Koh Samui and Koh Tao: A Slice of Paradise

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Bangkok > Koh Samui

We've been in Bangkok for the past two days, our second time visiting the city in as many weeks. We arrived here 2 weeks ago, and spent 4 days wandering the city, before jetting to Udon Thani and crossing into Laos for 5 days. We returned for 2 days and now we're on our way south!

Our flight to Surat Thani on the southern coast of the Gulf of Thailand is scheduled to leave at 10:50 from Sumbarnathumi Airport. We decided to catch a cab at 7:00am to miss Monday morning Bangkok rush hour, when the entire city turns into a parking lot.

The airport is giant, and the structure is really interesting. Now that we're here for a 2nd time, I can appreciate it more!

The flight is relatively standard, and we land in Surat Thani about an hour later. From Surat Thani, we found a travel agent in the airport to catch a shuttle bus to the Seatran Pier. The bus and ferry is 350 baht ($12CAD). Not too bad for an hour's shuttle ride and a 1.5 hour ferry ride. The ferry is a nice catamaran and includes a small canteen, which is great because by now, Trung and I are starved. The waves aren't too big and the boat ride is very quick to Koh Samui.

Koh Samui

Once on Samui we had to try to find a taxi or tuktuk to our hotel, High Coral Cove. The taxis try to charge us 600 baht, but the tuktuk turns out to be 100 baht each, about 25km. High Coral Cove turns out to be a series of bungalows on a steep cliff overlooking a bouldery point of land... nowhere near the beach. The bungalows are very large, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the ocean. Because the hillside is so steep, our view of the ocean below is clear. Waking up the next morning is amazing, sunrise over the blue ocean framed by banana trees in front of our bungalow.

We decide after some thought and our continental breakfast of hotdogs, eggs and toast to leave High Coral Cove and try to find something on the beach (the nearest beach being lamai), the next closest is Chaweng, but we hear it's overdeveloped, crowded and noisy.

After 2 hours of searching.. with our bags... in 38 degree heat, we finally found a place on the beach, in a bungalow for 700 baht. It's across the street from the beach, but a short walk through another resort gets us right down to the white sand and rough surf. The wind has been picking up all day, and it's getting cloudy and the waves larger and larger.

That day we spent the rest of the sunlight on a lounge chair down near the water, drinking fruit smoothies and people watching. That night we walked down the main drag (the only real road) and do some window shopping and end up eating dinner at a small place on the beach.

The next day, I decided to walk down to 'Grandfather' and 'Grandmother' rocks, which is at the end of the beach, on a rocky point. Trung doesn't follow me as we start out from breakfast, so I assume he wants to just lay on the beach.

The G&G rocks are kind of a dirty idea, but amazing that they're in such close proximity (see photo). There's only about 5 people out on the point looking at the rocks at the same time as me. I decided to climb a giant boulder about 50 feet up above the beach. Someone's built a concrete stair and it's 5 baht to climb to the top (about 20 cents). The view is great and I decide to sit and relax (at the risk of a sunburn).

On the way back down the beach, I stop again breifly for yet another pineapple smoothie. It starts to rain as I'm chilled-out on my lounge chair, but I'm under a lean-to so I'm ok.

The rest of the walk (after the rain stopped) was fun, the waves were getting gigantic and it was great to stop and watch the giant breakers on the boulders in the water.

That evening it was still pretty breezy, Trung and I decided to walk to the local market and each some street food for dinner. I ended up getting three kebabs (chicken, beef and pork) with fresh pineapple and peppers. After that I had corn on the cob and a baked potato. Then I decided to roll home so I could lie flat for awhile!

The next day was relatively early, we woke up at 9:00am and moseyed down to McDonalds for an egg mcmuffin (yes, even on an island in Thailand they have McDonalds!)

Death Ferry

Our taxi to the ferry dock arrived at 10:30am and we were shuttled through Chaweng beach to the Lomprayah ferry dock. I decided to take Lomprayah instead of Seatran because apparently Lomprayah was faster and more tourist-oriented.

