29-30/10/08 Most of the 29th was spent in an internet cafe (offering free internet) above the place from which we bought our tickets to Koh Tao, waiting with all our bags for the coach which was due to leave at 6 pm. We had lunch at a nearby Middle Eastern cafe, and some early dinner at the travel agent cafe downstairs from the internet room. The journey down went alright, though I didn't manage to get any sleep. We arrived at Chumporn at 2.30 am, and had to wait around until past 6 am for the ferry to Koh Tao. Dave managed to get some sleep at this point, but I didn't.

We arrived in Koh Tao in bright sunshine. The first things we noticed were all the coconut palms, the whiteness of the sand, and the turquoiseness and clearness of the sea. We got a free lift to the budget resort we had researched in Bangkok - Laem Thian Bungelows. It's quite isolated, on the other side of the island to the two villages, the main beach and most of the other resorts. The track to it was very rough, made up as it was of grit, rocks, sandbags, palm branches and concrete, and at some points it sloped upwards so vertically I thought the truck might actually start going backwards. We were thrown aorund a lot on the back of the open truck, but that was part of the fun. The owner, 'PingPong', is lovely - very nice, and quite jolly and funny. She's quite chatty as well.

The location of Laem Thian is beautiful; the resort overlooks very small sandy cove, and you walk directly out of the restaurant onto the sand. Around the tiny rocky headland you come across some large boulders, including one which is a 'jumping rock'. There's no sand here but we're told it's brilliant for snorkelling! It was midday by now, and after we checked in we decided to lie down briefly before going in the sea. 6 hours later, we woke up! It was after dark by now, so we had dinner and played some cards, and took a walk down the 20 metres of cove. We saw lots of phlorescent dots on the sea edge - I think they must have been plankton.

31/10/08 Today was spent mostly in the sea! PingPong told us that we could rent or buy first- or second-hand snorkels, so we decided to buy two secondhand ones. We were allowed to try different ones out first, so we did so out in the cove. The snorkelling was amazing! The sea is really clear, and is incredibly warm compared to Britain. The first few feet of water was white sand underneath, and then it turned into coral. Lots of tropical fish, sea slugs and fantastic-looking sea anenomies and coral. We'd put on factor 25 suncream, but when we got out for lunch we were both a bit sunburnt, so we put on factor 50 instead - and still got more sunburnt.. The afternoon was spent in the water as well.

In the evening, after dinner, there was a bit of a Hallowe'en party at the cocktail bar (a tiny thatched/driftwood hut with one concrete wall), with reduced-price cocktail buckets, so we had a couple of the cheapest sort - 'Fruity Key' whisky/fruit juice buckets. We chatted with the owner and a couple of the other residents, and were up til past midnight. The bar was also right next to the sea, as was all the resort actually, so a couple of times that night we popped onto the beach to have a look at the phlorescent dots again. There were a couple of fireflies around the bar as well - we also saw a few of them on the track to the resort, on the times we had to walk back from the other side of the island.

1-4/11/08 These days were spent swimming and snorkelling, and we made a couple of trips down the villages and beach on the other side of the island. We snorkelled round the 'Jumping Rock' (and jumped off it) - the sea was much deeper than in the cove, yet we could still see straight to the bottom, even when it was about 40 feet below us. Even when out of the sun, the sea was deliciously cool, not cold at all. There were even more fish here than in the cove. Once when in the cove, we suddenly noticed hundreds of tiny anchovy-type fish all round our feet in the shallows; we looked further out to sea, and saw a whole shoal of them leaping out of the water for a couple of metres. Yet they didn't look like 'flying fish' to me, being too small and without the distinctive fins. It was really hot and sunny all these days, so it was lovely being able to jump in the sea whenever we felt like cooling off!

On the evening of the 3rd, a fellow resident (Mark) taught us a card game called Euchre. It's played in Cornwall, though apparently it's becoming well known in America as well. He's lived in Penzance for a long time, and says that it's played in all the pubs down there - very competitively, and with pubs playing against each other. It's an interesting game, involving 2 teams of 2. One joker is used (called the 'benny'), which is the top trump card, and the Jacks are more important than the Kings, Queens and Aces.

5/11/08 We walked down to the other side at about 11 am, and rang Dave's friend Mark, who had arrived a couple of days ago. After some emailing and and some lunch at a nearby cafe (during which we saw on the TV that Barack Obama was now the new American President-Elect), we met up with Mark and his friends John, Wan and Adam. We got a small motorboat out to a tiny island off the mainland called Koh Nang Yuan. It's famous for being incredibly beautiful and having even better diving and snorkelling than Koh Tao (which is in itself one of the top 10 dive sites in the world.) It's actually made up of about 3 little islands all joined by a white sand/coral spit. The stretch of sand underwater before it turns into coral is much wider than at the cove at Laem Thian, and overall, swimming and snorkelling there was absolutely idyllic! It was so lovely to swim through such clear (even more so than at Laem Thian), warm and turquoise water, with white sand stretching out on every side 10-20 feet below us, and to dive down and look more closely at the coral and multicoloured fish next to the boulders in the sea and round the edges of the islands. There was one big shoal of small silvery brown fish which split and swerved when we swam over/through them. After getting out of the sea, most of us climbed up to the top of the main island (a big forested hill with boulders on the top) - a brilliant view, of which we took lots of photos.

