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Hello all, sorry its been a while since i've written but ive had a really busy couple of weeks. We spent 5 nights on Koh Tao where we were learning to dive. Such an amazing experience! The first 2 dives were ok, but a little bit boring as they were beginner sites and there wasn't a huge amount to see. The second 2 were great. Whereas before you could look down from the surface and see the bottom, on the 3rd dive when you looked down there was nothing but a deep blue void with beams of light streaming down towards the bottom. We did a free descent at this site which is where you basically sink without a rope to guide you. This was excellent! about the closest you'll get to weightlessness. I was sinking down and looked below me to see 3 other people slowly sinking, it was like we were floating in space - crazy stuff. When we were down there we saw lots of different fish and coral - too many to mention - but i will tell you about the most entertaining of them all, the Trigger Fish. These guys are about a foot, foot and
a half long and are very territorial. Our instructor Andy was showing off a bit and started taunting this fish and pretending to box with him, very funny to watch, it then went after "Team China" these couple of ditsy Chinese girls (mine and James'buddy group was "Team Essex") and they didn't even notice when it was attacking their flippers! Hilarious! but i guess you had to be there.
So I am now a fully certified PADI Openwater diver! We really wanted to stay and do our advanced but we were on a schedule as we booked a package deal and had to move on to Koh Phangan for the Black Moon Party.
We were next door to a couple of guys from Hull called Baz and Eddie. They are travelling for around a month and must have gone to the same TAT office as they have been on exactly the same schedule for the past 2 weeks.
Boat ride to Phangan was really nice at the time, but later that evening me and James both realised that we had seriously sunburnt ourselves! Whilst in Koh Tao I was also doing some training with a local guy
on a punchbag located not far from our bungalow. I didnt realise but this bag was like rock! i kicked it a couple of times and totally grazed my foot. This injury combined with the sunburn meant that i was hobbling around like a 70 year old for a couple of days - what a tosser!
Arrived in Koh Phangan safely. Our resort was quite nice, but very quiet, we ended up finding out that our room was next door to guess who? that's right, Baz and Eddie!!
Black moon party was quite cool, not as crazy as i'd expected, but worth doing, we got absolutely wasted on Sang Som and watched the sun rising before going back the hotel to sleep all day.
Over here the wine and beer is quite expensive compared to the sang som (thai whiskey) so i was drinkling buckets of that. it consists of a quarter bottle of sang som, a can of coke, and a bottle of the thai equivalent of red bull called N-150 (which contains amphetamines!). Only 150 baht and there's about 65 baht to the pound so quite cheap!!
We have now traveled down south and
are in a resort called Coral Bungalows. It's crazy here man, its the kind of place you could get stuck at for a long time!. the staff are all really friendly and it is totally self contained, we were only supposed to stay for the black moon party (on the 27th), then travel down the gulf coast but we're still here - and we're gonna stay here til the full moon party on 12th (should be very messy!) there are guys here who came for a couple of weeks and are still here after 3 months!! you can get really comfortable!
It was James' birthday on 30th, we went into Haad Rin. That was a pretty mad night, haad rin is where the full moon parties are and its a beach about a mile long just lined with bar after bar after club after bar. you can buy buckets on the street and take them wherever you like in and out of clubs etc. it started raining at about 3am and we all just danced in the street all night!!
decided it would be a good idea to hire out some mopeds today and go find some waterfalls
- turned out to be a fucking disaster!! me, james, orlaith, her sister neve (two irish girls we've hooked up with) and baz and eddie all hired bikes. as we got closer the roads got more and more dangerous man, they were like a 10% gradient and gravel - very dodgy on a bike!!!! we gave up on the bikes and decided to walk the rest - 2 hours later and still no water fall. it was at this point that we decided to laugh it (also the fact that some thai bloke rode past us on a motor bike with a grin on his face and a rifle laying across his lap!), went into some realy remote bungalow and organised that we would pay the owner's brother to take us all in the back of his jeep back to our bikes - the woman just looked at us and you could see she was thinking "fucking crazy foreigners!" then to top it all off, on the way back orlaith came off her bike and grazed up her knee, both elbows and most of her chest - well bad man!! she made it back alright and we dressed all the
cuts but she's still pretty sore.
That just about brings us up to date. The photos i've uploaded are only of koh tao and the north west of koh phangan but more will follow soon. Overall i'm having a wicked time and would certainly reccomend Coral bungalows to anyone who stays in haad rin.
Hope everything is good over in Blighty and you're all not working too hard! i hear the weather is good over there? anyway must be off back out into the 35 degree heat and dive in the pool! haha!!haha!!
Take care.
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U. Andrew
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Well it all sounds horrible. Only one bit of advice - Don't hire fucking mopeds - easiest thing in the world to have an accident on and it could ruin your trip. Otherwise, sounds like you're getting it about right.xxx