At the Lomprayah dock (which was on the other side of the island from the tourist dock) there's a floating dock which is shifting back and forth gently in the calm, yet rolling surf. The ferry eventually appears around a point in the bay and heads for the dock. Now, unloading backpackers from a boat that is rolling against a floating dock is no easy task, and 1/2 hour later, people are still getting 'carried' off. They have to wait until the boat crests a wave and runs into the dock so that the gap is closed before they can jump, bags and all, to the dock.

By this time, I can see off in the distance an odd colour on the horizon, on the other side of the point across the bay. Sure enough, seconds later, the point disappears behind a sheet of rain that is completely white. About 5 minutes later, the rain hits. By then, I had taken my bags to shelter, but everyone else is milling around outside and gets soaked by the sudden tropical downpour!

People are still getting off the boat, and as the rain came, the wind changed direction and the waves are now quite large and choppy. The boat is rocking more than ever, so the dock workers are throwing the bags to the dock and then throwing the people after them!

Everyone gets unloaded, but then the Lomprayah people decide it's smart to wait out the rain before boarding.. only it doesn't stop raining. I can sense that they can't wait forever, so I strap on my big bag, and put the little one in the front with a used grocery bag over the top of it to protect the valueables. A minute later my hunch is right and they call for boarding, just as the rain kicks back into high gear!

I high-tail it for the gate so I can get on before everyone else. After the shore gate, you have to head over the sandy beach to where a catwalk is suspended a few inches above the sand, and completely moving plus-minus 6 feet, digging into the sand here, up 2 feet in the air there, so I time my jump and make it onto the moving catwalk first try.

They've set up another catwalk at the back of the boat, instead of the jumping strategy of the unloaders. The walk to the end of the dock is interesting (the back of the boat being towards the sea). Every time the 30 foot tall catamaran slams into the dock, everything and everyone tends to fall 2 or 3 feet to either side, a lot considering the dock is 6 feet wide, and especially given that my bags each weight about 15 kg. After some stumbling, I made it to the catwalk and quickly time my run across, while the boat and the dock are moving relatively together.

About 3 more people get on that way before the crew abandons that option, maybe someone almost fell in?

People start doing the jumping at the front of the boat again, and 10 more people (out of 300) get on board with some difficulty. Eventually, one person can be seen waving their hands, as if they don't want to jump out of a plane while skydiving. The crew gives up the jump-boarding approach, at about the same time the waves get bigger and the boat very noticibly starts to hit bottom between waves.

Suddenly the crew is yelling and untying and the boat revvs into reverse and we're out on the open ocean, in whiteout rain and about 5m waves. I'd say the catamaran is about 50m long and about 10-20m wide, so I'm not TOO concerned about overturning, but the boat goes through several 30 degree rollers and the people who got on the boat with me are thoroughly screaming as we crash over the waves.

Im not sure what they're going to do with the other 300 at this point, who we left on shore. About 45 minutes later of crashing and tipping and generally chaos, we drive out of the rain and can see and island! We're already on Koh Phangan? "KOH SAMUI!" Says one of the crew. But we were just on Samui? I thought we left?!

So we drove to the other side of the island where the water would be calmer for the other 300 passengers. The boat company BUSSED everyone across the island to the other side and they're waiting on the dock.

On our way out of the dock, an hour later, I warn another couple who got on behind me to 'prepare yourself'. We go over a couple of relatively small waves and they're laughing and having a great time. Suddenly we round the point at the end of the island and our view of the sky dissapears as a giant wave slamms into us. Or, more like, we slam into the wave, the boat goes almost horizontal, then flies through the air and rotates downwards. This continues, sky, sea, sky, sea, sideways, up, down, motor struggling, motor revving, people screaming, crew holding on for dear life yet reassuring passengers that it's fine. Definite pandimonium.

THEN the waves get EVEN BIGGER, which in a way is better, because the boat actually has to go up one side and down the other, there's no jumping or running into them. Much like going up and down small hills. Eventually we get to Koh Phangan 1/2 hour later. Trung looks at me and tells me he's getting off. It's another hour to Koh Tao. I already paid a downpayment for a scuba course there, so I've got to stay on the boat, plus, I didn't think it was that bad, pretty exciting, but not that bad.

