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Published: February 20th 2011
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In order to get to our new destination, Koh Tao, we needed to grab an overnight bus to Chumphon where we would "Chumphon" to a boat. To book this, we decided to follow the advice of a drunken, racist australian guy who directed us to a booking agent. The Bus itself seemed ok, however upon arriving in Chumpon at 5am it became apparent the drunken, racist australian chap was in cahoots with some very skilled midget thieves who hid inside the luggage hold of the bus and very adeptly went through or rucksacks (even Jakes which had a combination lock!). Luckily, we kept our valuables on us and continue to do so, so nothing was stolen.
Upon arrival into Koh Tao, we were shown some very basic but very cool bungalows right on the beach by a friend we made in Chumphon, who was trying to sell us a diving/accommodation combination. We decided to see what else was available and after a bit of impromtu exploration of the Koh Tao coastline, we ended up striking a real sweet deal at a place called Ban's diving resort for what ended up being 5 nights in what was probably a honeymoon suite
and one night in a fan room, plus the PADI diving certification. Said deal was sanctioned by what can only be described as the most indiscreet ladyboy we had seen to this point; you wouldn't have argued with it! We were led to our room by Nai, a Burmese lad who loved life (and Jake...the feeling was reciprocated). The next day we were back at school; straight in with some diving tutorials in a classroom at which point we realised that we would have to tale off our flip flops when entering most buildings in Thailand. We were prepared for our day in the pool by a turorial video and a very nice Canadian lady called Belynda who would be our diving instructor for the week. We explored the beach that evening and discovered the very lively and very ladyboy populated Lotus Bar where we stayed for a few drinks.
The next few days were a bit of a blur as they simply flew by; we were up early each morning for diving, day one in the pool to learn the basics and watch Jake do his now infamous drowning cow impression and days two and three for our
open water dives. The open water dives were at two locations; Twin Peaks and White rocks. The first dive was a strange and brilliant experience tainted only by the inevitable call of nature...once I had all my Scuba gear on. I have never felt panic like it, especially as we were not allowed to flush the chain once the diving boat was anchored. Panic over, and chain unflushed and the dive began, decending down on a rope and equalising like you do on a plane to clear my ears. When on the bottom of the sea, about 12m deep we saw all sorts of exotic fish, eels and rays and it became really easy to forget we were a long way under the surface. On our deeper 18m dives, we were allowed a little more free reign and were introduced to the cleverly named boyancy world, no doubt a play on the popular floridian theme park. Here we negotiated obstacles better than Tom Giblin did, who managed to forget he had a massive tank on his back! With all the diving done, we undertook a written exam to obtain our PADI license, followed by a viewing of the diving DVD
which showed all of our antics including underwater acrobatics and our friend Naseef attempting possibly the worst entry into the water that you will ever see! Oh...and we met Troy, who would soon become a feature of every day conversation and every dream Oli Maxey will ever have...
With Koh Tao done and dusted to the best of our abilities in 6 days, we set off for party island, Koh Phangan. Standing in our way of the fast ferry was the rudest german woman in the world, who seemed insistant that queueing was something completely alien to the. She also didn't respond to the international sign for "get to the back of the f**king queue", a firm and continual prodding of the shoulder. Luckily, she understood Thai better than English and swiftly vacated when asked to do so by the ticket man. The ferry itself was fairly uneventful...oh no, wait thats a lie, Gibbo was big time sick half way through the boat journey and we didnt see him for the remainder of the journey. This was coupled with an australian girl vomiting in a way that would make Mr. Creosote weep with pride!
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tommybynumbers
Tommybynumbers
Date Change
Please ignore the arrival date, we arrived in Koh Tao on the 8th of Feb.