ok so before i begin i would just like to inform you that you must all aproach me with the greates respect from now on as i am, as of this morning, a certified diver!!! yeah baby!!!!! ill get back to that in a minute but for now i will please my mummy (and your boys janet) and fill you in on the time between my last entry and today. well we travelled back to bangkok and i was not at all pleased when i arrived only to find that the emergency money that i had stashed in my big luggage in the hold of the bus had been stoled and the whole of my bag had been rummaged through in the underneath of the bus!!! luckily i had the vast majority of my money and my passport etc with me and so i still have all that but it was just typical that they targeted my bag and took my money!!! i then decided that enough was enough and that if i didnt have any money left then there wouldnt be any for them to steal - so the shopping began!!!!!i have bought quit a bit and also dumped quite alot of my original clothes so im not carrying loads extra around with me!!! after having a bad first day back in bangkok we decided that we deserved a bit of beach action and so booked to leave the following day to reach kho phangan - an island in the south. we did the obligatory sightseeing then got our stuff to get the bus at 6pm. we were taken for about 15minutes walk to a bus stop and then were told to wait there. i randomly decided to go and ask a really unimportant question about the journey and when i did the guy said that we were at the wrong bus stop and that we would have to go back!! so we went all the way back to the travel office and when we gotr there the people were really unhelpful and just kept telling us to shut up and wait!!!! a guy then came to get us and walked us over the road and to the bus we were supposed to get on!!! as you can imagine by this point everyone else had got on and there was only one seat up with the other passengers and the other seat they had was down with the driver and his helpers. i said that i would sit down there and i was so pissed off at this point. i then had to keep awake all through the night as i didnt want any of them to steal anything from me or do anything to me!!! at one point the driver got so annoyed with another driver that he stopped the bus and got out with a metal bar and i thought i was going to witness a murder!!!!! that made it a hell of a lot easier to stay awake!!! anyway we got to a place called surat thani and waited to get a boat to the island. on the way to our destination we stopped at another island (kho samui) to drop off and pick up passengers and randomly four of the guys that we did the trek with in chiang mai got on our boat!!! they were going to a different island to us but it was nice to see them just to catch up quickly!! we arrived with a bit of a palava occuring over accomodation but i will explain that another time!!! we spent the next few days sunning ourselves on the beach and going for early morning swims in crystal clear water!!!! bliss!! we were laying on the quiet beach with no one else around when who should turn up but bruno and david from our chiang mai trip again!!! altogether we have counted that we have bumped into each other randomly on 8 occasions now!!! we went out for drinks with them in the evening and had a great night!! two days later was the world renowned full moon party and lets just say it was a crap night!!! it did not live up to any expectations whatsoever. anyway two days later we got on a boat to Kho Tao - a beautiful tropical island covered in dive centres and world class dive sites. charlotte had already done her open water training so was looking to do her advanced level training. gubbins here had never even been near a dive site in my life and was not sure if i wanted to do any but when we arrived at the big blue dive centre i kinda got swept away with the tide (excuse the pun) and got myself signed up to an open water course that started that evening!!! the following day we went out into shallow water and learnt all the necessary skills like using the apparatus, how to swap air sources, how to share air etc. the following day steff our instructor, reianna my dive buddy, erland, caroline, sophie, hannah and myself went out to finish off our skills and do our first dive!!! it went well although the visibility wasnt the best it could have been as we only went fairly shallow and there was a lot of wind churning up the water. the following day we had our theory test (i got 100% - get in!!!! see im still a geek even the other side of the world!!!!) and then we went for 2 more dives. finally today we went to our deepest dive level for 2 dives - 18metres and when we came up we were qualified divers!!!! we even got to see a sea turtle!!!! it is so so pretty underwater and i have enjoyed it so much that i am considering staying for a few more days so that i can also do my advanced. i am not sure if i will yet but i am going out on 2 more dives tomorrow with the same instructor and the same buddy. we will do a deep speciality dive (30 metres) and a dive computer speciality dive and when i come up if i decide i wanna do my advanced i can use those two dives and carry on the next day with the same instructor to do the final 3 dives of the course!!! i am glad that i can do my next two dives with the same buddy reianna as she is a lovely girl who has exactly the same way of doing things as me and also ive got the same instructor and he is great. our group for the open water wasnt that great but my buddy and instructor made up for that and knowing steff and trusting him is gonna make me so much more confident on the next dives. so now you have to bow to my greatness as i have achieved something which i think is really cool and it has done my confidence a heap of good!!! charlotte has gone out on her last dive of her advanced course - a night dive - so by this evening i will be in the company of an even greater being than myself!!!! we are finally seeing the good side of thailand even if it means we are spending all our money!!!! anyway that is it for now - we will be off to the west coast in a couple of days depending on how long we stay here to dive and i will fill you in again then and ill upload the pictures. 3 weeks and 3 days guys till the wanderer returns!!!!!!! x x x x x x x x x