He simply gets up and leaves the boat. I yell to him that maybe I'll come back after my scuba lesson is over. Whatever, see you later. There's really no accommodation on Koh Phangan around this time of month, as its a huge hedonistic full moon party in two days where everyone maintains intoxication from any number of substances for a full two days before and two days after the full moon. What accommodation there is, I hear you have to book for 4 days minimum.

I met a great english lady on the boat during the 1st half and we're going to ride out the next 1/2 together in solidarity. She has to ride with a mask over her face, so I'll keep a watch out for her 😉

The boat is not allowed to leave the dock. The government says the weather is too bad to leave. Perfect.

1/2 hour later the boat pulls out. Apparently it's better. Koh Tao is further into the gulf of Thailand, so I'm ready for more pandimonium!

All goes well again as we leave the shelter of the harbour. As soon as we reach the point at the end of the island we're back in the gigantic swells. Only this time, we're hitting them at an angle. The boat is seriously rocking and people are back to screaming each time the bottom falls out of the boat and we drop a few metres before slamming into the front of the next wave, only this time it's also from side-to-side. Our captain gets it right eventually and we actually ride inside the trough of the waves, only now and then flipping to the next wave over, wich is fairly exciting. Every time we crest a wave, I can see the next few waves for a split second and every once in awhile I can see a monster wave and try not to make a comment so as not to make Laura (my british friend) nervous. She still has her mask on because she doesn't want to see what's coming.

About 1/2 hour into our journey the first person throws up. About 20 follow and soon the entire boat seems to be throwing up. The crew is handing out barf bags like candy. Thankfully, I'm not one of them, neither is Laura. The pandemonium continues until we reach Koh Tao, on our very green, very stinky boat.

Koh Tao

The people at Sunshine Divers, my dive school that was recommended by fellow TravelBloggers, have a driver at the dock waiting for me. I'm 3 hours late, but the driver is very friendly and helps me with my bags to the small pickup truck. I'm the only one going to Sunshine, so I get to sit in the front with him.

Sunshine Divers maintains their own bungalows at Chalock bay on Koh Tao, which is one bay over from Sairee beach, the larger more developed beach where the ferries dock. Chalock bay is a slice of paradise, a small, secluded bay with calm green/blue water, large rounded boulders on each end with a white sand beach in the middle. Because of the stormy weather, a large group of red and blue fishing boats are in the mouth of the bay, adding to the picturesque bay.

Walking along the beach, one follows a single path through and around a series of restaurants, bars, hammocks, pools, resorts and just people generally hanging out and chilling. Longtail boats are moored on the beach.

My scuba course was supposed to start at 4pm the first night (Thursday) but because it is already 6pm, and there's so much video and homework, the dive school decides to let me start the following day, which is fine with me.

The next day I wake up early and walk down the beach to a restaurant with a pool. After a delish breakfast of omelette and steamed rice, I decided to jump in the pool, then continue walking. It was threatening rain so I headed back to my resort and met the rest of the dive team. Nathalie the manager tells me that they don't really have a radar so she can't tell me if it's going to rain, but she says 'probably not' so I head out on a mountain trail that should take me to a lookout a few hundred feet above the resort.

The trail is straight up the mountain. When I get to the top it had become a small road. The view is completely obstructed by trees. Glad I did the climb. I can see a small path to one side of the road but it's pretty grown in. Watching for giant spiders, snakes and whatever else might be in the thick jungle, I fight my way along the vine-covered trail (which I suspect is for harvesting coconuts, based on the plethora of old coconuts that I'm stepping/tripping on. I pop out near some boulders. After climbing up I'm above the tree line and can see the entire 1/2 of the island in perfect view. It's stunning and well worth the climb. Oh, and I did see a giant spider larger than my hand, which was gross but on a web above the trail. I wasn't sure about it's jumping ability, so I ran under and turned around right away to make sure it didn't jump on me. It would have seriously covered my entire head had it tried. I also saw a giant centepede, about 20cm long, which was also gross. Something was on the boulder that I climbed out on, but it ran away before I could tell what it was (Monkey?).

