So my two day stop off in Bangkok was great fun. I spent the evenings with Johanna. We were people watching on the side of the street with our street food (Pad Thai for just 30 baht and corn on the cob for 30 baht) as well as slurping on a mango and strawberry fruit shake - umm...delicious! I spent the morning shopping down Koa San Road for some clothes and stocking up on more SHAMPOO. For some reason I could not barter with hardly any of the women and I found them so rude! They didn't smile, say hello, or even try and sell you anything it was very weird having come from Cambodia where the people are very friendly and full of banter! I wanted to go back to Cambodia!!

I had a 5am start the following day with a bus/boat from Bangkok to Koh Tao. The bus was amazing - I had 2 seats to myself and I managed to get a good bit of sleep in before the 3 hour boat to Koh Tao. I arrived on the beautiful island and started walking along the beach to find a hostel. I checked into the cheapest hostel I could find (300 baht/$10 per night) and headed out for some dinner. I was shocked to find how expensive the food was here, bus I guess its a holiday destination so restaurants can charge whatever they want and people will pay that much. Dinners had increased to about 100 baht and you had to pay for rice (20 baht), Rice was FREE in Cambodia, a country much less off than Thailand! I wasn't too pleased. The food wasn't exactly better either. Once I got over this shock I began to like the island. It's beautiful, really sweet with a nice path to stroll down which is parallel to the white sandy beach! It looks amazing at night too with colourful lights, as does the beach itself. The bars/ restaurants on the beach lay down big pillows to chill on and watch the world go by, it is a really chilled out place. Some bars entertain us with fire shows, where men stand at the front and fling fire balls around in the air. It's pretty meditating watching them. I had an early night the first night then strolled around the island the following day and checked into Grand Coral Divers at 2pm to start my PADI course that evening. There were 4 Danish girls who came in pairs, 1 Danish lad, 1 Aussie guy, 1 odd German guy and me! We signed some papers and watched a diving video. We go given homework everynight so I tried to do it during the sessions J! That evening I wasn't feeling too great about the people on the course and they were very unsociable so I headed out for dinner alone. It just so worked out that some German guys invited me to sit with them during dinner and we all got on really well. We had dinner, went for a few drinks on the beach and danced until the early hours of the morning. It was such an unexpected evening, but so much fun. They were all solo travellers apart from a German couple but they all seemed to jel really well. I ended up spending the next 4 nights with them. They were so much fun! I went to the PADI course during the day, then head back, have a shower in my own private room, and then go and meet them at their accommodation. We would head for some food (always starving!) and then have some drinks on the beach. The PADI was good fun...we did theory in the morning of the second day and then went into the pool to do some practical stuff. The following day we did more theory then did two dives in the SEA! It was great...i wasn't scared at all even though you have all this heavy gear on when you jump into the water. I could hardly stand up with a full tank it was a wierd feeling. The only problem I had was that my ears hurt when I went down...I found it hard to 'equalise'...for some reason holding my nose and blowing did not seem to do it for me so I had to wiggle my jaw and rub my ears instead. I was slow going down for this reason and the group had to wait for me. I felt bad, but once I got down and my ears got used to it, it was fine and some of the lads in my group struggled in the other dives too, so I didn't feel bad. That evening I was half deaf...so had to keep asking Christina (German girl) to shout at me! Lol. It was good fun meeting with the Germans in the evening as some of us were in different groups and different companies, we would all compare what we did and what we enjoyed/struggled with. On the night we all qualified, we had a big night out and treated ourselves with some drinks! (We couldn't really drink much if we were diving the next day!) I enjoyed a strawberry slush puppy type alcoholic bucket....it pretty much lasted me all night for 200 baht. Cheap date ey!

The following day we decided to hire scooters and explore the island. Sebastian drove Christina, I was with Torbin and two Canadians who we went out with the night before joined us too. We headed down to Shark Bay....I actually saw more fish and coral snorkelling around that day than I did when I was diving! I even saw and swam with a shark! It was about a metre and a half long! It was funny because I saw it so shouted to the others to come and look, but the shark kept swimming around so I was swimming behind the shark waiting for the others to catch up...there was a fleet of them behind me. They were swimming for about 5 mins behind me, but not fast enough to catch a glimpse of the shark...so I stopped as I realised they were all getting tired and would never catch up! They were a little gutted...and shattered by the end of the swim. We stopped off at a local restaurant and enjoyed some noodle soups and rice dishes. It was a great day out exploring, but we really could have spent a few more days seeing the island...it was a shame I was leaving that evening and the lads were leaving the following day. We found accommodation for them (after about an hour of searching) but I was rewarded with a hot shower before I got on my over night bus/ferry to Koh PhiPhi. The lads were great, and went to grab our rucksacks....you will see in the photo they have our bags on their backs as well as their own! They looked hilarious...read on for next chapter :)