11/12/09 Bangkok to Koh Tao

We had a night train booked to Koh Tao with a ferry early morning too. We woke up and Phil went to the Post Office to get a box while Liz was in the shower. We packed up two parcels after we'd popped to the shops to get more "nice things" to quote Phil. We went off to the Post Office and had a parcel sent by airmail for xmas and another by slow boat which might get home before us !! We went to see Wat Pho, Bangkoks largest Wat and on the walk there we were given a bag or corn each by some Thai people in the street saying that feeding the pigeons was good luck !!! Liz didn't take hers but Phil threw his to the pigeons and then the people started demanding 100 BHT about 2 pounds for the bag. Bearing in mind 100BHT would buy you a good meal here they were taking the Micky to be a bit more polite than we were !!! We went into Wat Pho and went straight to its most famous tourist attraction a huge reclining Buddha which must have been 15 metres high and 46 metres long. It represents the Buddhas journey into Nirvana. It is covered in gold leaf and carvings. There are other buildings, temples and stupas around the Wat Pho complex which we went to look at. We had a quick chat with a monk there then went off to visit the Royal Palace just down the road. We bought some silk prints outside Wat Pho which were so beautiful we couldn't resist spending the few pounds to buy them. When we got to the Royal Palace we were told there was a strict dress code meaning we had to change. Liz had her trouser legs to zip to her shorts and a long sleeved top but Phil hadn't. The palace will lend out clothes they feel suitable for the visit but we hadn't enough time to wait in the huge queue for them. We went as far as we could for a quick look then turned round to go back to the hotel. We called into to see Sai and she spoke to the dive Dr again for us so we knew there wasn't a language mix up and also checked with the dive school. She had been really great with us and we thanked her for her time and off we went. We set off for the train station early as it was Friday and busy due to the Kings Birthday and the demos but we sailed through the traffic. The non English speaking taxi driver tried not to take us as he gestured it would be gridlock but there was no problem at all. We got to the train station in plenty of time for the night train and sat inside the huge building to wait. When we were allowed to board the train we clambered on with all our stuff to find only seats in the carriage. We had booked sleeping berths so Phil was about to ask when we realised they would all convert to beds later on, as it was still early. It looked pretty shabby and there wasn't many places to safely put the luggage but we piled ours together next to us and sat down. A waiter came along with a menu of dinner choices and drinks so we ordered drinks then settled down to wait departure. We set off finally a bit late and everyone tucked into their food and drinks as the train pulled out.We had a good view of greater Bangkok as the train slowly moved through. After about an hour the train worker arrived to make our beds up. In a matter of seconds he had made one bed out of the seats and pulled another down from the roof. He put clean linen on and hooked curtains round too and it was really quite spacious and comfortable. Liz had a pretty good nights sleep but Phil was feeling a bit rough from an upset stomach so didn't get much sleep. He was also worried we might miss the stop at 4am as the train carried on after our station.