After a painful climb down the mountain (it's hard in sandals, and it's true that down is harder than up) it's about 3:00pm. Just enough time to have a shower to get the jungle off me before starting the course!

The lady who checked me in told me that perhaps there will be other students starting the course with me, but that's not the case. As I stroll up to the office, which is on a platform overlooking the bay, I'm greeted again by Nathalie, and my new instructor/life saver/best friend Danny. Danny is originally from the Netherlands and quit his job a couple of years ago managing a shipping yard to pursue a career as a dive instructor and ended up eventually in Koh Tao. I could think of worse places to end up! Most of the other instructors, I find out later, are in the same situation. Some came to Koh Tao with alternate travel plans and just ended up staying. Perhaps a new career for Andy?

The first half of the course is solely watching a video. Danny sets up the DVD and leaves me to complete it on my own time. 'Take a break whenever you want. Eat, drink, nap, washroom, whatever.' The segments are about 2 1/2 hours long, with question sheets and a text book to go along with it. It's the basics of diving, including buoyancy and reasons why your ears and mask might hurt under water. Practical stuff that can get you ready for the following day.

At 8:30am the next day, I meet Danny at our 'classroom' to gather our equipment for the 'confined training' part of the course. Confined?

After we get me outfitted with a wetsuit, BCD (buoyancy control device), mask, snorkels, weight belt and flippers, we head out to the pool! I'm super pumped to just jump in the pool and breathe underwater for the first time!!

The first task is setting up the scuba gear on the side of the pool and testing it out. Sounds easier than it looks. Danny is kind of the nonchalant kind, his favorite saying is 'watch out for this, but it probably will never happen, so you'll be fine'. So he shows me once and I try to follow along. Only two tries and 1/2 hour later, I've got the air tank hooked up to the BCD and I've inflated and deflated it. Nothing blew up and I've still got all 10 fingers and toes.

The next battle is putting all the equipment on, and doing a 'buddy check' in which you check your buddy's equipment to make sure it's working and set up properly. The acronym is Begin With Review And Friends or Bangkok Women Really Are Fellas, or any one of several that Danny rhymes off. We check eachother's BCD by inflating and deflating, ensure the weight belt is put on with the quick release in the right direction, check out eachother's BCD releases and connections, check eachother's air supply and alternate regulator and a final ok before taking a 'giant stride' into the water.

After a quick breath under water for the first time, I pop to the surface and inflate my BCD fully and float to the shallow end of the pool. It's odd having equipment on underwater, but it tends to dissapear from your mind because it's floating around and doesn't really get in the way.

We're quickly underwater on our knees in the shallow end, and Danny demonstrates several key skills needed, and then gestures for me to copy. By the end of the morning I'm able to take my mask off and put it back on underwater. I can 'lose' my regulator anywhere around me and find it and put it back in, clear it, and start breathing again. I can 'run out of air', gesture to my buddy for their alternate, grab the alternate and start breathing from it. And I can also do the same for my buddy.

At one point, I get water up my nose while doing the mask work and start coughing uncontrollably, get claustrophobic under water with no mask on, and *almost* abort the whole exercise by simply standing up, but I quickly realize that I can cough into the regulator and everything is fine. Danny congratulates me for that at first when we surface, and then tells me about the French guy who once threw up into his regulator in the ocean and was able to keep breathing. He said hundreds of fish showed up. Gross.

After our dive, we head back to the classroom for another 2 or 3 hours of book work, quizzes and advanced skills needed for diving, including exercises in planning a dive so as not to have decompression illness or other ill effects caused by too much Oxygen or too much Nitrogen in the blood stream. I also learn about other hazards such as holding your breath while changing depths (can cause lung overexpansion injuries) and why most marine life attacks divers. Basically, do not provoke, swim towards, or otherwise surprise marine life, because most will act in defence and some can be pretty nasty. Danny explains the worst we'll find is a 'Trigger Fish' so called because they have a 'trigger' on the tops of their heads that goes up like hair on the back of a cat's neck if you go too close. They have a 'territory' and if you go inside the perimeter, they'll chase after you and don't usually bite but they are very large fish and can swim really fast around you until you leave. Sounds not too bad, interesting at the very least. Other stereotypical animals such as sharks, sea snakes and eels are actually not dangerous, and generally get a bad rap!

