise just how minging it really was but it was only for one night so it was fine.
Next day after we organised our travel on a night bus for that evening to go to Koh Tao we started walking towards the Grand Palace to start the tourist circuit and met
some really nice local Thai people who were so friendly and quite happily organised our whole day for us which included, Grand Palace, Golden Mount, a few Wats, looking around the markets, got fitted for our Cashmere Armani suits! all on a Tuk Tuk which cost us about 40p for 4hours.
That evening we got the night bus from Bangkok which consisted of 8 hours on a very uncomfortable bus which had a very stinky toilet, 4 hours sleeping on a floor inside a bus terminal in Chumphon, a short trip on a wooden bus to the ferry port and 3 hours on a ferry to Koh Tao. Needless to say by the time we got to Koh Tao we had decided that the return journey to Bangkok would be done by the overnight train!
We arrived into Koh Tao in the morning and organised our diving and accommodation for the next 4 days with Easy Divers. We checked into our lovely little hut which was 5 minutes walk down the hill to the Mae Head beach and had a snorkel. Later that day we met our Dive Instructor Rene from Holland who was really nice and started
our theory part of the dive course, watching a video! I think we both found it pretty hard going considering we'd had about one hours sleep between us! Then we had to go home to our hut to do 2 chapters of home work!
The next day we did more class room and then later that day started our practical in the Sea! It was all great fun until we had to take off our masks under water and Angela had a panic attack each time I had to do it until I finally managed it on the 3rd time, ooops! Other than that it was all good.
The next few days were great, we really enjoyed the diving met some fantastic people, Lindsay from the Isle of Skye, Caitlin from Brisbane, Jan and Vladimir from the Check Republic, Gunn from Norway, Chris and Mark (another Scot!) from New Zealand, Jimmy a trainee instructor (Yet another Scot from Edinburgh but now living in Dorset) and Billy the crazy 18 year old dive master trainee from Great Yarmouth!
After we passed our Open Water we decided that we were enjoying the diving so much that we wanted to do the Advanced Diving course. We've seen loads of fishes, the most memorable being a giant puffer fish on a night dive (and the Phospherescence which was mad!), white eyed moray eels, giant barracuda, titan trigger fish, stingrays plenty of anemone fish but we've not found Nemo yet :o( but the best of all was a green turtle, he was fab!
We had such a great time in Koh Tao and were very sad to leave. Our only regret was that we couldn't stay longer to explore the island some more and of course do some more diving! But Australia was calling! More precisely Sonya and Gary at Sydney aiport!
We left Koh Tao on the ferry to Chumphon, then got the wooden bus again to the bus station this time and left on the night train to Bangkok. The train was so much better because it was an overnight sleeper.
We arrived into Bangkok early in the morning on the 25th and booked into a much nices hotel on the Rambutri Rd called Green House with warm water(!) free internet and was clean and quiet! We only stayed one night and spent the next day trying on our new suits! Which were great. We did some shopping and went on a long tail boat trip.
The next day we headed to the airport to leave for Sydney.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.042s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0243s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb