Day 58 Thursday 5th November 2009 - Day 64 Wednesday 11th November 2009

Johno says

At last there were ferries running from Ko Phangan to Ko Tao so we could both move on. (Also see Staceys week further down) I went back to Ko Samui as that is the nearest Island to the Thai mainland where we needed to get the next plane on to Vietnam and I had previously seen a Thai Boxing School there and I fancied a bit of that!!! Two full days of rest in Chaweng before moving on to Lamai Beach for some training Muay Thai style.

It is much the same as Chaweng but a lot more quieter where I was staying as this was only a short walk to the Thai Boxing School. I spent Saturday resting up and cracked on with some Thai massage which progressed into a hand massage for my bad finger haha - I was there for nearly two hours and it cost me just 8 pounds - Brilliant. I got stuck into a candlelit ruby for one in the evening and had an early night for my one-on-one Muay Thai training the next day!!

I was thinking the Muay Thai training would be like a scene out of the karate kid so woke up with a paintbrush to hand (not really!) and headed off to the School where my teacher (Ekk) was waiting to greet me!! He was a seriously hard Thai fighter and had the scars over his face to prove it, apparently he had previously smashed his way through 88 professional fights in Bangkok and now was 'too old' but only seemed like he was in his early 30's! He grabbed a skipping rope and I embarrassingly said that I couldn't skip - great start Johno!!! Haha I bet he thought I have got a right one here!!! So he bandaged up my hands and started to spar with me, easing into some light punching then he showed me the striking elbow/knee shots! Looking back on it my first attempts were pathetic but then once he showed how to use the hips to generate more power I was hitting him 3 times as hard - amazing!! He actually said 'you strong' which I will nicely take away as a compliment …! Oiiiii!! (noise that we have to make when striking!!)

Next day training was far more difficult in the heat but my technique was improving, we moved on some crazy wrestling type moves and some bag work - this bag was solid and I had kick this thing 50 times with each leg and knee - ouch!! There was someone else there training today with another ex Thai fighter and he had been training for 6 weeks in Thailand - now that is hardcore!! I went for a soft drink in a bar in Lamai Beach in the evening and it turns out to be the owners birthday so there was free food for all which was a bonus as I hadn't eaten yet.. And it was an absolute Thai feast!!

Day three of training showed that my shins and elbows had taken a real beating as every blow seemed to get more and more painful. No pain no gain - right?! Cracked on with the usual sparing and then the usual 70 sit ups to finish - I am sure he let me off with 60 today - what a Gent!! The heat really made a difference today at 2pm start so back to usual 11 o'clock for tomorrow. Thai massage for the evening which I am sure is designed to rip your muscles from the bone…!

Fourth and final day of training was painful, I was taking on Ek one on one but sadly couldn't even get close to him as technique got the better of me. We finished with the mandatory 70 sit ups and 50 knee strikes to the bags!! Ouch! The evening was spent with Stace and feeding a couple of stray 3 week old kittens from a nearby bar.

Stacey says

Ohh its still painful thinking back to the boat ride from Koh Phangnan to Koh Tao, 90 minutes of hell. There was a storm over the last day or two, so the sea had got rough, the waves were about 3m high, and the catamaran was being tossed all over the place. Puke bags were handed out and people having panic attacks on the floor. I was doing ok until the man next to me decided to have a good old yakking up. But anyway, I arrived to the pier and took 5 minutes to have a rest then went to find my diving school people. I got shown my accommodation in Buddha View Diving Resort and had our 3 hour introduction meeting. All set to start my 4 day Open Water Scuba Diving Course the following morning.

The first day was spent with the morning in the classroom, there were 4 of us, a couple from London, and a German guy, who became my diving buddy. And the afternoon practicing assembling our scuba equipment, (which all weighed about 18kg once you put it on!) and getting into the swimming pool to practice. It did feel pretty funny testing it out all out under the water for the first time, but knowing your in the swimming pool you feel confident with it. Sent home with some homework to do, I was feeling pretty worn out after such an intense day of learning so much. So dinner, reading and an early night to bed!

Day 2, was a later start at 12.30, spent the afternoon in the pool practicing skills, finding our neutral buoyancy to float, which was pretty tricky to start, and how to deal with situations in the sea. Once finished this session, and left the pool, my hair had gone green! Real apple/lime green! One of the instructors walked past and said in a real serious German tone 'nice hair' and then said he has blond hair and never goes green. HAHA. (My hair has no colour in it honest!) It had happened to all the blondes so I wasn't the only one! My instructor said I should try some tomato ketchup on my hair, so I did and no it didn't really work. (But a few days on it seemed to just fade anyway. Phew!!!)

Day 3, this was the bit I was really worried about now, as we were doing 2 dives in the ocean today. We were meeting for 12.30. I was so nervous, especially after having learnt about decompression sickness and lung expansion. But the instructor was really reassuring and helped us all relax, we were all feeling a little anxious about it. Especially as we'd be woken up by thunderstorms in the morning. Couldn't just be a nice sunny calm day could it! We got our stuff ready and did our buddy checks, and jumped off the boat into the water. We were to go 12m under today, with a controlled decent down a rope. It was so strange sinking under the sea, seeing everyone's head disappear, we deflated out jackets and down we went! The visibility wasn't brilliant, probably only about 1.5 to 2m, I was the last one and couldn't see them below me, and just got totally confused what was up or down, we were warned you can feel vertigo when you first go under, but one of the guys grabbed me and started pulling me down! Then we were all kneeling in the sand at the bottom! We just spent this dive swimming around getting used to it. The time flew by, we were under for 42 minutes. Then we sat and chatted on the boat for an hour, and went to do our second dive, this time he wanted to test us on all the skills he had taught us. We were under for 47mins the second dive and it went very well! I was concentrating so much by the end of the day was shattered.

Day 4 - the weather was looking much nicer today, we had a 7.20am start, and were doing our last 2 dives today going to 18m. I was feeling much more confident after yesterday, and enjoyed it a lot more. We were looking at lots of fishies, the instructor was using hand signals to show us what fish we were looking at. He would pick up the shellfish and other sorts on the bed and get us to hold them and stroke them. One guy was brave enough to hold a black sea urchin, black spiky ball thing. I'd lost grip holding a sea cucumber, and it lets out white stringy stuff, which got all wrapped my hands, it stuck like superglue! Very annoying! We practiced more skills again, like controlled emergency exits, and taking our masks off/bit of equipment, cramps, and navigation with the compass. The last 2 dives were brilliant. We finished on the boat, and headed back to the resort, to sit our exams, and hand our homework in, and all the certificate formalities. Was an absolutely brilliant experience! Can't wait to try our some more fun dives when I can next!

So around 3pm once it was all completed I took a taxi up to Sairee beach, found some accommodation and went to explore some more of Koh Tao and relax. Found a Mexican restaurant and had some delicious chicken fajitas! I'd been handed a flyer to a head to bar, so at about 9pm I headed to check out AC Bar for a deserved celebratory cocktail. It was fairly relaxed there, as I generally found Koh Tao to be actually, a lot less commercial and in your face as Samui. Being a dive resort it generally a more chilled place I guess. Soon enough a Spanish couple got chatting to me, they see my sitting on my own and befriended me! Haha they spoke perfect English so we chatted for ages, and the husband got in some buckets, and well the rest of the night was spent dancing! Woke up pretty late the next day, and just lounged around, going for a swim in the sea, and back to bed for an early night, to meet back up with Steve the next morning!!!