Koh Tao

Our mini-bus arrived late to pick us up and then spent an hour and half driving around Bangkok before we eventually met up with the big bus. We were sitting in the back seat, which was not very comfortable. We were then dropped off at some random village at about 3am. We were told we would be picked up in 10 minutes. Over the next few hours we were joined by numerous other people who were dropped off too. We were kept entertained by a crazy Aussie called Stephen and also got talking to a Canadian girl, Jules. Eventually a bus arrived to drop us to the ferry. The ferry arrived in Koh Tao at about 10am. After a lot of talking on the ferry, we negotiated ourselves some accomodation.

Our bungalow was located right on the beach, it was basic but great value considering the beautiful surroundings. After we booked our scuba diving course, we had a quick swim before having some food. We went for a sleep at about 5.30pm, and having not slept in over 30 hours, we ended up sleeping straight through to the next morning.

After breakfast, the weather turned bad, so we had a lazy afternoon doing nothing. That evening we made a foolish call to go for a few beers, as although are diving course started the following morning we thought it would only be in the classroom. We decided to grab a taxi/pick-up truck to Sairee Beach, which is the busy side of the island. We walked into an Aussie bar called Chopper's and spotted Dougie and Frank at the bar with their new friend Lee. Ended up out with them for the night in the Lotus Bar on the beach.

Dragged ourselves out of bed at 8am,the next day after only 4 hours sleep, grabbed a quick breakfast before heading over to Big Bubble Diving School. We met up with the rest of our class. Jordan from Maui, Clay from Mississipi and Christa from California. After watching an instruction video, our instructor Alberto explained that after lunch we would be going for our first dive.

After lunch and still not feeling the best, we found ourselves being handed a bag of diving gear and being shown to a small boat. The boat met up with a larger boat, and before we knew we were in our scuba gear and underwater. We spent the afternoon in shallow water practicing various exercises. That evening we spent reading our scuba books in preparation for the following days class.

The next morning we again spent in the classroom and after lunch we were out in the boat again. After compeleting some more exercises, we had our first proper dive at a depth of 8/10metres. After a very long day we again spent the evening reading and preparing for our final exam.

On our final day of the course we headed straight out in the morning on the boat. We did two 45 minute dives. It was very cool, with everyone in the group much more comfortable we were able to see a lot more. The dives were amazing and we saw lots of different fish and coral.

Heading back to shore on the boat we both got pretty badly sunburnt. After lunch we had our final exam, amazingly we both passed and are now PADI Open Water Divers up to a depth of 18 meters. It had been another long day so after dinner and a celebratory beer, we headed to bed.

After 3 long days it was great to wake up with nothing to do but lie on the beach for the day, in fact it was so nice we decided to extend our stay in Koh Tao. That night we decided to head out for a few beers, and once again bumped into the lads at Lotus Bar. We sat on the beach drinking lethal buckets of Thai cocktails and stumbled home very late.

We slept off our hangovers the next day. And since it was pouring rain, we spent the day organising a ferry to Koh Phangan and catching up on some emails.

The following day we spent relaxing on the beach, and that evening we called over to the Dive School to pay and collect our PADI membership cards (OOH).

Next Stop Koh Phangan...

---

---