Blogs from Ko Tao, South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 9

I can't remember where i left the blog last time, but I'm now on Koh Tao. An island little more than 21 Km Sq. Koh Tao means 'Turtle Island' as in the past the waters were rich with turtles. Over the last 10 years turtles islands beauty, marine life and coral life spread over the world and the number of 'paradise' seekers increased dramatically. It is now one of Thailand's major dive sites. Sairee Beach where I'm staying has white sand and blue water that stretches 1.7km over the west coast. I spent the first day meeting the dive master, Jeff and my trainer, Cedric (both French) and completing paperwork. I checked into one of the new bungalows, of wooden construction, balcony, bathroom (cold water) and fan. The next day I started the PADI dive course ... read more

Day 16 Every goodnight has its peaks and weaks... Our weak was waking up. Reality sunk in that our cell phones had been stolen. It was more about the pictures on the phones that we would never see again that bummed us out. Luckily it was only 2 days of photos we lost...but those were some pretty spectacular photos. It took Lindsay half the day, a couple pharmaceuticals, and Kemper's support to get over it but we both eventually moved on. After Lindsay drugged herself with anti anxiety medicine, we took advantage of the dreary day (both physically and emotionally) by doing some therapeutic shopping. We waked into a few local shops and it was clear that the depression of losing the cell phones had started to fade. As we shopped, Lindsay might have almost knocked ... read more

English people, we have successfully obtained our PADI Open Water licenses which means we are able to dive up to 18 metres anywhere in the world, we left the last blog with us about to start practicing in the swimming pool at our dive centre. After we had learnt the basics & skills in the pool, we were then sent to the classroom (LONG), we had to do homework to obtain the license as well as 4 tests & 1 final exam, however that's the boring shit. The actual dives we went on were amazing and we would recommend it to anyone, our first dives in the ocean were to 12 metres seeing loads of different fish swimming around big pinnacle rocks, sitting on the bootom of the ocean doing our skills, fucking around as you ... read more

So this is our last blog before returning to Bangkok as started writing it before leaving Ko Tao - we’re both really sad to be heading towards the last leg of our trip, and are in reflective moods. So far we’ve had the most amazing time in Thailand. This is also the first blog from Bangkok as we finished it after we arrived. Today/yesterday has been a total mix. We woke super early and were on the beach for 7am – the only people there which was amazing. We then did over an hour’s snorkelling, trying to hunt out some sharks and turtles. We were the only people in the sea (and still on the beach actually) and it was amazing. We saw so much marine life, even more than previously as the fish seemed to ... read more

The morning did not start as planned, Tom did not wake up to go for an early snorkel (he’d struggled to sleep due to the heat) and Sarah was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic by the isolation of where we are staying, we had not realised quite how isolated the bay was, you are literally trapped here unless you pay a small fortune for a 4x4 to collect you or get a boat to transport you. The weather was cloudier too and lunch was also disappointing, greasy and a bit Western really – not very authentically Thai. However we then went diving. Tom did a discover scuba diving lesson (video, pool skills and his first open water dive) and Sarah did a scuba review and a sea dive. The dive was ‘only’ in the bay ... read more