Right, this is my last day in Thailand, and unfortunately it is spent wasting my time in Bangkok before I head off into Cambodia, so I am going to use it to get up to date on the places I haven't written about yet. I've also gotten my photos on CD so I'll either lob them on here, or on some hosting website.
Right...
Ko Tao
Ko Tao was the next island we headed to after Ko Samui. There is actually another island sandwiched in between Ko Samui and Ko Tao - Ko Phagnan (God knows if I've spelt that right) - and this is where the infamous Full Moon Parties are held. However, those parties are all about excessive drinking, excessive drugs and excessive shit music, and most definitely not my cup of tea. We figured the island would be just as busy and touristy because of these parties (there's about a million of them even when it's not a full moon) so we skipped it out in favour of Ko Tao, the last and smallest island in the group of three.
I had originally planned on learning to dive in Thailand, after seeing how stupidly expensive it was in Australia, and two girls we met on our Chiang Mai trek recommended that Ko Tao was both the cheapest and the best place to dive throughout Thailand. It turns out they were right, as it only cost me 9000 Baht (132 pounds - damn these Thai keyboards for not having a bloody pound sign).
The course was over 4 days, taught by a very nice American called Mike. I won't go into details about the course simply because it's probably not that interesting unless you're able or are learning to dive. All in all, we learnt about the lovely things that can happen to you under the sea (air bubbles in blood, nitrogen sickness, the need to re-pressurise your body to name but a few), and the usual scuba bits, how to stay buoyant under the sea, how to go up and down, etc.
When I was first learning the course, it was very much like learning to ride a bike (I've tried learning a fair few skills in life, but I'm too lazy to keep them going, so a bike is the best comparison I can come up with). When you first see all the equipment, and the giant book full of info you have to remember, it's just like, 'Bloody Hell, I'll never get all that within 4 days' but by the end of the course, and the last dive, it all seems to fit into place, as Laura told me it would. But thinking back now, as I'm writing this, I can't remember all the nasty ailments that can befall you whilst under the sea, and how to get rid of/ prevent them. Shit.
Ko Tao as an island was as much of a highlight of Thailand as Chiang Mai had been. Way less touristy, apart from all the divers, and the beaches were a million times nicer than any I saw on Ko Samui. I will make sure to post a pic of the beach somewhere, just to make you all jealous. The locals here are also extremely friendly, we'd made quite a few friends by the time we left Ko Tao.
Annoyingly, one of them had invited us to go snorkeling with her down south, where there were Barracudas and other cool yet scary fish, but we had already booked our ticket off the island by that point. Still, it was a nice gesture.
The final highlight of Ko Tao for me was our resident foot long lizard who apparently came free with our bungalow. We at first tried to get rid of the newly dubbed "Kenneth", but he proved to be a bit of a slippery character (literally) so we decided to let him stay. We became quite attached to the wee lad actually, and as we discovered more smaller lizards in our room (Ken Junior and Phoebe) we decided he had probably taken his kids and gone on the run from his wife. Don't blame him as geckos are loud bastards when they get going, and seeing as our Ken never made a sound, we decided it must be the females who made all the noise (nagging).
Poor Ken, he will be sorely missed.
On to...
Krabi
From Ko Tao we caught a night boat and a bus to the mainland town of Krabi, where we stayed on Ao Nang Beach, recommended to us by some people from our dive school.
The night boat was really amusing to me - it reminded me of the Brownie 'Pack Holidays' I used to go to when I was little. The completely rubbish holidays that were in fact a weekend spent sleeping in a hall in a village somewhere down the road from Leighton. Not quite hardcore holiday partying.
We used to line our sleeping bags around the sides of the village hall, packed in really tightly, with a path to walk from one end of the hall to the other, running down the middle. The layout of the night boat was exactly the same, except that you had about a foot of space to call your own. So it was actually a bit like being a small child again, come to think of it. Still, it was an experience :)
Whilst at Krabi, we went on a tour of the nearby islands, including the ones where The Beach was filmed, Ko Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. There was no way we were going to Thailand and not seeing those! It was most definitely an experience being on 'The Beach', I could see why they chose it as a set, clear waters and amazingly fine sand. Although five minutes after you've stopped admiring the sand you begin to curse it, simply because being so fine, it gets into places that I wouldn't like to mention on this blog, and sticks to every item of clothing you own, even if it's been nowhere near a beach.
It was interesting to see that there were almost no remains of the devastation caused by the tsunami here, I had forgotten there ever was one til I saw the tsunami evacuation signs.
Overall we stayed in Krabi for about 4 days - any longer at it would probably have killed me, as it was just so bloody hot there, pushing 40 degrees sometimes. Around 99.9 % of my time was spent in some sort of water, whether it be a shower, the sea, or my own sweat. Mmm....