12/12/09 Kho Tao

We arrived into Chumphon Station at 4.30ish and the guard hadn't woken us as promised so we had a mad dash to the doors. The train then sat at the station for ages so we needn't have rushed quite so much. We were loaded onto a truck to drive half an hour to the ferry port where we would get a boat at 7ish. We got to the ferry port with 2 hours to wait and chatted to two Alex's we had met in one of the bars in Bangkok. They were off to Kho Tao too. We got onto the ferry after a gorgeous sunrise over the Thai islands and sea. It was a bit overcast but we had learned that it was monsoon on the Gulf of Thailand where we were heading. When we pulled into Kho Tao the sea was a stunning blue and there was a white sand beach with palm trees stretching either side of the rickety wooden jetty. We were met by a driver from the Crystal dive resort who took us the few minutes to the resort. We were met by the friendly staff and sat in the restaurant to fill out the dive forms. After filling hers out Liz spoke to one of the instructors who said the pacemaker wouldn't be a problem but Liz would need to see a doctor as a matter of course to be signed off. The doctor we had spoken to from Bangkok was the doctor they used, which was great news after the Australian problem. After we'd checked in and Phil and booked to go on a reef clean eco dive, Liz went off to see the doctor. Dr Chasit was very nice and had no problem signing Liz fit to dive, he couldn't understand why the Asutralian doctor had a problem as long as the pacemaker was working !! Liz got back with all her forms signed and joined Phil for some breakfast. Liz's course started at 1.30pm and Phil was off diving at 12.30. Phil got his diving kit ready and then joined the dive boat to visit Ao Luk reef . Although he is an advanced diver and has instructor qualifications the Crystal team won't let anyone dive without a dive master leading the dive. They were at the dive site for an hour and filled up 7 bin liners with trash from the bottom of the reef. Phil was really disappointed as he had expected a good dive but there was so much rubbish around it was just in a mess. He hoped the rest of the dive sites weren't the same. He did see a black tip reef shark though, but the visibility was only 10 meters which was pretty bad after the Barrier Reef, where he'd been spoiled. After the diving Phil got back, cleaned off his kit and went to the room after getting the key from Liz in the classroom. Phil had a shower as did Liz when she got back and he fell asleep feeling knackered. LIz joined her small group for the dive course at 1.30 and met Ozzie the Irish instructor. He checked her paperwork and asked about the medical history. He looked very unhappy and said he would need to check with his boss and dive medic to make sure Liz was ok to dive. Liz could feel history repeating itself but waited for him to return. When he did she was called to one side so knew there was a problem. The dive medic had said that it was dangerous for Liz to dive as the pacemaker could shock her at certain depths. Thankfully Liz knew this was not true as that is a different device than the one she has. After small discussion and some persuasion with the letter from the cardiologist etc Ozzie agreed to take her. Liz was about to get a bit stroppy about the dive medic thinking he knew better than the dive doctor at the clinic but there was no need !! Liz said she would never attempt to dive if she thought she was at risk as nothing is worth going through that again!! There were four in the class, Ryan (UK), Dan (NZ) and Sonja (Holland) and Liz and we spent the first afternoon wastching cheesy videos and doing quizzes. The theory wasn't difficult and it was all pretty easy to follow so not too taxing an afternoon. We had five videos to watch with Ozzie teaching some other stuff in between and we got through four before Ozzie finished the class at 5.30. Liz went back to the oom nd wrote the diary while Phil crashed out. We went to have some dinner in the sea view restaurant at the resort then went for an early night.

13/12/09 Kho Tao

Phil was up at 6am and out ready for a dive as the dive boat left at 7.30 !! He checked in and collected his kit then boarded the boat to go to Red Rock, the first dive site. The divemaster Justine was leading the dive and they dived for about 40 minutes to 20 metres. The visibilty was ok and Phil saw various tropical fish, blue spotted ray, trigger fish and swam through a cave in a group of five divers. After an hours break the boat moved to White Rock for the next dive (there is a third area called Green Rock all named by an Italian). They dived to 18 metres for about an hour and saw similar things to the first dive and moray eels. He arrived back to the resort at about lunchtime. Liz went to school for the morning where we had a bit more theory on the recreational dive planner. These are a series of tables to work out safe dive depths and rest times to avoid too much nitrogen in the system. Pretty important and a bit complicated at first but we all got the hang of it. We all then went to get fitted up with wet suits, fins and BCD's (bouyancy control devices).The BCD is the jacket divers wear to be able to adjust their bouyancy in the water. We all practiced attaching the regulators to the tanks, attaching the BCD and checking all the equipment. Ozzie made us repeat it loads of times and gave out beer fines for mistakes. He clocked up a lot of beers for himself !! We had an early lunch as we would be in the pool for the rest of the day. Liz met Phil for a quick lunch then went off to meet the others. We put on all our heavy dive gear and walked a short distance along the beach to the swimming pool and all got in. We had an afternoon of confined water excercises to get through and Ozzie demonstrated his hand signals so we could follow him underwater. He explained what he wanted us all to do then we went below the water for the first time with our regulators to breath through. It felt weird to be breathing underwater but Liz felt really relaxed. We had to take out the regulator and retrieve it a couple of different ways then half fill and fully fill our masks. Then we had to clear them underwater to make sure we'd manage if our masks were dislodged by accident. Liz didn't like doing this at all and freaked a bit. but in the end took her time and just relaxed and did it fine much to her relief. We had to practice bouyancy which meant adjusting the BCD to get weightless. Once weightless just breathing in makes you go up and breathing out you go down....cool. We had to swim with no mask on then replace and clear the mask, swap regulators with a buddy and practice some emergency ascents. We also had to practice taking all the kit off in the water and putting it back on all in case of emergencies. It was a pretty full on afternoon with loads of skills to master and all of us struggled with at least one skill but all managed everything in the end. While we were in the pool it started to pour with rain which looked very odd under the water. We walked back to the resort and were dripping in the downpour as we washed all the gear and ran back to our rooms to change. Phil and Liz showered and changed and went to use the internet for a few hours. We then went for dinner in the nearest restaurant , Cafe De Sol and then went to bed as Phil wasn't very well and couldn't eat his dinner !!