That night I walked up the beach for the best Pad Thai ever, then wandered to 7-11 for some breakfast supplies for my early morning tomorrow. I also had one of the best indian pancakes ever from the local pancake show/cart. The guy is flipping around knives, cooking pancakes with flair. So delish. It's really just a crepe pocket with nutella and banana. mmmMMMmmm.

At 6:00 the next morning I roll out of bed with excitement and head to the Buddha Bar for amazing homemade toast and an Americano. mmmm Caffeine! I realize as I look down at my feet that I eather have flesh eating disease, the mumps, bed bugs, or something has tried to eat my feet in the night. They're covered in small red bites. I'm pretty sure it's not bed bugs, because it's only at my feet that I have the bites. Gross. When I get back to the room later I realize that one of the bed sheets is touching the adjacent wall, and the tiny red ants that live outside my window were marching onto my bed across the land bridge caused by my bed sheets. They must have been biting me in my sleep, although I'm not sure why I didn't feel it. My feet look gross, but it's not painful, at least!

I'm a bit anxious to go diving for the first time and I don't really know what's in store, Danny kept a bit in mystery (i'm sure he can't explain it all anyways), so I just go along with it. With our equipment over our shoulders and no shoes on, we hop into the back of the pickup truck and take a short, extremely fast journey across the island to Ban's dive resort, where we're going to join a dive boat for the day.

Ban's certifies more people every year than anywhere else in the world, and its huge. Our dive boat is out in the harbour and fits about 100 divers at a time. Luckily it's only about 30 people today.

A speedboat is parked on the beach and we all clamber out into the surf to jump on the boat. A short, extremely fast speedboat ride later we're on a bright blue, old converted fishing boat in the middle of the bay. The sides are lined with air tanks and everyone parks their bags in front of a tank. The other instructors all have 5 or 6 students, so we get delegated to the back of the boat, which is fine because we get benches to sit on instead of standing around.

About 10 minutes later we're at the dive site, and I've manged to fumble my way through hooking up the regulators and the BCD to my air tank. Danny is seemingly not watching as I do it, but I get the sense that while he set's up his, he's watching the crucial moments of my set-up, and he checks it all out when I'm done. Time for the buddy check, final ok, and then he's up and over the side of the boat.

Ok, standing on the edge of the boat, regulator in, deep breaths, water 2m down (bit boat). Deep breath, right hand on mask and reg, left hand on weight belt release and STEP! Definitely didn't stick the landing. I'm sideways under water, and with less air in my BCD than I'd like, I'm about 6 feet under before I reverse directions and pop back up to the surface. I'm alive!

In our dive orientation before I jumped, Danny lets me know that this dive is mainly to get used to the water, and just to have fun. We go over the shape and size of the reef, the depth, and where we'll be going down and for how long. He's got a computer that will keep track for us.

As we swim to the buoy line that we'll be descending on, I feel pretty comfortable in the equipment and I'm excited to descend! The Twins is a popular dive site for begginers on Koh Tao, but there's really just our boat today above the reef.

To descend, you deflate your BCD in a controlled manner by letting out bursts of air, it's just an inflatable life jacket. Evantually you just sink. It's quite the experience, and you basically bob once on the surface and then you're under. The regulator is easy to breathe from, and I just concentrate on 'equalizing' all the way down to 12m. Every few feet, I have to squeeze my nose and blow out my ears, like on an airplane, but much more often. When we reach the bottom, I'm fine and it just feels like swimming while snorkelling, but no annoying water in the snorkel. I play with my BCD a bit to find the 'sweet spot' where I'm neutrally buoyant and then we're off swimming! Danny takes me over sand at first, with a few rocks here and there, until I get my steering and buoyancy down. Don't want to run into any stinging corals and kill them on my first time out.

Eventually we're swimming around and through the reef, it's super cool to be swimming horizontally and when a large rock looms on the horizon, take a deep breath in and ascend a few feet. Once on the other side of the rock, breathe out, angle downwards and sink back to the bottom. So much like flying!!