Anyway, I think thats me fairly up to date in quite a big nutshell. I am going to see if I can work out how to post photos on here now. If it doesn't work, I will post a link to some sort of site.
Right...
Ko Tao
Ko Tao was the next island we headed to after Ko Samui. There is actually another island sandwiched in between Ko Samui and Ko Tao - Ko Phagnan (God knows if I've spelt that right) - and this is where the infamous Full Moon Parties are held. However, those parties are all about excessive drinking, excessive drugs and excessive shit music, and most definitely not my cup of tea. We figured the island would be just as busy and touristy because of these parties (there's about a million of them even when it's not a full moon) so we skipped it out in favour of Ko Tao, the last and smallest island in the group of three.
I had originally planned on learning to dive in Thailand, after seeing how stupidly expensive it was in Australia, and two girls we met on our Chiang Mai trek recommended that Ko Tao was both the cheapest and the best place to dive throughout Thailand. It turns out they were right, as it only cost me 9000 Baht (132 pounds - damn these Thai keyboards for not having a bloody pound sign).
The course was over 4 days, taught by a very nice American called Mike. I won't go into details about the course simply because it's probably not that interesting unless you're able or are learning to dive. All in all, we learnt about the lovely things that can happen to you under the sea (air bubbles in blood, nitrogen sickness, the need to re-pressurise your body to name but a few), and the usual scuba bits, how to stay buoyant under the sea, how to go up and down, etc.
When I was first learning the course, it was very much like learning to ride a bike (I've tried learning a fair few skills in life, but I'm too lazy to keep them going, so a bike is the best comparison I can come up with). When you first see all the equipment, and the giant book full of info you have to remember, it's just like, 'Bloody Hell, I'll never get all that within 4 days' but by the end of the course, and the last dive, it all seems to fit into place, as Laura told me it would. But thinking back now, as I'm writing this, I can't remember all the nasty ailments that can befall you whilst under the sea, and how to get rid of/ prevent them. Shit.
Ko Tao as an island was as much of a highlight of Thailand as Chiang Mai had been. Way less touristy, apart from all the divers, and the beaches were a million times nicer than any I saw on Ko Samui. I will make sure to post a pic of the beach somewhere, just to make you all jealous. The locals here are also extremely friendly, we'd made quite a few friends by the time we left Ko Tao.
Annoyingly, one of them had invited us to go snorkeling with her down south, where there were Barracudas and other cool yet scary fish, but we had already booked our ticket off the island by that point. Still, it was a nice gesture.
The final highlight of Ko Tao for me was our resident foot long lizard who apparently came free with our bungalow. We at first tried to get rid of the newly dubbed "Kenneth", but he proved to be a bit of a slippery character (literally) so we decided to let him stay. We became quite attached to the wee lad actually, and as we discovered more smaller lizards in our room (Ken Junior and Phoebe) we decided he had probably taken his kids and gone on the run from his wife. Don't blame him as geckos are loud bastards when they get going, and seeing as our Ken never made a sound, we decided it must be the females who made all the noise (nagging).
Poor Ken, he will be sorely missed.
On to...
Krabi
From Ko Tao we caught a night boat and a bus to the mainland town of Krabi, where we stayed on Ao Nang Beach, recommended to us by some people from our dive school.
The night boat was really amusing to me - it reminded me of the Brownie 'Pack Holidays' I used to go to when I was little. The completely rubbish holidays that were in fact a weekend spent sleeping in a hall in a village somewhere down the road from Leighton. Not quite hardcore holiday partying.
We used to line our sleeping bags around the sides of the village hall, packed in really tightly, with a path to walk from one end of the hall to the other, running down the middle. The layout of the night boat was exactly the same, except that you had about a foot of space to call your own. So it was actually a bit like being a small child again, come to think of it. Still, it was an experience :)
Whilst at Krabi, we went on a tour of the nearby islands, including the ones where The Beach was filmed, Ko Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. There was no way we were going to Thailand and not seeing those! It was most definitely an experience being on 'The Beach', I could see why they chose it as a set, clear waters and amazingly fine sand. Although five minutes after you've stopped admiring the sand you begin to curse it, simply because being so fine, it gets into places that I wouldn't like to mention on this blog, and sticks to every item of clothing you own, even if it's been nowhere near a beach.
It was interesting to see that there were almost no remains of the devastation caused by the tsunami here, I had forgotten there ever was one til I saw the tsunami evacuation signs.
Overall we stayed in Krabi for about 4 days - any longer at it would probably have killed me, as it was just so bloody hot there, pushing 40 degrees sometimes. Around 99.9 % of my time was spent in some sort of water, whether it be a shower, the sea, or my own sweat. Mmm....
Anyway, I think thats me fairly up to date in quite a big nutshell. I am going to see if I can work out how to post photos on here now. If it doesn't work, I will post a link to some sort of site.
posted by Sarah at
7:13 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home