Koh Tao

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Koh Tao was probably both mine and Adams favourite Thai island, but before I go into that I first want to tell you about the wierdest night's sleep ever. At the pier on the mainland they gave us the choice of an hour and half catamaran trip, an overnight boat with beds or one without. To save a bit of money we went for the cheapest option and arrived at the pier at midnight to be ushered onto a cargo boat with an open top deck and the kind of raffia mats you use for the beach between us and the wooden deck... Sweet dreams! It took 6 hours and there were 8 of us crowded together for a bit of warmth under the stars. Amazingly we all managed to get some sleep!

Anyway, when we arrived we were both up for staying on the party bit of the island but by chance we were talking to a girl as we waited for it to get light and sold us on going to the south of the island, Chalok Baan Kao. We were so glad we did.

Its main beach had some great bars and amazing restaurants looking out over the ocean abd the place we found to stay - Moondance Bungalows, was a 20 minute walk over a hill to our own private beach. We even managed to get a little bungalow right on the beach! The people who ran the place were moody and didnt smile the whole week but everything else was great. Met lots of great people, and even bumped into a friend who'd we met in Laos 2 months earlier!

One morning there was a few of us snorkelling just near some rocks and I went back to the beach as my mask was leaking. Adam went off on his own diving down to the bottom and came face to face with a shark. True, it was a white tipped reef shark which are harmless but he nearly drowned as he tried to shout shark underwater! I've never seen anyone swim so fast. The shark was even more scared if possible and swam in the opposite direction. Adam was back out snorkelling the next day!

We also had another go at hiring a motorbike but again it went wrong. Its impossible to get anywhere on the island without a quadbike or a 4x4, so after a couple of hours of failed attempts to get anywhere we took it back and went fishing!

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