The bus driver eventually told us that we had arrived in Khao Lak, the jumping off town for the Similan Islands, which are supposed to have some of the best diving in the world. After wondering town the street in the direction of the beach, we decided to ask in one of the many other dive shops where the one we had booked with was. It turned out that Khao Lak town was actually 3km further down the road! We decided to stay where we were (Bang Niang) for the night anyway, before meeting our dive boat the next day. We were chatting to the dive woman about cheap accommodation, which she wasn't hopeful that we'd find, when an old guy rode past on a moped. She called him over and asked if he knew of anywhere cheap, and he offered us his spare room for the night, for about a third of the price of anywhere else! The room was fine so we decided to stay.

The next day we headed into Khao Lak in search of our dive shop. To cut a long story short, their internet booking guy had just left, and despite replying to us to say our booking was confirmed, he had never told the dive shop! The boat for that evening was full, and so after a few negotiations, we ended up waiting for the next trip 5 days later, and accepting a decent discount and a free day trip to the Similans, with two dives. We returned to Bang Niang to extend our stay in the cheap room!

The next few days were spent enjoying being in one place for more than a night, relaxing on the beach and being amused by the slightly mad expat community that would start drinking every afternoon in front of our hosts shop!

The day trip to the Similans showed us how stunning the islands are - beautiful white sand beaches, great visibility underwater and lots of fish, so we're looking forward to the liveaboard even more now!