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Published: December 19th 2010
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After flying from Hanoi to a place in Thailand called Surat Thani, we killed a few hours before boarding a night boat to Koh Tao one of a group of islands with lovely beaches and plenty of nightlife. We got on the boat by walking down a shakey piece of wood with our backpacks, having to duck and crouch to get in through a sort of window! We went upstairs and were fairly dismayed at what was to be our overnight accommodation. Basically there were about 40 very narrow, short dirty and thin mattress next to each other to sleep on, accompanied by a tiny leather pillow. There were also ants and mozzies aplenty all around us. We were prepared for the worst but it actually looked worse than that! The boat was full too so there was no room for manoeuvre. However after having a brief disagreement with a French guy about where we should position our heads and feet we took a sleeping pill and slept most of the way. It wasn't that bad in the end.
We got to Koh Tao about 7:30am and hopped into a jeep which takes you to the resort of your choice.
We decided to look at Sairee Cottage Resort as our friends had stayed there before. The resort was decent enough and to save a bit of money we checked into a fan room with no TV or hot water. It was a little wooden hut within some gardens a 30 second walk from the beach. Accommodation was fine but the service was not. The receptionist can only be described as the 'Super B*t*h from Hell', she was so rude, it compelled us to write our first hotel review on Trip Advisor so that we could channel our anger in a productive way, i.e. by telling other holiday makers to beware. Anyway enough about her, Koh Tao was incredible and did not let us down at all. Friends had said how much they rated it, and rightly so.
After we'd sorted ourselves out we headed to the beach and grabbed a drink at a bar. Out of nowhere a rainstorm exploded into life and all of us sitting outside clambered inside for cover. The rain disappeared as quickly as it came and the sun was shining once more. We decided to rent a kayak and have a little explore around
the rocks at the end of our beach. The water was really clear and we caught glimpses of a few fish and had a laugh at all the big crabs running around on the rocks.
Later we grabbed a bite to eat at an Australian style bar, and listened to some live music by an English lad with a guitar. Then we ended up at Office Bar which has a strict music policy of no commercial rubbish basically. It was just a tiny open wooden shack that was covered in customer's marker pen graffiti and a load of tree trunks for bar stools. Our friends Ben and Caz told us before we came that they'd left us a message on the roof, so we set about trying to find it. No joy this time but we weren't going to give up just yet. After chatting to a two drunken lads (one cockney and one Finish guy) we headed for bed.
The next day was all about soaking up the sun and chilling on the beach, so not much to report apart from the fact we left Sairee Cottage and the betch receptionist behind and moved to a much
friendlier resort called Bans, this was an actual hotel and cost a fair bit more but it was worth it to get away from her and have a hot shower. That night we bought some snorkels ready for a boat trip the next day.
After late breakfast, we took a taxi boat over some choppy water to a tiny island nicknamed 'The Twins' just over the water from Koh Tao, which contained a really cool thin strip of beach which had sea on both sides and was ideal for a quick bit of snorkelling and shell searching. We got our cheap masks on and plunged into the shallow waters to see what we could see. We had a few goes, but never stayed in to long as our masks had a habit of leaking seawater in pretty quickly. Nonetheless we saw a few different types of fish and some shrimp. After a few games of the essential bat and ball game, we climbed one of the two mini mountains to get a fantastic view of the beach strip and the surrounding sea. A really beautiful view up there and we were lucky that a few other English lads were
up there too so we could get a few snaps of the both of us, with the superb backdrop.
That night we decided to have a few drinks – we started at the Fish Bowl where we got 2 for 1 vodka redbull buckets for £8 and that was pretty much all the alcohol we needed to keep us merry all night. We headed back to Office Bar, in search of our friends message and Jay went on a mission to find it. A few other punters were wondering why he was so fascinated by the wooden roof but the long search paid off, and he found the message. Woohoo. Nice one Caz and Ben – we wrote one back to you too. We headed down to the coastline to continue the party on the beach at Fizz bar, then we met the 'betches' on the way back to the hotel. We spent the next hour in and around 7/11 chatting rubbish with our new friends from Ireland / Coventry about food after a night out, then polished off some pancakes before bed.
The next day we moved on to Koh Phagnan.
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