Soooo… we arrived in Ko Tao by ferry greeted by loads of taxi drivers asking us where we wanted to go, it was so hot so we decided to have a few drinks before deciding. Hundreds of backpackers flooded off the ferry and loaded into the taxis, while we were chilling out having a few shakes.

We then got a taxi to the main beach where there were loads of resorts and bungalows to stay. Unfortunately the whole beach was fully booked because everyone from Ko Phangan was arriving and the island "was ready to burst."

We walked for ages too and from the beach with our backpacks which was so tiring, then we decided to go back to the ferry port bit and find a place to stay because we thought no one would want to stay there, but again it was fully booked.

We were told of a place to stay on the other side of the island which was dirt cheap, I was again a bit cautious because of the price but we had no choice.

We jumped on another taxi and went on an even crazier drive to this place, 8 people crammed onto the back of this pickup plus a backpack each. The roads were nearly vertical so we held on for our lives. We arrived in another really nice secluded part of the island with an amazing view from the restaurant.The rooms were cool little stilted bungalows but basic as F! No sink, gaps in the walls for easy mosquitoes access, and again just a bucket for a flusher! We threw our bags in our rooms and went for a snorkel, it was brilliant for snorkeling and cliff jumping, no real beach just a load of boulders and corals as you can see on the pics.

We were given another bill book for our food and drink. We chilled there for a few days waiting for the island to empty. The next day we got a taxi to town and sorted out a dive course with four nights free accommodation in the deal for the next day.

We went for another snorkel back where we were, I used my water proof camera case to take some cool pics and vids of us jumping off a rock and snorkeling. One of the lads dropped his mask so I dived down around 7m to get it, my head nearly exploded and I could feel my teeth starting to squeeze! Later that night I was told by a few divers that I needed to equalize or I could have burst my ear drums, so at this point I was dreading feeling the same pain when I went diving the next day.

We checked out of our dive and checked in another one on the main beach I guess it was a little bit nicer, it had a sink. We started our first day on our (open water dive course) the first day was just reading the dive books, watching a few vids and answering a load of knowledge reviews. We learned about setting up our equipment, safety checks, signals, pressure, buoyancy etc. oh and I also heard that some people can get a tooth squeeze if they have a had a route canal DOM DOM DOM! I was s***ting myself, the yesterday thing with my tooth was so painful.

That night and like many other nights we chilled out at the lotus bar, with loads of fire poi guys doing there thing it was pretty amazing watching them, having a beer at night listening to some good music.

Day two, the first dive, we were supposed to be diving in the pool at the dive centre but that had a chlorine problem so we had to have our first dive in the sea!

We geared up had a few briefings and jumped in, we went to a shallow part of the water and submerged. It was so weird breathing underwater, to make it even harder we had to do 20 skills, like flooding and taking off your mask and putting it back on again underwater which I didn't think was possible lol. We then had a little fun dive to about 16m which was a relief because I had no tooth squeezes, must have been because I dived so fast because I was holding my breath.

After about four days we had done 7 dives, passed the course and drank too much with our dive master and instructor. We ended up paying for the advanced course which was another two days including a deep dive at 30m, a navigation dive where we were given a compass and we had to make squares n stuff in the water, Buoyancy dive where you swam through caves and hoops upside down backwards etc, and a night dive which was fooooking awesome, we saw a shark n loads of other fish! As you can see I am rushing the blog, its getting a bit too long.So yeah, you're friends or related to a qualified advanced diver : P That night we went to see a Thai boxing fight which was awesome.

Now I think im going to head to the Phuket side of Thailand x x x