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Published: March 3rd 2009
We'd heard people rave about diving in Koh Tao and although it was good, it wasn't the best. The visibility was okay and the people were super nice. We enjoyed our dives, but the best part was the price. It turns out that Koh Tao is raved about because it has both the cheapest diving and the cheapest diver certifications. So it is a lot of new divers raving about it and if those were my first dives ever, I would rave too! The coral was beautiful. We saw lots of blue-spotted stingrays, moray eels, trigger fish, shrimp, crabs, parrot fish, yellow boxfish, porcupine fish and more. We did some diving through caves, which was super cool, because I'd never done much cave diving before. It is challenging to manage buoyancy, while accounting for the size of the cave and the tank on your back. I definitely came out with some cuts and scrapes, but all of course were totally worth it. Cameron and I were diving with a 22-year old English guy named Ays (Ace), who'd gotten his Dive Master Certification on Koh Tao and was now living and working there. What a life!
After a few days of
diving, we decided to take a day off from the 7am wake-up time and check out the party scene on the island. Ays had told us about one of his friends, who'd been learning Muay Thai, or Thai Boxing. He was apparently doing quite well and they'd been trying to get him to fight for a while. He's been refusing, but had caved and tonight was his first fight. So, after a quick dinner, we headed to the local store to pick up beers, then off to the Muay Thai fights. Thai Boxing is definitely different from American boxing and we saw our fair share of knock-outs! Nana, you would have loved it! :-)
A Little Info: Muay Thai is referred to as "The Art of the Eight Limbs", as the hands, shins, elbows, and knees are all used extensively in this art. A practitioner of Muay Thai thus has the ability to execute strikes using eight "points of contact," as opposed to "two points" (fists) in Western boxing and "four points" (fists, feet) used in the primarily sport-oriented forms of martial arts.
It was a good time and even Ays' friend won his fight. After 8 fighters,
Koh Tao, Thailand
Setting up for dinner on the beach!we headed down the beach to a bar called Lotus, where they had fire-twirlers out front, tons of comfy pillows and mats to sit on around low tables on the deck, a dance floor and a bar. We spent most of the evening here, just kicking back and enjoying ourselves. Some of us inevitably ended up back on the buckets, but I myself stuck with the large Chang Beer's, the best beer (I think!) in Thailand!
Now one thing I am known for is for losing my wallet (or phone) and having no idea how it happened. And I am sad to say, as I was walking home on the beach I realized my bag was open and both my wallet and i-pod were missing. Whether they fell out at the bar, I took them out and forgot to put them back in or I was actually 'pick-pocketed' I have no idea, but either way they are gone. Now the problem here is that Cameron had lost his wallet in Laos, so we were both counting on my debit and credit cards for survival over here and now that I lost my wallet, we were both S.O.L.! But no
worries, it's all part of traveling and learning how to make it work in any situation. And that's just what we've been doing. The adventure continues!
So after a long day of hangover recovery, and cashing in our traveler's checks, we decided to treat ourselves to an ocean-side barbecue with all the fresh seafood you can imagine. They had blue marlin fish kabobs and steaks, barracuda steaks, grouper steaks, lobster, king prawns, crab, prawns, as well as beef, chicken and pork kabobs. The kabobs were 100 Baht each, just under $3, and came with huge chunks of meat on them and a plate full of salad and baked potato...a filling meal for anyone! We ended up eating here every night following this one as well.
The next day we rented a motorbike and decided to make our way all around the island. Koh Tao is quite small. It is about 21 km around, with a population of around 1,500. And the roads are rough! We motorbiked to a few different beaches and snorkeling spots and spent the entire day cruising around. Our last stop was Shark Bay. We had yet to see one shark on any of our
Koh Tao, Thailand
Life along the beach dives, but heard that you can find some black-tip reef sharks in shark bay around 4 PM. So we headed out, jumped in and snorkeled about halfway out to Shark Island, with high hopes of seeing sharks. We saw one moray eel, one trigger fish, and one blue-spotted stingray, then finally! a black-tip reef shark! Yay! We ended up seeing 3 of them by the end of our snorkeling, but the sun was setting and the waves were rising, so we made our way out of the water and back to the beach. We had just enough time to get back to the main road (and off the bumpy, dirt, back roads) before dark and make our way back to the beach for another amazing seafood dinner.
Having experienced a fare share of diving, snorkeling, motorbiking, muay thai, drinking and wallet losing, we were ready to make our way to the next island. Koh Tao is quite small and we'd met lots of nice people, so we said our farewells. Unfortunately, Cameron and I had to say farewell at this point too. I headed to Koh Samui and he headed to Koh Phi Phi. He has more time in
Thailand to get in a few more dives, before heading to Malaysia and the Philippines, but I on the other hand am flying down to Singapore for a day, then off to Japan. I knew we'd have to split ways eventually, but I was sad to see him go. And today I had to say farewell to Maren as well and I'm on my own. Only for a short time though.
Well, my flight leaves in 45 minutes, so I'm off to Singapore and I will talk to you again in Japan. It's going to be so weird to go from the under-developed countries I've spent the last two months in to the amazingly-developed Japan. I can't wait to tell you about it!
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