From Phuket, Ed and I took a wonderfully scenic ferry across the Andaman Sea, past various picture postcard Thai islands, and mainland bays with equally eye-catching steep, jungle-capped cliffs and arcing white beaches, to Koh Lanta, where some serious diving was to be the focus of our stay. Prior research seemed to suggest that the island itself wasn’t renown for outstanding beauty, but as a centrally located departure point to great dive sites both to the north and south, it was second to none in the area.

We had a shortlist of two dive companies. Lanta Diver, a Scandinavian run operation, based by the dock our ferry came into, and which we checked out immediately upon arriving, had been recommended by the dive company Ed had used in Phuket. It was an extremely professional looking outfit, had helpful, friendly staff, was competitively priced, and described a reassuringly thorough refresher course to Ed, who was keen on doing one, having not dived for ten years and not had a particularly refreshing refresher course at the first attempt in the Similian Islands, where his Phuket-based dive trip had gone out to (I think it had amounted to something like “don’t worry, you’ll be alright, it’s like riding a bike; OK everyone, we’re heading straight down to eighteen metres”). Dive and Relax, another operation recommended by the Lonely Planet, and conveniently located near to our beach huts, a few kilometres down the coast, who, to be fair, I’d insisted on checking out for a point of comparison, were none of the above. Well, who knows, we stood in their bare, tatty dive shop for a couple of minutes, and no-one materialised to speak to us. But tatty isn’t a good start, compared with the excellent one that is polished and professional, when one is looking for support in an activity that involves breathing successfully underwater, a fairly important consideration for good, long term health. And the wisdom of our selection of Lanta Diver was compounded when it later transpired that our divemaster, Yazz, was yet another ex-Sheffield University student for me to meet over the course our travels (I think the total comes to seven now, including Yazz’s boyfriend Jack, also a Lanta Diver divemaster). I tell you, made of good stuff, ex-Sheffield Uni students. Me, Ed, Yazz, Jack, Jessica Ennis, Eddie Izzard, David Blunkett, Carol Barnes, Abe Lincoln, Einstein, Darwin, Gandhi, Dalglish, the list goes on (allegedly).
The diving was brilliant. I can’t really think how it could have gone better, assuming there were no alternative techniques, equipment or pre-dive rituals that Ed and I could have employed to avoid being so incredibly wiped out each evening after diving, and assuming secondly that we didn’t miss any shoals of whale sharks, spinning turtles on their fins, cartwheeling in sync past us while our backs were turned. We had a fantastic time, going out for three days in total, and taking a two day rest in between the second and third to relax and lie in, explore the island, and allow Matt, a friend of Ed’s, to arrive and also do a refresher. After a couple of weeks of poor visibility caused by bad weather, excellent visibility had returned, and thankfully stayed with us throughout. And I still can’t get over how a body of water as large as a sea can naturally heat up to a sublimely comfortable thirty degrees Celsius. But it does, and it was. We were expertly guided the whole time by Yazz, who was relaxed, helpful, and unwaveringly enthusiastic about sharing her encyclopaedic knowledge of marine life. Food on the boat was first rate, so much so that I couldn’t restrain myself from demolishing a triple breakfast sandwich of egg, cheese, salad and chilli sauce prior to diving on the first day; not clever, my weights belt didn’t sit overly comfortably, horizontal across my bulging pot belly; a mistake I didn’t repeat. And on the whole, the operation was just very slick. A designated, non-diving manager was assigned to each trip, everything ran like clockwork, equipment was top notch, and the boats and atmosphere were comfortable and chilled out. Everything we were looking for and more.

Day one was to Koh Ha, broadly to the west of Koh Lanta, and the closest of the three dive sites we explored. Perfect for a refresher, with a shallow lagoon dive, before we went down twice more, firstly a wall and cave dive, then a long wall dive, where we got dropped off by the boat at one end and picked up at the other. The next day, Ed and I went straight off again, this time north to Koh Bida, one of the best sites in the vicinity of the famous Koh Phi Phi, setting many years ago of the film of Alex Garland’s “The Beach”, with DeCaprio and that French girl. Three further dives, again exploring different underwater terrains each time. And finally, on our fifth and final day on Koh Lanta, Ed, myself, and now Matt as well, made the longer journey south, by speedboat, to the world renown submerged twin pinnacles of Hin Muang and Hin Daeng.

