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Published: July 24th 2006
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From Cambodia, had to endure hideous bus journey to Thai border. 6 hours, in a beat-up old Korean fun-bus playing non-stop Cambodian Kareoke, on possibly the worst road I have ever witnessed.....never.....again......although the funniest moment was when the bus broke down for the 3rd time (!) and we spent the delay watching a local, obviously drunk out of his mind and had crashed his motorbike in the muddy roads, pull himself together, abuse the local policeman and try to wash his mucky hands on the policemans uniform, and then haul himself (a little unsteadily) back on his motorbike to ride off again!
Thankfully there was a plush air-conned, double-deckered beauty waiting to rescue us from our horror to sail us to Bangkok, where we booked our 4-day Open Water PADI diving course with Buddha View, in Koh Tao. Took a side-trip to see Pirates of Caribbean in the cinema in Bangkok, where on the way to the cinema, our taxi driver was involved in a car-crash and I nearly had my windpipe severed with his lunatic driving!
Arrived in Koh Tao following day, an island beside Koh Phangan and Koh Samui, to blistering sunshine....only to have our Storm-Curse follow
us from Vietnam and we endured overcast, blustery and rainy weather for the remainder of our stay in Koh Tao!
And of course we managed to time our trip to coincide with the full-moon party in Koh Phangan, when all the party-goers arrived over to Koh Tao, took over the wee island, and filled up all the dive courses for the week. Luckily we met up with another Irish couple (Declan and Caroline) and were chaperoned by a dry-witted Belfast instructor called Jack.
Despite ALL the warnings, we ignored them all, and ended up having a few too many "sociable" Chang beers with Declan and Caroline, the result of which involved a few very sore heads the following morning while trying to pay attention in class to the mechanics of diving. I was a LITTLE off the mark when Jack asked "what are the big shoes called" (of course meaning the fins/flippers) and I roar out in a Eureka-moment "WINKLE PICKERS!"....and no I don't know what was going through my mind at that time...possibly stars! Although I wasn't the only one a little "off the ball" with our other instructor, Jez, convinced that I was a famous Irish
actress....*wistful sigh*... I suppose I'll be getting the call up from Fair City any day soon!
After the first day, the four of us stayed teetotal, and had a fantastic time with the diving. The first time you go under water and have all the fishes swimming so close beside you is just breathtaking, like swimming around a huge fish tank in an aquarium. We saw loads of fish, from the tame parrot, angel and butterfly fishes, to a school of barracuda and bluespotted stingrays. It wasn't all fun and games, and there were a lot of skills that had to be mastered (including one aborted attempt by Thomas at treading water!), and I'm sorry to say that my dazzling 50/50 performance in the final written exam really put Thomas to shame, with a paltry 49/50 effort!
The last day had us out in the coral reefs again (apparantly it was too choppy to visit the dive site where you can view sharks...we were all VERY disappointed!), where Thomas had a little trouble staying level. As my "dive buddy", we were to stay together and whenever I looked around, he was either sitting on the coral at the
bottom, or bubbling away at the surface!
So despite the dodgy weather, had a great in Koh Tao, with the evening barbeques and french-toast-with-condensed-milk breakfasts easing us along. We even attempted another massage experience, but this time, all credit to the Thai masseuses - they produced contortions of which even Chinese gymnasts would be proud! And on TOP of all that, I won a bet against Declan (who was from Galway...for his sins!) on the result of the Connaught final - MAIGH EO ABU!
So with some proper beach time overdue, we went to visit the island of Koh Phangan, and set ourselves up on a quiet beach where we did very little apart from lie out, read our books, swim in the water and eat chocolate shakes (that tasted like the chocolate milk from coco pops!).....absolute bliss... we even got a little bit of sunshine! With the rest over us, we set about getting our way to Malaysia for some more diving....
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Gareth
non-member comment
Yay!!
Your back. The temples look incredible but the beaches look even better. Thomas, you look very fetching in your scuba gear. Fair play to your continuing willingness to get into dodgy cars and buses. can anyone in Asia drive correctly? Are you meeting many irish on your travels? 5 months away now guys!!