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Published: March 23rd 2008
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Firstly I apologise for the lateness of my blogs. Being a traveller often involves saving money and when you are slow at typing internet café’s are avoided.
On the week beginning the 5th of March we arrived on the paradise Island Ko Tao. I will paint a small picture for you; bright white sands, leaning palm trees and clear azure blue waters. Ko Tao is the one of the smallest of the Thai Islands and therefore the facilities are all a stones throw away. Our accommodation was a small bamboo shack hidden in the palm trees with a hammock on the balcony to watch the world pass by.
Our main goal on Ko Tao was to qualify as paddy divers. This proved at first to be quite a task when James and Ross both ticked the box claiming they had asthma. After a few hours in the doctors, faxes being sent back and forth from England the doctors finally let a relieved Ross and James take the course. Everyday we would be set tasks to perform under the water and also to revise briefly every night for a test the next morning. It was nothing like school though;
we revised in a hammock on the beach, had the test under the palm trees and the annoying sound of the central heating was replaced by the baby waves brushing against the shore.
My favourite part of the course was obviously the open dives. We caught the boat out to one of the coral reefs, did our diving checks on our buddies and after a jump off the boat we were engulfed by lush blue waters. After equalising and reaching the sea bed we performed tasks such as sharing oxygen, taking our masks off, buoyancy, ascending and clearing masks. Normally we would then explore the coral reef where we would be surrounded by all types of fish. My favourites were the scribble puffer fish (massive), sea snake (told after, one bite could kill a diver!) and we also saw rabbit fish, trigger fish and the whole crew off “Finding Nemo”
Some of my favourite moments were above the water. On our first open dive we were caught in a tropical storm which caused a strong swell and the waves were huge. On our way to the dive site we have to put wet suits on, test BC’s, check
tanks etc and this became a very difficult task. We kept falling over either from the boats motion or the waves crashing on to the deck. Was scary but also hilarious… we looked like very amateur divers. Another strange experience was submerging with blue skies and glaring sun and then emerging an hour later in a tropical storm.
But our visit to the bliss Island of Ko Tao wasn’t just diving, we off course hit the beach after our lessons. The evening often involved Ross climbing the palm trees and throwing us coconuts down. We couldn’t open any of them so decided to play American football in the shallows. Unfortunately James hit his head on the Coconut and was pretty dazed for a while; however he does that a lot, walking into a sign in Chiang Mai. Also went for a few jogs from one end of the beach to the other followed by a refreshing swim a few times.
One of the days we decided to see the rest of the Island so all rented red mopeds. It was a great day we visited some empty white sandy beaches and some of the local villages. The boys
also decided it would be funny to drive threw the centre of the village in just our pants… so we did so in the torrential rain. I had a bit of an error though and lost control of my bike into a hedge however both me and the bike were fine. It was nothing considering later that evening I saw a drunk Thai man drive his moped into his bamboo house’ front door, fall of his bike then fell asleep on the spot…I walked on. The next day we handed our bikes in however Caz had a bit of a scary moment. The owner claimed Caz had scratched his bike, he asked for 5000 Bak (expensive), Caz said he can’t pay so the Thai man grabbed him around the neck! A lesson we all should have learnt from however this didn’t appear so as I will show you with my updated Ko Phan Yan blog soon.
Another pretty gruesome experience was at the dive shop. We were going over some theory when we heard a loud screech. We turned around and saw that Charlie one of the divers dogs had killed 2 out of 3, three week old kittens.
I have yet to mention our evenings! We were actually well behaved for the first few days as we didn’t want to be hung-over underwater as could be a bit fatal puking into the regulator. On the other hand the night we all qualified as divers we had an classic night. First of all we joined the diving instructors and other students for a meal and few beers in a raving bar called “Choppers” Unfortunately it was the same night United were knocked out the FA cup. But we made up for it with more beers. We later met Tom, Barney and Matt three guys from Oxford who were our age and had lots of banter with them over the Liverpool game; where us Manchester boys lost quite a few bets. After that we headed to our first beach party! There were mats lay out all over the floor to chill on, a beach bar, dance floor and lots of alcohol. We met some London girls and danced in the sea with them all. We later moved on to another bar called “Lotus.” There were fire dancers there, guys who perform rapid movements with burning sticks in their hands,
it looks incredible. They also have audience participation. This involved jumping hoops and skipping ropes. Being quite a dare devil I attempted to run at the hoop..erm.. tripped and ended up with the burning rope between my legs! However this led to me meeting Martina a sweet Norwegian girl, who I chatted to all night. I then met up with the guys and we watched the worlds fastest pancake maker whistle up 5 pancakes. I don’t think he appreciated us rapping to him in time with his pancake making.
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