Hello! Well we finally made it to Koh Tao island and it was really worth the journey. We left Bangkok last night at 7.30 on another overnight bus. Again, no sleep even with the aid of 'sleeping tablets' (they were probably paracetemol or something). We had been told that the bus would arrive in Chumphong at around 5.45am and we would only have to wait about an hour for our ferry journey to the island. We actually arrived in Chumphong at 2.00pm and had to sleep on the floor with our bags until they woke us up at 5 and then took us to the port where we had to wait until 7 for our ferry! This ended up taking 3 hours (we had been told it would take an hour and a half when booking!). We really don't mind waiting and the travel time at all - after all we don't have anything else to do, but it's just the face that we were lied to so drastically that we find annoying!

After very broken sleep on both the bus and the ferry we got to Koh Tao at about 10am and were picked up by our Diving School who took us to our accommodation. It's probably the best yet and is free with our course so we are very smug! We had to sign some basic forms and have been told that our course will start tomorrow. We also have some homework to do (?!) which is to read 2 chapters of our PADI Open Water manual - there are only 4 chapters so we have to read half of the book in one evening! That is not going to happen!

We spent the rest of the day just chilling out on the beach. It's funny, we've been in a tropical climate for nearly a month now but because we went to the north of Thailand and Laos we haven't had a chance to really get in the sun so we were really happy to get a few hours on the beach. The water here is crystal clear and really warm and looks great for diving. We were told it's a great time of year to be here as the water is just so clear so we should see some great sights underwater.

This evening we have just indulged in a beautiful Italian meal. We feel that we have to say what we had because it was so gorgeous - bruschetta to start and homemade lasagne for Matt and gnocchi with gorgonzola cheese sauce for Holly (Vicky - we thought of you as that would have been exactly what you would have chosen and it was soooo good!). Incredibly bad for us and totally off the scale in terms of our budget but we have to splurge once every so often! We will be eating plain rice for the rest of the week because of that! We're pretty tired after the crazy journey so we're off to bed now. We'll update you on our scuba diving antics in a few days. Lots and lots of love xxxx