In the evening we had a great barbecue at John and Wan's house - lots of lovely pork ribs, corn on the cob and salad. It was about 9pm when we left, so we had to borrow a torch from John to find our way back along the 2km track to Laem Thian. When we arrived back I had a jam pancake, and we went and sat at the bar with Cornish Mark, another guy called Chris and a young Finnish couple, who were all playing Euchre together. We just sat and watched really, and chatted, and when Mark went to bed we played Euchre with Chris and the Finnish girl (Iida) for a while.

6/11/08 Rain for the first time this morning, but it soon cleared up. After some lunch at the restaurant we got the 1.30 lift down to the other side, where we checked our email, bought flipflops (Dave), and swam/snorkeled in the bay. Mark joined us on the beach after we had finished, and we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner, meeting up with John and Wan there. After this we went to 'The Brother Bar & Grill' - we made use of the free pool table and had a couple of drinks.

Dave and I had knowingly missed the 4 o'clock lift back to the resort, so we had to walk back after dark again. This time we had come prepared and had brought Dave's wind-up torch with us, though. After only about a quarter of the way, raindrops started falling! I was worried about our camera getting wet inside our bag, so we found some shelter of sorts; but the rain soon became torrential, and despite my efforts to keep the bag as dry as possible, the rain came through the trees/bushes over us and the bag still got a bit wet. Dave and I both got absolutely soaked to the skin. Eventually, when the rain thinned a bit, we carried on - luckily we only had part of the main uphill bit left, before the track levelled, undulating, and went downhill again. I still had my bikini top on underneath my t-shirt, from swimming earlier, so to prevent the water from the sodden t-shirt from soaking into my rucksack, I took it off. It felt distinctly odd to be walking along a jungle track after dark in the pouring rain, wearing a rucksack and dressed in a bikini top, light canvessy trousers and walking boots. Some insects got attracted to the light of the torch (not big ones though), and we saw a couple of nocternal toads hop past to the side of us. Some fireflies danced ahead of us, and the air was filled with the sounds of jungle nightlife and the rain. Although I knew we weren't really that far from civilisation, I couldn't help but imagine what pickle we'd be in if one of us had an accident. It would have been only too easy, due to the dark, rain and the state of the track. Luckily, the track had too much grit in it to be muddy or slippery, which was a help on the steep downhill parts. The rain stopped, but then about 15 minutes from the end it started again, and this time we heard thunder as well! We didn't want to be caught up in a thunderstorm when surrounded by trees, so we went as fast as we safely could. We arrived back before it started pouring again - we were knackered and dirty, so the first thing we did after dumping the bag in our room and taking off our boots was go and sit in the sea, in our sodden clothes, for a good while! Then we had showers and rinsed our clothes through, before testing the camera (it worked fine) and finally falling into bed. If it hadn't been for worrying about the camera, I'd had found the walk quite fun actually!

7/11/08 The weather has properly turned by now - rain again today. We got up late and went into town after lunch to research ticket prices to Penang. After dinner in the evening, and some card playing, we tried a couple of cocktails at the bar; 'choc chip' and 'Asian touch' - delicious! We met a half-Icelandic Australian guy called Bjorn, who told me that Western Australia is "crying out" for people to work there! Hopefully this is a good sign for me, if I decide to get a job there... The Finnish couple, Jukka and Iida, and Mark and Chris, joined us after a while, and a couple of other residents we hadn't spoken to before.

8/11/08 A lazy day today - got up late, read, played cards, etc. More rain all day.

9/11/08 Today was taken up with going round a lot more travel agents, comparing prices and times for boat & bus tickets to Penang. After playing pool for a while, and buying more batteries for the camera and an international phonecard, I rang home, and then went on the internet briefly to research places to stay in Penang (and looked up the rugby Autumn International results - well done England!)

10/11/08 We had intended on going into town, but the rain was so torrential and so many other people were also getting a lift down (with all their luggage, as they were leaving - so not enough space for us really), we decided not to after all. We only get electricity from 6pm- 7am, so since our room was so muggy and gloomy, we spent the afternoon in the restaurant. Dave read a Harry Potter book owned by the resort, and I spent 3 hours drawing him reading.

