During our brief stop in Bangkok we went on a romantic date with each other to the cinema to watch the new Oz film and found that they play the national anthem before films as they absolutely adore their king. We were on our usual mode of transport later, a night bus, and after waiting around at the pier at 5am we were soon on our boat over to our first Thai Island, Koh Tao. It is the cheapest place in the world to become a Open Water scuba diver so we made the most of it and booked with Crystal Dive resort. Feeling pretty tired we gave ourselves a days rest on the beautiful beach, doing what we do best, sunbathing, before preparing for our next activity. It was a 4 day course, the first day spent in the classroom learning all the basics with our instructor, a Danish girl Malou, and another 4 people to complete our dive group. It's fair to say we were both slightly apprehensive about diving, we weren't too sure if we would like it or be any good at it but after paying already we wanted to try it out and complete it anyway.

After the first day of classroom, feeling like we were back at school again, videos and quizzes we knew the basics so felt more relaxed and went for some food, both choosing delicious curry's and discovering how nice and chilled Koh Tao is. We were soon up at the crack of dawn in our bikinis ready to try out scuba diving, we had to practise in the swimming pool first though. Once all our very heavy equipment was on, the air tanks feeling like our backpacks again, we were releived to feel weightless in the water and ready to live under water for the morning. Breathing under water was a lot easier than we expected and both felt relaxed, chilling sat at the bottom of the pool, we completed lots of exercises during the morning including taking our masks off and getting used to how to breathe to either float or sink lower. All lots of fun but after 5 hours submerged in water we pruned up a lot, it was time for lunch anyway giving us a much needed break as we discussed our underwater hand signals we had learnt and will need to use. Another classroom session trying to keep our eyes open after the tiring morning, meg had been the good girl she is and completed her homework for this class too, we were then free and nearly ready for our dives the next day. That evening we had a meal with our group and me and meg thought that there may be problems as one girl didn't speak much English and didn't understand fully what was going on, we were more concerned for her than ourselves. It was finally our dive day and once we had completed and passed both the written and swimming tests we were on the boat and soon at Mango bay, our first dive spot. Me and Meg were buddy's underwater and we both felt just as relaxed sat on the ocean bed at 10m as we did in the pool. This first dive was interesting as we all had issues staying at one level, so lots of being pulled down by our helper to stay near the bottom. The next 3 dives we completed over the next day and they were all amazing, we saw lots of different fish, an eel, some fun Christmas tree coral, and we thought we were actually good at diving as we swam in what felt like an aquarium. After becoming certified scuba divers (our ID cards are being sent home so keep an eye out) we celebrated with a meal and a beer as we watched our video that was filmed on our last dives. The video was fun to watch despite some awful close ups and we will miss diving but are now already planning holidays where we can dive as we are pros. That evening we had some drinks and watched some incredible fire throwers on the beach, then after more drinks went to our little bungalow for some sleep. Our final day in Koh Tao was spent at shark bay, a beautiful beach that has a private and very expensive resort attached, one day we can stay there we hoped.

We have absolutely loved our time in Koh Tao learning to dive and meeting some new people, the food is amazing here and the bars are busy but chilled at the same time, a perfect mix for us! We are now heading to madness for 4 days of partying ending with the full moon party, wish us luck! Lots of love Amy and Meg, qualified scuba divers and Nemo's friends xxxx