As I mentioned earlier, we had really good visibility on every dive. The seascapes alone, with their amazingly varied blends of corals and rock formations, were fascinating to a still easily excitable novice like myself. And, like Koh Tao had been a month earlier, the waters were also teeming with marine life. Too many species to name them all, of course, but my shortlist of highlights were the bearded scorpion fish, expertly disguised as a lump of rock and mud, the brilliantly bright-coloured parrot fish, a giant moray eel that was nervously snaking its way to a new hideout, rather than just poking its head out of a crevice, as they usually do, a pair of dancing boxer shrimps (partly for Yazz’s signal for, or rather impression of, them), a two metre leopard shark, which was excitingly coming straight towards me at first, before eventually veering off to my left instead, and then the general experience of finding myself in the middle of a huge shoal of small fish, swimming in the same direction, as if for a moment they haven’t clocked that I’m not one of them. Easily the single most memorable moment, however, was when we saw a spotted eagle ray near Koh Bida, apparently far from its normal territory. The sheer grace with which it gently, slowly flapped its wings, gliding through the water across and in front of us, with its long, thin tail, about three metres long, several times its body length, streaming out behind, was breathtaking. And on top of all the sights, the whole diving experience is of course enhanced by buddying with a mate, partly providing peace of mind underwater through inherent trust, but mainly for making the experience a shared one, to be enthused about again later over a few beers, and I’m sure many more times to come.

So as I said initially, diving was definitely the focus of our stint on Koh Lanta, but we did also find the time to relax. Much needed time, given how knackered diving left us! We stayed in a “resort” called Lanta Marina, not that I use the inverted commas because it was in any way disappointing, but purely because in my mind, the word generally conjures up more than a bunch of bamboo beach huts and a ramshackle bar and a restaurant, also rickety bamboo constructions. I’m not sure what more or different I should expect, now I think about it, but at the time I found the use of the word amusing. In any case, Lanta Marina’s set-up served us excellently, and they were, in fact, the best bamboo beach huts I’ve yet stayed in. Huge, spacious efforts, appearing from a distance like massive hay bails, with hammocks strung out across balconies, also each with a small coffee table and set of chairs, looking out to sea across the soft, grass-covered grounds, with the beach in front. Plenty of useful extras inside that architects of bamboo huts don’t usually bother with as well, such as shelves, clothes lines, pegs, a table, a mirror, etc, and then on top, the added bonus of an attached bathroom, taking away the “to go or not to go” middle of the night dilemma of needing the toilet, having had a few beers in the evening. And that we’d chosen the right place was confirmed to me by the large Liverpool Football Club towel hanging at the back of the restaurant. I later noticed a scarf behind the bar, too. The resort belonged to Liverpool fan Mut (which means “ant”, he told us, on account of him being small; I hadn’t noticed, Thais aren’t generally very big), and family, who were all excellent hosts, and along with Im, a teenage helper, and a friendly boy-girl on reception, whose name I didn’t pick up, they looked after us magnificently, keeping us topped up with Thai curries, Singha beers and music by the Rolling Stones and Guns and Roses (not our request, I hasten to add, but it could have been worse!). We returned the favour by letting Mut win when we bet on the football. Alright, maybe we didn’t let him… It was funny, though, as before he grasped the concept of betting by predicting the score, I said to him “I bet it’ll be three nil (Man Utd v Fulham), what do you bet?”. “Yes, I bet!”, he said. “You bet what?”. “I bet not three nil!”. “Um, no Mut, I’m afraid it’s not going to work like that…”. The other main protagonist of Lanta Marina was Ratty, who stayed with Ed for a couple of nights, before Ed decided he didn’t want to share, and moved to a room with sealed, brick walls in the resort next door. I met him a night later, passing through my hut along a beam in the bathroom, and he was in fact a mouse, not a rat, albeit a big one, but with unmistakeably mousey big ears and eyes. But hopefully he wasn’t too put out by Ed’s lack of hospitality and subsequent defection, as Matt arrived on the first of our two chill-out days and took Ed’s now vacant hut, so Ratty the mouse maintained a room buddy after all.

Matt, incidentally, hopped over for a week’s holiday, whilst in the middle of a three or four month contract in Cambodia, working for a German development organisation. An interesting combination! Friends with Ed from back home in Cambridge (younger brother of his childhood best mate, to be specific), it turns out Matt has since followed Ed to Sheffield University, then to teach English in Japan, before also finding work in health research, so I guess in hindsight it was hardy a surprise to find him following Ed to Thailand for a holiday as well. Matt slotted in nicely, not least, for me, because he filled the gap Ed left vacant for football conversation, and even more handily, being a Man City fan, as Liverpool played City on his second night with us. Too late to watch, as it turned out, but the anticipation was fun. It was a three nil victory to the reds, in the end, although I’m sure Matt ultimately returned to Cambodia with a football related smile on his fact, as City knocked arch-rivals Utd out of the cup, to reach the final, on his last night in Thailand. I should also add, however, that despite not ably partaking in football discussions, something I enjoy making the most of on the rare occasion the opportunity arises, what with enjoying long term travel with girlfriend, Ed did contribute marvellously on the subject of Milibands, the NHS, physical regression towards middle age, and Thai ladyboys (are they, aren’t they, how do you tell, etc).

So we sat back, supped on a few Singhas, ate well, Ed and I did a moped circuit of Koh Lanta while Matt was doing his diving refresher, and then the three of us dived together on the final day, before we moved on to Koh Lipe for the last leg of their trip, and my last port of call in Thailand.