11/11/08 More rain and strong winds. We are due to leave today. At lunch Ping Pong told us that the other end of our track (downhill) was now completely impassable for the truck, so we would have to walk through it. We got a lift down as far as the truck can go; all the resort's staff came down as well, and a couple of times they all got out and moved rocks and palm branches etc. into the holes and massive cracks made in the track by the foul weather, to allow the truck to pass on. Dave, Mark (who was also leaving that day) and I all got out and helped them with it. Eventually, however, the truck reached as far as it could physically go, so we got out and walked the rest of the way. We had to tread very carefully, because little streams running downhill had cut deep gashes in the grit of the track, and at one stage a big and very fast-running stream cut across the track completely. We waded through, rested a while under the porch of a friend of Mark's, and then carried on to the village. The road in front of the 7-Eleven (a chain of shops a bit like Spar or Londis at home) was completely flooded; it was an ankle deep river, with other rivers pouring out of side alleys as well, joining onto the main one. We had to wade through this to reach the 7-Eleven, and then again to get to 'The Brother bar & grill', when we set up camp for the next few hours with our cards and the free pool.

We were supposed to be getting the Koh Tao - Suratthani night boat at 21.00, but the weather was so atrocious, we heard rumours that the boats weren't leaving because of big waves etc. We went down to the travel agent we got the ticket from, and they said that the Suratthani boat was indeed not leaving that night, but that the Chumporn ferry was leaving fingers crossed; they changed our ticket and gave us back the difference. The Chumporn ferry wasn't due to leave until 23.00, but when we went onto the beach with the piers on, we couldn't find it! There were lots of boats out there, but the piers were all in darkness and nobody seemed to be around. We tried the two piers that looked most promising; the staff on the first one pointed us to the second, but the staff on the second one told us that this wasn't the right boat! It had 'Chumporn - Koh Tao' written on the front, so we were certain this had to be it - but they didn't seem to know what we were talking about when we asked if it was the night ferry to Chumporn, and said things like "this not night boat!" to us, so we got very confused! It didn't really look like a ferry either, because there was a massive pile of coconuts on the front and there wasn't really any room for passengers to board. Then another lost-looking chap came up, and he said that he'd asked at both piers too and didn't know what was going on either. Dave went and asked around the locals around the shops/taxis, and although one chap said that the night boat was the one we were thinking of, all the rest said that there wasn't a night boat operating that night! Then Dave thought of knocking at the door of the travel agent (it was literally only ound the corner) and asking what was going on -luckily she was there, and explained all to him. The main night ferry was actually still at Chumporn, unable to cross to Koh Tao because of the state of the sea; the boat which had confused us was the small ferry, but it too was unable to make the crossing.

We looked up and down the streets of the village for a guesthouse to stay in for the night (we had checked out of the budget resort we had been staying in that morning, and were unable to get back to it because the track was now impassable.) There were lots, but they all seemed to be closed - we found one still open, but when they quoted 400 baht at us, we decided to look to see if there were any cheaper. After a lot of further looking around, Dave hadn't found any others still open (our bags were killing our backs by this time, so I stayed with the bags next to the open guesthouse while Dave looked), so we returned; only to find that it was now supposedly full! Now I know for a fact that was a blatant lie, because I'd been standing only about 20 metres away the whole time, and I hadn't seen anyone else go in at all. It was obvious the owner was only saying it because he didn't like us. The lady at the travel agent had told us she knew of a room we could have for the night for 400 baht, so we decided to sod it and go with that - but by the time we got back to the travel agents it was nearly midnight, so although we did knock a few times, she didn't answer. There was only one option left now, which was to stay outside under shelter on one of the piers all night. It was alright actually - there was seating all round the sides, and two large table tops, and even a TV! I didn't sleep at all the whole night of course, because of keeping an eye on our stuff, and Dave got practically none either. I spotted 3 large cockroaches crawling out of the woodwork, so I didn't fancy being asleep with them around anyway. What we did was play cards, do bits of my puzzle book, and watch football on TV all night. 12/11/08 Today was spent a lot like it was yesterday afternoon - just hanging around in the village, really. We were both incredibly tired, due to not getting any sleep the night before. I had a Thai massage in the afternoon, which was great! The night ferry did leave at the right time that evening. It was quite good actually - there was a big dorm of bunk beds, and unlike the berths on the Indian sleeper train carriages, they had a mattress, pillow and blanket on each. The crossing was rough and the boat pitched a lot, but I don't get seasick at all so I though it was quite fun actually (Dave felt a little queasy though.) After the ferry, we got a bus to Hat Yai, and then a minivan to Penang. The border control for Malaysia was much more relaxed than what I was expecting - after getting our passports stamped, they just waved us through without even x-raying or checking our bags, and there weren't any sniffer dogs anywhere. I'd heard that they were quite strict and scary at the border, you see, so I was glad it all went smoothly. We arrived at Georgetown, Penang, after dark. We found a hostel to stay in and went for a walk, and had some dinner before going to bed.