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Published: March 17th 2007
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The A-Team
Our scuba diving group for the original qualification. I've had complaints that my blogs are too long and too much detail so here goes the abridged version just for Cozza.
Went to South Thailand, it was hot, did lots of scuba diving, it was awesome, got very drunk, went to the Marriott it was posh.
For everyone else -
We arrived in Koh Tao and got straight into a scuba diving course with a company called crystal, it’s really cheap to learn here and as we plan to scuba on the Great Barrier Reef and in Mexico it seemed the perfect place to learn. Koh Tao is a really beautiful island north of Koh Samui; it’s very touristy but still has plenty of backpackers, cheap accommodation, white sands clear sea and importantly lots of coral and dive sights!
The first and second day involved of our scuba course involved lots of classroom work, watching dodgy learning videos and filling in tests; this wasn’t ideal but is necessary for the scuba diving qualification so we can dive anywhere in the world up to 18m deep. These few days were made more interesting by the fact we had a great group who went out socialising with each
White sands, clear sea
Laura relaxing after scuba diving evening too and our instructor Mattan. Mattan is a mental Israeli and the complete opposite of what I would expect from someone from Bethlehem but he definitely made the course what it was and if anyone sees the DVD we got of us diving they will know what we mean.
By the third and fourth day we went out to sea and did some real diving which was quite scary but when your under water you have no choice but the breath with the apparatus and stay calm, either that or spend a few days (and a few hundred dollars!) in a decompression chamber. We saw loads of cool stuff, plenty of fish and coral and we able to complete all the various exercises to gain our qualification. I absolutely loved it under the water, once you get used to the breathing and buoyancy so that you neither sink or float to the surface but just hover and move gently through the water you feel completely weightless and its the closest thing I think I will ever get to being in space! As I said previously we had a DVD made by the diving company which is absolutely brilliant
Apres dive
Relaxing with a few socialable buckets in Kho Toa and all cut to pop music which shows the best of the diving as unfortunately we weren't able to all get pictures in our wet suits. Hopefully I will be able to cut some stills from the DVD in the future.
Bab's and I were so taken by the scuba diving we decided to stay on Koh Tao another day and complete an advanced course which involved a further 5 dives over two days before heading to Koh Phangan. The advanced course was one of the best things I have ever done, I felt so much more confident and relaxed under the water and can now go 42m deep. On these dives we saw millions more little fish, stingrays, puffer fish, barracudas, sea snakes, corals, nemo's, trigger fish (which are very aggressive and dangerous things which at one point surrounded us and started charging at our instructor, definitely a panic stations moment!) and went to further a field quieter dive sites where you felt like you had the place to yourself. We also did one night dive where we got into the water as the sun set and quickly went pitch black, armed only with a torch we went
Inbetween half and no moon party
Full moon beach in Koh Phangan, a good relaxing few days, its very Europe abroad rather than traditional Thai here but still good fun! into the deep water and saw a whole new world. The darkness really felt like space, particularly with the weightlessness, there are so many more fish out in the darkness, the corals are bright and flourscent and it gave me a real buzz, it was my favourite thing since coming travelling. Looking at the clear night sky and stars from under water was particularly special.
Koh Toa was a real fun place and I really enjoyed the island and our first taste of South Thailand, it was then on to Koh Phangan, home of the legendry full moon parties. Although due to our timing we missed out on the major parties there was plenty going on in the beach bars at night with cheap buckets of vodka mixers, music (although every bar played the same cd of black eyed peas and bloody shakira on repeat!!!) and drinking games, combined with the chilled out atmosphere on the beautiful beach and many bars showing movies, family guy and Simpson’s all day we had a great relaxing time on Koh Phangan, unfortunately nothing too major to report here unlike Koh Toa.
Next was onto Phucket which again is a staple for
Aaawwwww!
Me and Babs with a one year old elephant at the marriot, it does loads of cool tricks (and is very very well treated too!) back packers and those in search of cheap accommodation and bars; however we were fortunate to miss this as we are staying at the Marriott resort!!! Bab's parents are out here at the moment taking a holiday so we have taken advantage of their very very kind hospitality and are staying with then (and very very grateful to them for it!). This place really is something special I have never been anywhere so posh and relaxed as here it really is the life of luxury and we are very lucky to stay here and finish off south Thailand in such luxurious surroundings. So I'm off to one of the three pools now to sunbathe, enjoy the gym, swimming pools, luxury restaurants and bars in a private surrounding by a deserted stretch of beach away from the main busy tourist areas, I never thought this backpacking business would be so difficult!
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matty jones
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james i love you
pretty much got it all out in the title there