Danny takes me to all his known sweet spots to see wildlife, including amazing blue-spotted stingrays, eels, and fish galore. My favorite (I find out after) is the parrotfish. They're super colourful and actually resemble parrots a bit.

Our second dive takes us to White Rock, about a 10 minute boat ride. After our mandatory 45 minute break to regulate our Nitrogen intake, we're back to the edge of the boat. Deep breath, hold the mask and weight belt aaaand JUMP! This time I land feet first and manage to stay near the surface. Our descent feels natural to me, and I'm excited to get to the bottom and fly around.

Soon enough we come across really cool rocks that tower above us as we swim along the bottom. The outline of thousands of fish above you swimming along the edge of a 'cliff' is stunning, with the sun streaming down.

Suddenly Danny turns and starts waving his hands and gesturing for a Great Barracuda. As I follow his pointing, a huge, 2m long dark shadow swims directly over us. It looks like an underwater torpedo, silver, and has a huge tail. Barracuda are extremely fast, and have huge teeth, but are generally not dangerous. It's amazing. It lazily swims off in a few seconds. Cool.

The rest of the dive, we see a few black and white and yellow sailfish, tons of smaller barracuda swimming in schools, and another few eels and stingrays.

Once out of the boat I just want to jump back in, I can't wait for tomorrow!

That evening was the final exam, which consists of 50 multiple choice questions. Danny and I go over most of the course again as a last opportunity to discuss everything, and it turns into a 2 hour chat about the technical aspects of diving. In our gazebo over the beach with the cool breeze and the sun setting, this has to be the best classroom on Earth. I get 100% on the exam (of course) and Danny officially owes me a beer.

That night I had delish chicken curry on a patio built over the ocean, laying on a padded mat, which is the standard seating in this place. It's a full moon tomorrow, so the clear skies are bright tonight and the fishing boats have left the protection of the bay tonight, signalling a good day tomorrow!

At 7:15am I'm up and ready to go, my dive stuff is packed and I'm on the truck with Danny and two other (new students) and their instructor. Once at Ban's we have to take a longboat to our dive boat. A long boat is a long boat, seats 3 wide by 20 long, with a huge turbo charged engine on the back. It's painted bright orange and flies across the water and we reach the dive boat in no time.

Today we're going to head back to the Twins and White Rock, but we're going to 18m, which will be my maximum depth permitted with my certification. The difference between 12m yesterday at 18m today is not that bad, not really noticeable, but the difference is we have to have a decompression stop at 5m on our way back up at the end.

Today is a bit more technical too, we did some skills yesterday, but we're going to do more today.

Our first task is to descend without holding the buoy line. Sounds easier than it is, because as you go down, the air compresses in your BCD and you descend faster and faster. To control this, you have to keep adding air as you descend, which goes against all instincts to 'sink'.

Once we're at 18m, I let all the air go from the BCD and kneel on the sandy bottom. Danny does the same and soon I'm letting go of my regulator and taking Danny's extra. Once we're done that, I take off my mask, do a little jig, put it back on, clear it and smile with no problems. Next, I'm to add a small amount of air to my BCD and float, neutrally, and not moving for 30 seconds, oh, and I have to 'sit' in lotus pose. Well, no problem at first, but I tend to tip forward, so soon I'm floating, head down, in lotus pose. This is legit as well, and the 30 seconds passes. Dan tries to shake my hand but I give him a fist bump instead.

Now time for the exploration! It's not as good at 18m, surprisingly. It's a bit dark and there aren't as many fish or coral. The fish that are there, however, are bigger. We come across a trigger fish and there's a sudden tense standoff between the two of us and a fish about the same size as Dan's torso. Eventually, the fish gives up and swims off. Before I know it, it's time to ascend. When we get to the 5m mark, ascending without the help of a rope, we stop for our decompression stop. It's 3 minutes of trying to stay at the same level. Eventually we come across a CESA training rope. A CESA is a type of controlled emergency ascent. When our 3 minutes are up, I beckon to Danny that I'm out of air and give him a 'detroit rock city' hand gesture, which actually means I'm 'pulling the chute' and ascending. The rule is that I have to breathe out continuously, go as slow as possible and inflate my BCD manually when I reach the surface (because I theoretically have no air). So I start up for the surface, but I breathe waaay to quickly and run out of air right away. The reason for breathing out continuously is because the air expands in your lungs on the way up, so you can literally blow out a lung (lung overexpansion injury). Because I ran out of air, I have to quickly take a breath and then keep breathing out. Danny recognized this as he followed me up, and said that I probably wouldn't have been able to breathe in in real life, but I pass anyways.

