Advertisement
Published: December 2nd 2007
Sunset
En-route to Koh PhanganWe arrived on the island of Koh Phangan in time for the legendary Full Moon party. We flew from Siem Reap to Koh Samui via Bangkok the day before and got in to the party spirit en route. Quite a few people on the flight were on the same trail and the ferry port was heaving. There was a fantastic sunset and thunderstorm to keep us entertained while on the boat across which we tried to snap out of the window while attempting, poorly, to dodge splashing waves. We didn’t have enough foresight to book ahead so upon arrival bags were deposited with Ade while Em and Ash went on a room hunt. This went quite well as we found a place in town still free, or so we thought at first. We saw the true extent of our “success” the next morning when the music was still pumping in our room at 8am and we realised we’d paid nearly double the already inflated price. Our room was at the end of a long hall on the second floor overlooking the full moon beach, which just happened to be located above the latest serving bar. At least we didn’t have an
Ash & Em
Enjoying the pre-full moon party expensive rickshaw or boat ride home! The party itself was a bit of a let-down to be honest. There were thousands of people arriving by speedboats which resembled a bag belonging to Mary Poppins (seemingly far too many people for the size of the boat) in waves. Fire shows, face paints / fancy dress and neon glow sticks were the craze of the event. Little kids were walking up to all the girls selling the necklaces of glow sticks and flowers until very late in the morning while their parents sat back and drank with friends. Rows of stalls were set up with different flavoured buckets on offer. For those of you who are not familiar with drinking etiquette of Thailand’s beaches (we learned as we went) buckets are basically jugs of spirits mixed with soft drinks. The most common was Sam Song Thai whiskey mixed with coke and red bull served in a colourful little plastic bucket with straws. If you’re lucky you may even get some lime added. The most dangerous aspect of these buckets is that they contain nearly half a bottle of your spirit of choice! The crowd was quite mixed although the music featured mainly
drum and bass with many people just strolling up and down the beach taking it all in. If partying all night and drum and bass aren’t your scene we would seriously advise giving this a miss. It’s so expensive all around the area at the full moon time of month and you’ve been to a better party already. It’s true that the party the night before is better too; not as many people and a variety of music rather than all drum and bass.
Koh Tao was our next island destination and this time we did engage foresight. We were picked up at the harbour by the Scuba Junction jeep along with some staff that were at the full moon festivities. We got signed up for our PADI open water scuba diving course starting the next day and settled in at our cottages in the middle of a coconut grove. It looked pretty idyllic but the mosquito infestation was not pretty nor was finding a massive hairy spider on our front door one night. Ade still suffers from the shock of having to remove it! On our first night we all went for dinner and drinks at a beach
front restaurant. Ash was spoiled rotten as the restaurant not only served French red wine but they also had a cheese plate with all the usual European suspects on offer. Cheese and wine had been sorely missed over the past few months! Our scuba course began the next day and with it our diving obsession began. The course was spread out over three and a half days, starting with the half day. We watched some dvds, read some chapters in our text books and answered our knowledge reviews. Yes, we had transported ourselves back to school! The next day was more of the same as well as homework revising and a confined water session. This consisted of all of us demonstrating some of the 20 basic skills required to earn the open water certification. Day 3 we had our first two open water dives which were incredible and day 4 we had our last two dives. We were hooked and signed up to our advanced course a few days later taking night, deep, naturalist, peak performance buoyancy and navigation as our options. On our deep dive we saw our first reef sharks up close! Ade took down a rental digital
Full Moon Party
view from just outside our room... camera on 2 of our open water dives which was a bit lost on us novices (didn’t quite grasp how close we had to be to fish so they don’t pale out) but pretty cool to have photos of us learning to dive even if the fish were fairly dull. We promise we’ll get better! Some of the things we did see while diving here were; lionfish, pufferfish, sergeant majors, squirrelfish, porcupinefish, blue spotted sting ray, great barracuda, seahorse, moray eel, hermit crabs and yellow tail fusiliers. We were introduced to our new arch nemesis, the cleaner wrasse. This delightful little creature cleans bigger fish but when it comes to humans they get a bit confused mistaking us for fish and mosquito bites for fish dirt. Not a pleasant experience especially when they’re nibbling on your face! On the night dive we sat on the sand and blocked the lights from our torch with one hand while waving the other in the water to stir up the phosphoressence; micro organisms that glow in the dark when in motion. This looks like a starry sky and is pretty amazing.
