Koh Tao is mainly a diving island but it has fairly decent nightlife and beaches too, and is so much more chilled out than its bigger sister. We stayed in a dorm that had a TV in the common room, which turned out to be a massive plus seeing as we spent most nights watching films, wild! Heather, Jasmine and Layla all got ill/infected ears then Amber and Jasmine started their diving course so we only really went out once, to some weird club that played a combination of YMCA and hip hop, but apart from Amber's playing card saga and Dale shouting at some motorcyclists, it was a pretty easy going night. Heather was hospitalised one night cos they weren't sure if she had dengue fever so that wasn't good, but thankfully she didn't. Layla went a bit deaf for a bit too but she's ok now too. Bit of a worrying few days though really!

During the day we went on a boat trip to another little island and to snorkel in all the bays around Koh Tao, saw lots of fish. Then the next day we did a 'try dive' and saw lots more fish. Just can't get enough of those fish. Apparently there was a whale shark sighting that morning but we didn't get to see it, or any of the other black tip sharks they have there, gutted. Seeing as I'd already done three try dives before in Turkey and Madagascar I thought it would be a bit pointless, but they let us do a lot more on our own this time so that was cool, and I didn't spend the whole dive holding on to my mask like I did in Madagascar so it's a definite improvement, maybe one day I'll actually learn to dive!

So yeah Koh Tao was a much needed relaxation stop where we watched about 6 films with the canadians in the dorm next to us and spent a good amount of time lounging around and playing ping pong (not that kind). We went to this really nice Thai restaurant called Nid's Kitchen on Kim's recomendation and it was the best massaman curry ever, I've only just gotten back into thai food since being ill in Pai, but now I'm just craving it all the time. We also went to a ladyboy cabaret which was quite impressive although how any guy mistakes them for girls is beyond me. Had to leave eventually though to join my tour group so and Layla boarded our boat and bus to Bangkok, saying a sad goodbye to the other girls who were going to Phi Phi. I'll hopefully fit that in after Vietnam.

I had until 6pm to meet my tour group so me and Layla decided to go to the forensic museum (as seen on An Idiot Abroad) which somehow took an hour to find, but was pretty interesting, in a really messed up way. They had all these jars with real preserved bodies like conjoined fetuses and dead rapists and body organs cut in half and with bullet wounds in them. Pretty grim, I was just walking around hugging my water bottle. There's a bit on parasites too with a really weird and cheesy thai film, and a bit about the tsunami. It's part of the hospital (as if we hadn't spent enough time there on Koh Tao!) and is supposed to be used by medical students, so is pretty gory. Cool though, I liked the brains. Then we went to MBK mall to try and buy a laptop which also somehow took an hour cos they don't install windows as standard and don't pay back VAT instore and don't tell you about either of these things until you've already wasted lots of time thinking they do do those things. But I finally have a laptop now, unlimited internet woohoo!

I'm with my tour group now in Cambodia but I'll write about that later, should probably go outside or something now, must not let the massive geek in me take over!