The next dive, we end up doing 'orienteering' which involves using a compass to cross about 50 metres of sandy bottom, and make it back to the same spot. Not too hard, and I make it there and back pretty easily. On this last dive, Danny thinks I'm doing pretty good, so he leads me to a gigantic canyon. We're at our 18m depth and this canyon stretches up on both sides about 10m. It's only just wider than my shoulders, so it's a pretty intense swim, trying not to use my hands which would have inevitably touched something stingy (in my mind, anyways).

This diving business is amazing, and I'm so glad I've done it. I can understand now why it's so popular everywhere around the world. I can't wait to go again, and I want to do my advanced as soon as possible, except my visa is expiring in Thailand and Trung and I have to carry on as soon as possible to Phuket so we can fly to Kuala Lumpur. Southern Thailand is a bit in turmoil with fighting right now, so going overland and travelling through it is not an appealing option.

When I get back from my last dive, Danny and I fill out my new PADI certification card, and my brand new dive log! I'm officially a diver!

Danny and I share a beer (that he owed me) and laugh about what we'd seen that day. Reggae music starts playing at the 'Easy Bar' which is just a shack on the beach. Later, I'm reading a book on the beach with the music and the sun setting when my good travel buddy Josephine from England that I met whilst drinking on the train to Sapa, Vietnam comes strolling up the beach. She's on the island as one of her last stops on her trips with two Swedish boys she met in Laos. I knew she was on the island, but it's still great to see her!

We indulge in a bar crawl down the beach and share amazing bbq'd kebabs, corn on the cob and a baked potato for dinner. All night we chat about our travelling, relationships, our lives, and the island of Koh Tao and the magic calm the island instills in your psyche. We end up hanging on a couple of hammocks strung from a pole out in the bay in knee deep water. The full moon is out and it's bright enough to see everything on the beach. Fires and candles run up and down the beach, and Thai reggae music can be heard across the water from our hammocks. Neither of us wanted it to ever end, but eventually Jo's butt gets slapped by a wave. The tide's come in and now we're only an inch from the water. Time to move.

We wander back to the indian pancake guy and Jo calls her taxi guy 'Chui' (Chewy) who takes her back to her resort on Sairee beach where she's staying with the Swedes.

The following day, I indulge in a late wakeup for once, then stroll to my familiar breakfast place. After breakfast, it's time to book the ferry ride out of here 😞 It seems like the only ferry is the 'Songserm' which has a connecting bus across the Thai peninsula to the West coast, and Phuket. After that's all done, I give Trung a call and a heads up. Apparently he's sick of Koh Phangan and is anxious to get out of there. He doesn't want to come to Koh Tao because he's afraid of the waves, but Jo and I had made plans to go snorkeling in shark bay, so we're staying put at least for today, and we schedule to leave tomorrow at noon.

Jo arrives for our late morning walk to the next bay over, which is known as Shark Bay, well, because of the sharks. I'm excited to see the sharks, but probably also as anxious as Jo looks. We borrowed our snorkel gear from Sunshine, and my mask fits well, but Jo's seems a bit ridiculously tight, lol.

In no time, we've clambered down the 100 or so steep concrete steps to the rocks in the bay and jumped in the water. It's quite shallow and there are corals everywhere. As we head out there's a large boulder with Christmas tree worms on it. It's really nothing like worms, it's just multi-coloured, inch long christmas trees all over the rock. I beckon for Jo to come watch, as I learned a trick from Danny. If you wave your hand in front of them, they all poof! Disappear! So I move down about a foot, with Jo behind me watching, get ready, aaand.. Jo pushed me from behind, directly at the rock covered with coral. I'm hovering like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, trying to not touch the corals. When I regain my composure and go back up, Jo has a 'foot cramp' which caused her to push me. Ya, right. lol. Anyways, we laugh and carry on.

