Ko Tao

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so after a quick boat crossing over to ko tao we got in to the back of a pickup truck to be taken to our resort. we had booked this resort ahead and we knew it was a bit out of the way and were hoping to spend 4 days just sat on the beach relaxing. as the driver shut up the back of the pick up with all of us crammed in, he chuckled 'everyone ready haha laem thian bumpy road haha!' then we knew it was going to be very out of the way. so when we turned off the main road and it only said 2km to laem thian i thought 'oh well at least its not too long of a bumpy road'. but 20 minutes later and it didnt seem to be getting any closer to anything we were getting a bit like where are we going to be staying here. there was no tarmac all just up and down through the dense forest, i was even almost thrown out of the truck a few times as it seemed that the thai man was in a bit of a hurry! when we finally got there our idea of a beautiful quiet place was soon ended as the girl who we checked in with obviously wasnt the best. she put us in a bungalow when we had booked a room, this place was so out of the way that they had no electricity from 6 in the morning till 6 at night, they didnt have a computer to check the bookings on. so we had the worst bungalow of the place for the first night that had slats missing from the window our fan was broken, no hammock!!!!!!! and it was the highest one of the bunch, the floor aroung our bungalow was just logs that had gaps between so you could see just how far you would plummet down if you were to fall, this wasnt helped by adams fear of heights. we asked to move back down that evening. on exploring of the resort we found there was no beach and the snorkelling was the best. we had a quick look but what i thought was an little swordfish type fish and pointed it out to adam he just shrugged so i thought nothing of it until adam grabbed me and yanked me back out of the water. adam hadnt noticed the fish till then and it was a baracuda which apparently are quite viscious so that was the end of snorkelling for me there as it freaked me out. as there was no beach the only place to sunbathe was to climb over these massive boulders and choose the most comfy looking one and lie on that. the food was terrible and the service even worse so we only stayed for 3 nights before leaving a day early. we went back in to civilisation, back on the other side of the island and tried to find a place to stay.

thinking that it was well after new year now that the main hourde of tourists would have headed back home we would have found it a bit easier to find somewhere to stay. we were wrong. we had go there really early as check out at the resort was 8:00!!!! but it seemed that if you werent a diver you werent allowed to stay in alot of the places, divers had the first pick and then the others were allowed to stay there if there was anything left. one place actually said 'are you divers' when we asked about a room, when we said no they tole us that they were full. 3 hours later we found a nice little room for 500 baht just off the beach. we had an awesome 2 nights in the main strip with all night parties, good food and relaxing on the beaches which again were breathtaking. on our last full day we arranged to go on a snorkelling trip and my fears of underwater baddies resurfaced when we were told the first stop of the trip was to shark bay. luckily a storm was setting in and they werent allowed round the other side of the island as the waters were too choppy. so as practically everyone on the boat let out a groan of disappointment i was jumping for joy. the places we did go to were incredible. one place we went you could see 15metres all the way to the ocean bed. we spent ages just floating around watching all the fish. unfortunately we got so burnt but didnt realse till we got back so the next day wearing our backpacks was the worst feeling in the world.

we had booked a boat and then 2 train up to chaing mai. so at 2 we set off for what was going to be a marathon journey the length of thailand. all was fine even the overnight train, for me, was good. i had a good 7 hours sleep. poor adam didnt get much it was too hot for him as we were only in 2nd class with a fan. we then had a 3 hour stop in bangkok train station before another 12 hour train ride to chiang mai. this turned into 14 hours when our train broke down and had to be repaired. we arrived very late at our guest house, everything was shut up and when we rang the door bell the little thai lady must have just dragged herself from bed. and she acted that way too, she was really moody. but our room was amazingly clean and we soon passed out dead asleep.

ill tell you about chiang mai in the next blog. lots of love to everyone. x

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