14/12/09 Kho Tao

Phil was booked to do an afternoon dive as Liz would be out on the same boat so he could see her dive. He spent the morning checking through the video discs and writing down what was on them (you are all in for a monster video show when we get home). Liz spent the morning taking her theory exam (94% top of the class) then back into the pool to complete some swimming tests. We had to swim for 200 meters then float for ten minutes which we all completed no problem. We went for lunch then met up again to get our gear to go diving in open water for the first time at Twin Peaks near Ko Nang Yuan. We all got onto the dive boat and the new divers started to get their kit ready and do their buddy checks before the qualified divers as they were pretty slow. Liz buddied with Sonja and we were ready to get into the water. We followed Ozzie under the water down to 12 metres and had a simple swim round practicing our bouyancy which means you can just float above the thing you are looking at and not flap about. We saw lots of fish and blue spotted rays but basically used the dive to experience the feeling of the gear in the open water. Liz really enjoyed it and it wasn't as scary as when she had dived ten years ago. Phil took a few photos of Liz in the water as he'd already finished his dive. He had gone diving with Sean one of the newly qualified instructors and saw plenty of fish and bigger moray eels and the visibilty was better. We both went in for a second dive at Twin Peaks and Phil had a similar dive to the first one. Liz had a different dive as she had to repeat the pool excercises in the sea. It was all ok though as she just concentrated on relaxing before taking her mask off!!! All the other skills went witohut any problems. We all practiced our bouyancy before swimming around again. Ozzie is an amazing diver and could just suspend himself in any position without any effort. Us novices were quite bad at keeping in one position but it was early days. We got back to the resort and cleaned all our gear , changed and met Ozzie to fill out our log books. Unfortunately Dan had an ear problem which meant he would have to delay completing the course for a few days so he left us. We walked up into town and bumped into Sonja so we went with her for a meal in an Italian restaurant. Phil didn't eat all his meal and left a beer we had back at the resort bar so was obviously not right !! He went to bed shortly followed by Liz.

15/12/09 Kho Tao

Phil was up early again to join the dive boat for an early morning dive but wasn't feeling very well . The dive was at Champhon Pinnacle where whale sharks had been seen in the previous few days. Phil dived with an English woman who agreed the visibility was very bad but they dived to 30 metres with a divemaster who'd only ever dived in Kho Tao. She didn't want to dive anywhere else which defeats the point of learning in the first place !! There was a strong current there and there wasn't too much to see. Liz went out to White Rock to go on her first dive down to 17.7 metres. The group were being followed all day by a videographer who would video their last two dives before they hopefully qualified later on. We did some more excercies underwater practicing what to do if the air ran out and various other skills. The videographer was nearby the whole time so we tried to look cool...but failed. For the next dive after a short break we travelled back to Twin Peaks to finish our course with the last dive. Phils boat had moved there too for their next dive. Phil dived Twin Peaks for the third time and saw Liz underwater looking good !! Liz went diving and had to complete the last of the excercises including a free descent and some navigation all of which was videoed then a final swim round . We were all much better than previously and felt alot more controlled. Ozzie said we had woken up much better divers and he couldn't believe how much better we all were. Once back at the surface we had a quick test to swap our regulator for our snorkel and vice versa then got out of the water. We all felt very pleased that we had finished the course, especially Liz who had battled to get qualified. We all had big hugs from Ozzie then went to the roof of the boat to jump in, in celebration !! Phil was watching from the other boat and had a thumbs up from Liz so knew she had been alright. Both boats returned to Crystal and we all claeaned up our kit, got showered and changed. Phil was still rough and fell asleep while Liz joined her group for lunch. After lunch we completed our log books with Ozzie and were given our temporary dive cards. Liz sat in the bar writing the diary an chatting to Sonja while Phil stayed conked out for four hours !!! Liz went to wake Phil at about 4 and he felt a lot better after a shower so we thought maybe he w s just over tired. We went to use the internet and then went to the bar to see the video from the days diving. It was really professional and quite funny. We all looked pretty good and they used lots of special effects which made it great to watch. The good news was that the whole thing has a musical soundtrack so no voices. There was a party in one of the local clubs, H2O, that we decided we would all go to after having some dnner in the town. Mae Haad is pretty quiet but has a few restaurants and we went to a good Italian. After eatng though Phil felt bad again and went back to the room to bed. Liz stayed out for a couple of drinks with Sonja then joined him.