Five minutes later, out of the great blue beyond, I catch the outline of a fairly large shark coming towards me. It's the creepiest thing I've ever seen, causes goosebumps and a real sense of panic. I know they're not dangerous, but you can't help but freak out a little when they come out of nowhere. And they're also very fast, which doesn't help things.

Jo sees two more, and then we both see another, which makes 4 sharks, and they seem to be circling a bit, because we see them two more times as we swim. Fun.

Eventually we get used to it, even though I'm looking over my shoulder way more than before (which isn't easy when snorkelling). Jo has an underwater camera that we're fooling around with, and at one point I take it and chase after a couple of sailfish. I dive down to their level and swim after as fast as I can. Eventually they take a 90 degree turn and swim off. I look up, only to realize that I've swim into the middle of all 4 sharks. Great. They're already in the process of swimming off, but the sense of panic comes back real quick when you're surprised by a pack of sharks (or more like, you've surprised the sharks). The first thing you learn about sharks is to 1. not swim towards them. 2. do not surprise them or tease them. Pretty sure I did both of those things, but to their credit they really are safe, and simply meandered away from the stupid tourist chasing them around.

After our shark bay excursion, we head over to Jo's beach, which is much more developed but just as chill. Jo has a chicken burger, which she was craving, but I once again have Pad Thai for lunch. So good!

After suntanning on the beach awhile, we feel the crispyness of our skin, so we head to her place to wait for the boys to come back from their last day of their SCUBA course. We chill in the shade by her resort's pool. That evening, we go out for mexican (?) and then head to their resort's restaurant to watch the cool dive video a lady made of them that day. It's a great video, and almost makes me wish I didn't forget my camera in my hotel room, and now have no photos of me actually in my gear.

That night, we went to the local 'big' bar, which is just a natural bowl made of sand on the beach where a guy is playing techno music and people are on the ubiquitous padded loungers watching four guys perform Poi on the beach (fire swinging, either with weights on chains, or bow-staffs). There's a thunderstorm in the background and it's pretty epic. The boys ordered a bottle of tequila during the video, which Jo had to convince the bar to give us, so by the time we reached the bar I wasn't feeling so hot, and had to quickly abort the whole bar excursion and called Chui to take me home. He's so great, I love Chui! He speaks no english, plays extra loud music in his truck, and is genuinely friendly!

Anyways, the next day rolls around with a bit of a headache, but in no time, I'm at the Buddha bar having my favorite $1 coffee and homemade toast for the last time. It's cloudy, which mimics my mood about leaving this place.

After settling the tab for the last 6 days of chilling and getting my diving certificate (about $300 total for accommodation and the diving, and three days of personal instruction) I hop in the resort's truck one last time to be whisked across the island to the Songserm Ferry.

The ferry is pretty old, and definitely not as nice as the Lomprayah, which I wish I could have booked at this point. However, the seas are calm and there aren't any big waves and the ride actually turns out to be pretty comfortable.

So this blog is fairly long and I won't tell you what happens next just yet. I'd rather you bask in the feeling of contentment that I felt while I was on this island, a feeling that one doesn't get very often in today's world and one that I'm sure I'll feel again the next time I'm here.

xoxo
Andy

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Photos

Bankok Name-Too_Long-To-Remember Airport
Departures Level

Royal Thai Airways
Comfortable plane

Sawadee-Ka, welcome to McDonalds
That's right, on a small, 1/2 developed island in Thailand, there's mcdonalds everywhere.

Lomprayah Ferry Dock
note the position of the gangway to the beach. User-friendly? no.

Chalok Bay, Koh Tao
Slice of Paradise.

Spider!
No Joke, the size of my face.

My Classroom
I hated having to go to this place. Kidding!

Parrot Fish
My Fave! Credit: Wikipedia

Great Barracuda
Amazing, again not my photo, but a similar situation. Credit Terry from England

Black-Tipped Reef Shark
not my photo, but a similar situation!. Credit Wikipedia.