A little piece of Paradise!

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Where do I start?? I actually for once am a little lost for words (please take a note of the date) and I feel that I have to correct myself following my last blog regarding the beauty that I am looking for in an Island. For those of you who have been reading my blog, reading between the lines you may of worked out that there seems to be something that has been missing slightly on my travels, and you may of realised that I have not quite found the paradise that I believed Thailand had! I would of very much liked to of mixed up my trip and rolled all the good qualities of each area to make one perfect place.. The friendliness of Northern Thais, the beautiful beaches of Koh Phi Phi, the laid back attitude of Koh Lanta, mixed in with the good value for money from Bangkok! A tall order by anyone standards, but you will be pleased (for those of you who are not bitter) that I found every quality listed above in my current destination of Koh Tao! A wonderful place to be seeing out the last week of my holiday,...

I think I left my last blg being somewhat harsh on the toads that lived out back in the stream behind my bungalow. I would just like to say to the 'Toad world' (if of course they can read) that apologise for my somewhat brash comments. I believe in Karma, and boy did I pay for those comments. When getting back to my room in Koh Lanta, I proceeded to pack up my rucksack (yet again) and shook out my bikini bottoms, that were hanging in my outside bathroom, only to ber presented on my bathroom floor with the biggest toad you have EVER seen! I'm not kidding you!?!

The following day I left Koh Lanta and got the ferry from the pier over to Krabi! The boats here in Thailand are frequent and cheap between the islands. I had however been warned that the shipping companies can get a little greedy at times and overload the boats somewhat, cautious of this I am always picking my boat that I am going to get very last minute, as I tend to go for the quieter one (if there is an option). Being the clever traveller that I am, I boarded my boat to Krabi, quite pleased with the amount of people on board... I was unaware that my laid back, content 2 hour journey was soon to be disturbed by not one but 7 longtail boats loaded with passengers and rucksacks that were due to meet us about 20 minutes into the journey in the middle of the sea!!! I was somewhat concerned that the boat was leaning to one side, but brushed my thoughts to one side, thinking that I was just being a bit paranoid. Unfortuantely I was not the only to believe that we were currenlty leaning way more to one side than the other, when the captain (or the 2nd hand) came out shouting in Thai at the boat helpers, who proceeded to move all the rucksacks to the other side of the boat! Serves me right I suppose for being somewhat cockyat the start!!

I landed in Krabi and was really hoping to get a bus over to Surathani and get on the boat staraight to Koh Tao. Little did I know that the boats to Koh Tao were only one very early in the morning and one very late at night. I thought about getting a boat to Koh Samui, which I could of done that afternoon, but as I have been trying to avoid Koh Samui, I deicided that I would get the evening ferry to Koh Tao at 11pm (the overnight ferry). I then deicded as I had the day to kill that I would go and do some exploring in Krabi. I went and booked myself a boat for an hour and deicded that I wanted to go and see the caves of Krabi and the mangroves. The boat cost me 3GBP for the hour (bargain) on my own. The guy firstly took me to the Krabi caves. We pulled up to the swamp beach and pointed me in the direction of a rickty old stairs leading up the side of the cave. I proceeded up the stairs (with some reservation) and reached the top of teh cave and I must say I was quite impressed by them, all in all! I was however a little apprehensive about the fact that I was the only person in the cave and there were a number of bats, that I had obvioulsy stirred form their midday snooze. I was rather pleased to hear footsteps behind me, obvioulsy other tourists that were exploring the caves and was amazed to see a German couple that I had been speaking to in the bar in Koh Lanta.!!!! let me give you some perspective on this - I'm in a cave in a compltetly diffenrent part of Thailand, the main land, not an island and the two tourist who I was speaking to in a random rasterferian (not entirely sure that is the correct spelling) bar in the most remote island in the west, walk into the same cave at the same time as me! I expected to hear the sounds of harps playing and sunlight breaking out from behind their head!! Ok maybe a bit dramatic, but I hope you get the picture! I carried on my tour with "man" my boat driver and we went off t see some more monkeys - yes you can see one to many monkeys after a while (vicisious little bastards - although I really should be careful what I say, I really don't fancy a monkey falling out my pants this evening!!) and we went to a fish farm where I saw a football fish, crazy things.... My hard sightseeing tour was followed by a well earned Thai masage...


Follwing my somewhat random journey around Krabi I boarded the bus to Surat Thani and was rather pleased that I was only due to be on the bus for less than 3 hours, as it was pretty tuerbulant, on one aoccasion we were going down in the worng direction down a dual carriage way in order to reach one of our drop off point in a quicker time. I got to Surat Thani and ended up in the most random restaurant - if you can call it that! It was more like someones living room that I had stumbled into, except there was a rabbit running around, which i was kidding pleased to see that was still very much alive when they served up my panang curry! So I boarded my overnight boat to Koh Tao. I got chatting to a pair of really nice Irish Lads who I was soon to become a lot more friendly with, seeing as the three of us were sharring the same amount of bed space as a single bed! The iorny of me sleeping with two men on a boat in Thaialnd!!

I actually had a really good night sleep, mainly thanks to the ear plugs that I had purchased on my travels, along with my blow up pillow and eye mask. Also this was due to the fact that the boat was unlikley to be causing me any sea sickness, we weren't actually go fast enough to cause a wave I imagine, nevertheless the slow ride to Koh Tao was a succesful one. And nothing could prepare me for the amazingly clear water around the pier of Koh Tao and the amazinf sunrise over the island...! Incredible!?!

So I am now in my idlic island, doing very little more than sitting back, watching the sun go down, eating good food and meeitng som great people,. I did book a snorkling trip today whcih was incredibel and I saw soooo much colourful marine life. Visibility on this island is amazing, and if you don't want to dive then you really don't have to. The party here are fabulous too, all the restaurants and bars spill onto the 2 km powdery white sands each evening and each one has their own mood lighting on the beach, either by candlelight or fairy lights up in the coconut tree. I believe that Koh Tao is one of the most amazing places I have been too, so I am not even going to give it any more injustice, by me trying to explain this place to you. But believe me I WILL be back!

I have booked my full moon party ticket for tomorrow, I am rather pleased as i thought that I was going to have to go to Koh Samui to go to the full moon party, but I can get a slow boat from here, that leaves at 4.30pm and will pick me back up form had rin (full moon party beach) at 7am the next morning! Needless to say Wednesday will be a rather non-exsitant day for me in Koh Tao. I will be meeting with my very crazy Canadian friends in Koh Pnag ngan for the party, So I won't be on my own! (so please Mother stop worrying!!)

I hope all is well, thanks for those of you who have left messages on this site, I'm not entirely sure how to reply on here, but i will try and mail you instread cvia your emails!?!

8 days to go! 😊

Millard xx

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