16/12/09 Kho Tao

Having no early starts we had a little lie in and got up about 9am. After some breakfast we decided to take a walk along to the neighbouring resort of Sairee Beach about 20 minutes walk away. We walked into the town with Sonja who'd we'd seen in the bar and researched booking a boat trip around Kho Tao for the next day. We then took a slow stroll along the main road (dirt track) to Sairee Beach. It was really lovely there with a long palm tree fringed beach and dozens of beach front bars and restaurants. It was a really lovely day with perfect blue skies and a nice sea breeze. We walked all the way along to the end of the beach then settled in a spt for a while to soak up the views. Phil and Sonja swam but Liz hadn't packed her swimming stuff...doh. A beach vendor came along with dresses and sarongs for sale. We all bought something and did a deal on the price. Phil didn't buy a dress but he now owns a sarong which is basically a skirt...ladyboy !! We stayed for a while then went for some lunch in one of the beach cafes, Phil felt so much better he even ate Red Snapper !! Sairee Beach was more of a resort than Mae Haad where we were staying and had such a laid back feel to it. We decided to spend our last night there as it was so nice. It was about 4 and we walked back to the resort to shower and change . We went into the town to book the boat trip for the next day and spotted Sonja in one ofthe restaurants. We joined her to eat dinner and asll decided to go to the local Castle club which was having a big party. It took us 20 minutes to walk to the club which is in the middle of nowhere and built like an open air castle. We passed a few go go bars on the way but managed to drag Phil past. When we got there it was empty but we decided to stay in case it filled up. We had a cocktail bucket each and sat in the dance area which was deserted . There was a DJ seemingly repeating the same tune over and over and a video of some naked girls sillouhetted dancing to the music. We stayed for ages in the hope of an improvement to the dead atmosphere but it just didn't get any better. We were all pretty drunk after drinking the bucket of cocktail each and went back to Mae Haad to go to bed after a funny, but not what we'd hoped for night.

17/12/09 Koh Tao

We went to the tour office to meet up with the tour for the boat trip. We had enough time to grab some breakfast and ordered cornflakes at the restaurant next door. when they came though the flakes were soft and the milk tasted of onions !!! It was pretty bad so we didn't eat them or pay for it. The restaurant's owner was nearly in tears when we told her gently that the cornflakes weren't good. The boat trip man came to collect us and we went to his shop to collect some snorkelling equipment and then followed him to board the boat. There were only 7 of us on the boat so there was plenty of room to spread out. The first stop was at Shark Bay where we all got into the water to follow the Thai guide around the water to look for reef sharks. We all spotted some, Phil saw four black tipped reef sharks and Liz saw two. The bay was only really used to look for sharks as the coral had mostly been destroyed by storms. Next we went to Ao Leuk where Phil had done the clean up dive before. There were alot more fish to see on this snorkel but it was full of litter. There was all kinds of rubbish floating on the surface to swim through which wasn't too pleasant. The Thais are getting on board with the cleaning up realising its impact on the environment and tourism but its a bit slow. We got back on the boat and travelled along to Ao Hin Wang where we had a lunch of a really tasty chicken and rice dish after snorkelling for a bit. We then moved off to Mango Bay which also had plent yof fish but again there was aload of rubbish on the surface...euch!! Not quite the tropical idyll we had hoped for. We then travelled to Ko Nang Yuan island which is attached to Kho Tao by a sand bar at low tide. It is a common photo to see the view across the white sand bar to the island as it is so lovely. We got off the boat and had to pay a small fee to get on the privately owned island and the weather was turning overcast. We walked up ten minutes to a high viewpoint over the little island and adjoining sand bar. It was a great spot but the weather was changing and it got really dark. We stayed up there for a while then went down to wade across the sandbar which was about a foot deep. We got to the small island and had a drink at the bar there . It was a bit disappointing to see more litter there on the waters edge which would take very little effort to clean up. The Thais are realising the need to keep the place clean but are finding it difficult to accept responsibility as most of the litter isn't theirs but is blown over the oceans !!! We went back to Kho Tao and back to Crystal where we saw Sonja back from her advanced diving course.She was going on a night dive and we were going to write more blog so arranged to meet up with her at 8.30 to go to Sairee for our last night there. We wrote the blog and went to the bar to meet Sonja but her dive buddies had decided to join us too . That wouldn't have been a problem except by the time they arrived it was already 9.30 and we only had time to walk down and have dinner before coming back again. We wanted to spend the evening there so were a bit disappointed as it seemed like a really nice relaxed place to spend an evening. C'est Las Vie !!