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Published: June 26th 2006
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Sorry for taking so long to update this, its just that it takes a while and to be honest - its hot and nice outside and internet cafes are hot and sweaty!!
Anyways since the last entry we haven't done a whole lot of travelling - we've met a lot of people in samui and have just been having a nice holiday so we were in no major rush to leave. Dulce has been going up and feeding fruit to this baby elephant nearly everyday (its like throwing cakes at bears!), he's tied to a tree at a safari park thing, he's got about 2ft of chain to move and just generally rocks from side to side and looks like he is going slightly demented!! he cheers up when he's scoffing a bunch of bananas though!!! Besides that we went to see this Thai guy put on a 'Gator show' - basically this little guy covered in scars and bite marks gets into a ring with 10 big ass crocs and annoys them for 20 minutes and then finishes off by sticking his head in the biggest ones mouth and then picking another one up!! judging by the scars this
doesn't always go well, and even when we were there he nearly got caught by one or two of them!! Crazy bastard.
We went to a snake farm (are you noticing a theme here?), the flyer for the place reassuringly said that the guy who runs it holds the Guinness book of records for surviving the most snake bites, when we got there we were told that he was dead! of a cobra bite. Anyways this other chap who has also been bitten more times then he can count (and is missing a few fingers and thumbs) starts to tell us that he is immune to the venom, next thing he is playing with some cobras sticking scorpions on my leg, almost putting venomous snakes around Dulces neck (almost, because he stopped half way, when the snake stopped being docile and tried to bite him). The place was more like the scene of a 1970's horror movie then a reptile house, but I've decided to chalk this one down to experience and the next time that Dulce mentions visiting a snake far - I'm going to bog wash her!!
We went to see a shrine to a dead
monk that could see the future - for some reason he's mummified and they've stuck blues brother type shades on him!! Some things out here are just odd.
Dad just for you, I stopped off at grandfather and grandmother rocks (i..e cock rock) and got some pics which I've stuck below!! - I can here you tithering like a little girl from here!
Anyways we decided that we really should try somewhere else, so after lighting a small fire under Dulces ass I was able to move her onto a ferry with her 700lb backpack to Koh Tao. We landed in Mae Had and had to jump from our ferry onto a smaller boat (complete with 700lb backpack) in the middle of the sea, because at this time of year the tide was too low for the ferry to get in! Or they are refusing to pay the docking fee to corrupt authorities - take your pick.
Anyway - we jumped in the back of one of the ubiquitous pick up trucks (taxis) and despite asking for Sai Rai we were taken to Bans dive school where we were quickly shepherded into a room for 1000 baht
a night and told that our diving would start at four in the Pool with 10 other Irish/English! The place was like a factory with one group after another jumping into the pool - and the only ones that looked like they were having a good time where the ones that sacked off the diving and went straight to the pretty cool bar.
So we checked out and moved down the road to a little hut just off the beach called the sea shell. By this stage I wasn't impressed with Koh Tao at all - the atmosphere was fun, but the place was over run with dive centres and expats and the beach wasn't all that great in Sai Rai!
We heard that the far side of the Island was a lot nicer, with better beaches, better diving and clearer waters so we hired a moped to go over and explore!! It was the most nail biting ride I've ever been on - and I've been in the car with Susan when she was learning!! Basically there is one road on Koh Tao along the west coast - there is nothing but rutted dirt tracks that go
vertically up and down mountainsides everywhere else!! an hour later and two stone lighter, we arrived in Tanito Bay at a place called blactip diving, having passed only the very odd 4x4 or trail bikes! We didn't get any pics of the 'road' but a fella we met is going to send some.
Anyway, the place was as nice as everyone said it was, there were less drunken westerners trying to hump each others legs! The beach was great, the water had coral reefs 10 ft off the beach and the diving was two to a group! So we signed up and headed back to the far side of the island to join in with the rest of throng and get hammered and then catch the 4x4 the next morning to go diving!
Black Tip Diving
About three o'clock that morning we fell home along the beach after taking advantage of the two for the price of one on all vodka red bull and Singha, we met the American dive instructor who runs black tip, on the way who was feeding two day old fish cakes to wild dogs and ensured us that he was not drunk (just stoned) and would be fine to teach us the next day!
Anyways, black tip diving and Tanito bay the next day, with a stonking hangover, where absolutely brilliant. I could stick aload of adjectives here to describe them but then that doesn't really mean a whole lot - so I'll just stick loads of pics. In the end we had a Thai dive instructor 'Mued' (mud) who was pretty cool, has an English wife from Canterbury and fell in love with Strawberry moons and the girls with short/no skirts - ah haven't we all!! He was a v good diver and after a few days of diving among coral reefs, seeing giant turtles, groupers and loads of nemos we qualified.
On our second last night, Dulce, Mud, myself and half a dozen of the hundreds of thai guys who work in the place all sat around the beach hut bar thing, and got hammered on Sing Sum (Thai whiskey) and Singha, It turns out that before he became a dive instructor, Mud had worked as a fire eater in the Bangkok circus!! and in a very hammered state decided to put on a show! I've stuck
some pics below.
Anyways it was all very cool, the water was really clear with 20 metre visability (still didn't see any sharks though), all the bugs were massive (wasps are literally four times bigger out here and the f**king Mosquitos!), Oh yeah and we saw a twister about a mile out over the water, it just started coming down from the clouds and eventually it started ripping up the sea - Again I didn't get a pic (cos we were on the dive boat), but a fella I met snapped one with me in it and is going to send it through! Very cool.
So anyways we had to catch the ferry back to Samui and are due to catch a sleeper train back to Bangkok to get our visas for Vietnam and Laos - only disappointment is that we didn't ge to the indian ocean, but its Monsoon over there now so it'd be more a case of the indian ocean coming to you!!!
Think we're going to go to the river Kwai and the Tigers next week so will update this with all that. See you all soon and take care.
Noel
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