Diving did take up a lot of our time on Koh
Tao but there were other things to do there too. Sairee beach is a beautiful long, white sandy affair facing west for brilliant sunsets better enjoyed over delicious Thai or international cuisine. The island is pretty small and easily explored by scooter. We ventured to Shark Bay (so named as apparently reef sharks can be spotted early morning or late at night if you’re lucky) to try our hands at snorkelling but we have to admit we found it lame compared to scuba diving. We fear we have become diving snobs already! It did give us an opportunity to test run our new masks and snorkels though. There is an art to preparing new masks for submersion we learned and it involves toothpaste and an overnight stint. We found one night wasn’t enough but upon asking around we updated our knowledge; it’s not the amount of time that any one coating stays on that’s important, but how many times you go through the process of adding and removing the toothpaste. Riveting stuff! The scenery on our day trip was spectacular even if the roads were quite hairy in places. We heard after that there are quite a few accidents every
year involving westerners on scooters and, most commonly, alcohol but also speeding. The lack of requirement of a driving licence probably contributes to the problem too. The island doesn’t have a strong police force but is ruled by the mafia; fixing prices, collecting money from businesses etc. Although we were not directly exposed to any of it, we did hear it from a number of people including staff at the dive shop and other tourists.
Nightlife and eating out are highlights on Koh Tao. There are many fabulous restaurants for prices that are relatively expensive on Koh Tao but a fraction of the price you’d pay for similar food back home. Some of the places we fell in love with were; Morava for their sushi, burgers, steak, crispy duck pancakes, Portobello for it delicious Italian fare especially the goats cheese or salmon and crab ravioli and Papas Tapas for its yummy Spanish tapas and stylish atmosphere. There are many other places but we turned in to creatures of habit and rotated between them opting for traditional Thai lunches and New Heaven cafe for breakfasts and very good coffee. Ash turned 25 while on Koh Tao and we celebrated at
Morava with the band playing tribute before heading to a selection of beach side bars. When the bars had closed, which is about 2am, we wandered back to the main road to find the infamous pancake man for some bed time treats. He was in his normal spot outside 7 Eleven and we shared a chocolate and banana special. The reason for the fame is the speed and style he uses while making the pancakes. He looks like a robot on speed, jerking and flinging things all over the place, drawing crowds without fail every night with cameras flashing and orders rolling in. Another place we had a few drinks each evening while pouring over our scuba homework was Sabai Sabai, the bar and restaurant attached to the cottages we stayed in. It’s owned by a young French guy whose speciality is vegetarian food and flavoured rum. We sampled quite a few and most were very good. He also makes wicked Pina Coladas, Em and Ash’s drink of choice! Over the two weeks we heard the same few songs in a few places which we hadn’t heard before, turns out they were all from a website called www.putamaya.com. If you
Pancake Man
Part Man, Part Machine have a chance, check it out. We really like it.
On our last night we went for dinner with Fred, one of the other instructors at Scuba Junction. He is from the Philippines and we spoke about diving in there. More specifically, we spoke about the possibility of taking our PADI Divemaster course there (to become professional divers)..........
Advertisement
Tot: 0.154s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 19; qc: 69; dbt: 0.075s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Mark McCarthy
non-member comment
Happy Birthday
Ash, Happy Birthday!!! The pictures, especially the underwater shots are fantastic. Be safe - Uncle Mark