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Published: March 28th 2009
Hey dudes and dudettes!
Welcome to our installment of paradise. Ok so when we last left you we were leaving Langkawi in Malaysia. So this is how this nightmare journey went.
Leave Langkawi 11am on a ferry to Satun (Thailand).
I warned Jit I had a funny vibe about this random place in Thailand Arrive in Satun at 1pm
Pass through Immigration with no issues
they didn't even check our bags, scan us, nothing and then got herded onto an open taxi type thing
interesting mode of transport, London should look into it!which took us to Satun town
Now we get put onto a mini bus to Hat Yai.
Arrive in Hat Yai at about 4.30pm and are made to wait around for ages for another minibus
Jit exaggerates again here we were only waiting like 15minutes. This guy decided to cram on as many people onto this minibus as possible. Insane stuff and could easily test the patience of a saint.
oh yes we were certainly tested, especially as the first hour of our route entailed stopping and starting to get people Arrive in Surat Thani at 10pm and are told by this fat mumma Thai woman that
the night boat we have already paid for is full and if we want to get the express boat in the morning we need to pay an extra 1100 baht. We argued for a bit
and all this fat woman could say was i understand...oh that wound me right up especially as we were tired and hungry so we agreed to pay 550 (which was for nothing - Just a taste of Thailands relationship with ripping everyone off) and were once again herded off to a hotel that was the fat woman's choice.
At this point i had turned to Jit and informed him that i was not going to like this place, if the first bloody thing they do is rip you off! I was livid and to top it off that fat woman's travel agency was another home for all the mosquitoes in Thailand!!! Morning comes and we are taken to another travel agent on a moped, one by one, backpack and all.
Then told to wait for another taxi to the ferry port.
can you seriously see how our patience was tested! We arrive at what we think is a ferry port, but its just the port
at which to get to the ferry port from.
Surprise Surprise! We waited here for an hour or so and our bus arrived. Another hour and a half on this bus and we finally see water and a boat.
I ran to the boat, i honestly just did not want it to go without us...trust me after 24hours of hell, a boat at this point was heaven! Get on the boat (and rememer we paid for an express boat, well guess what, its NOT) and go to Koh Samui, then Koh Pha-Ngan and then change boat and finally we arrive at the paradise they call Koh Tao.
Woo Hoo!!! We met some great people on the ferry over and some how my name Jit got distorted into Jizz!!!
hee hee My folks are reading this so I wont explaing this any further!!! We signed up for our Open Water PADI course. I was well excited but Kay was bricking it. She has a fear of deep water, water, and fish! (okay I lied about the fish part).
Thanks my love, yes i do have a fear of deep water, and anyone close to me knows how much...so forgive me for crapping my knickers!
We checked ourselves into the best room they had, and it was proper nice. Thought we deserved a treat after the "roughing" we have been doing.
It was not the best room we only paid for a fan room, however genius over here managed to get the air con contraption to work without the remote Anyway we started our course and did a bit of studying which was actually really interesting.
altogether now GEEK! The next day we took our first breaths underwater. Its the weirdest feeling ever, and panic sets in real fast, but you soon learn to trust the equipment and it all becomes really natural. I cant explain the feeling when you first go down into deep water and have fishes swimming around you and when I say fishes, I mean Millions and Millions of fishes. Its amazing. Kay struggled a bit here but I will let her fill you in.
So deep water and me just does not go, breathing through a device under deep water equalled very scared Kay. Anyway it took me a little longer than the rest of the group to pick up on things as the fear side of things would kick in. To cut a long story short i managed to do things the long and hard way round but was allowed to dive in the deep blue ocean with everyone else. And all i can say is WOW! It was worth all the frustration, all the stress and all the panic attacks because when you are submerged in a real life fish tank, with real life coral words cannot express what we saw. These fish were everywhere, above us, below us, to the side of us and in your face! We even managed to have a bit of fun down there at 18m...underwater karate, horse racing (ooo how much fun that was!), and i even busted some dance moves (Vicky you would have been so proud!). It was worth every penny, time and energy so anyone that has the oppotunity, you just have got to do it!
Over the next few days we had quite a lot of booze with our Divemaster Tim and Marc
re-phrase Kay had a little and Jit had the bar, and after 4 dives we both agreed it was one of the best things we have ever done and
will definitely continue to do it in the future
I am pretty sure Jit meant diving here and not the booze.(Daynesy, I know why you ramble on like the old man you are about diving, it truly is an amazing experience and very addictive). Oh yea, we hired a little moped which was great fun. Zipping up and down the tiny island. Just thanked my lucky stars I didnt get a Thai Tattoo (scars from falling of mopeds, usually DRUNK!!!)
We said our goodbyes and headed to Krabi. Instead of hitting the beaches like most do we headed for Krabi town, and there isn't much to say about this place apart from give it a miss.
The Thai curries were fab! The next day we headed to Koh Phi Phi. Now this place is where they filmed the movie The Beach, and it is stunning. As soon as the boat rocked up, its jaw dropping beauty takes your breath away. Mountains, green/blue water, silky sand, just a sight for sore eyes and by far the most beautiful place we have ever seen. There is so much to do here, and if you can get past the million other tourists,
you will have a blast.
The mountains seriously just came out of the sea, they were so random and so beautiful. We watched a video of the tsunami and words cannot describe the fact we were standing where it all went down. We could see in the background of the video the mountains and the bay, and then when you look at it in real life, you just would never imagined it happened. Mother nature is crazy! We did a full day tour on a Longtail boat which was simply the greatest. Visiting loads of bays and secluded beaches to the likes you have never seen.
Previously on Lost...Jit and Kay got burnt alive once again and Factor 50 is rubbish out here! And of course visiting the famous beach (Maya) from the movie. To top it off we saw the sunset in the middle of the ocean. It doesn't get better than this.
a pina colada would have been good! Koh Phi Phi has to be one of the highlights of this trip and we will be back.
We then headed to Phuket and I will keep this part short. Its full of Swedish people and
I mean loads of them.
Mitz i thought we had emigrated to Sweden with you, except it wasn't -100 and 10 feet deep in snow! Also most people are here for the go go bars and lady boys and prossies. Its a pretty sick place, and the beach isn't that nice. It was pretty much hell. To top it off the place that we stayed had a band next door who didn't stop playing until 6 in the morning which drove us insane.
Jit and Kay with no sleep = angry and moody Jit and Kay! We also went to see a show as we thought we would try and be a little arty farty...and again this was a waste of time as it was all mimed and full of lady boys. However i must add here that Jit did actually say to me that if he didn't know that this was a lady boy show he would have been far fetched to know that they were actually men, and i must admit as well they looked pretty good for men. Their hair was wicked! Anyway we enjoyed most of the islands we have been too, and have seen
yet again some amazing
AMAZING things. 12 hours of bus to Bangkok and until next time folks, respek!
Mwa!
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Muff diving
It would be this old man's greatest pleasure to dive with you guys. There's a lovely 6,000 ton concrete caisson just off the Sussex coast which - when the viz is good (6m?) is a treat to tour round. btw - I passed my enriched air diver exam (84%) so can do Nitrox now! Lovin' the blog, guys!