4th January - Last night it was pretty quiet in the farm as for some reason the 2 pigs didn't snore too loudly!!.. Today we went to see the Big Buddha Temple in Wat Phra Yai, this is one of the first sights you see when coming in to Koh Samui by plane as it's massive.
We then bartered for a tuk tuk to take us to the other side of the island to go and see what is known as the grandmother and grandfather rocks. The rocks are in the shapes of male and female genertailier and are believed to increase fertility! (Don't worry, no ideas!!)....We found a reggae bar on the edge of the beach where we drank fresh coconut & beers and ended up spending the rest of the day chilling out there until it got dark! Overall we had a typical touristy day and are heading to Koh Phangan in the morning!
5th January - After an hour ferry crossing we arrived in Koh Phangan to what we thought would be a chilled snore free, couple of days in a private bungalow over looking the sea! We waited in the reception for over an hour making good use of their hammocks until we realised that nobody was ever going to turn up! After speaking to the locals and to the owner of the bungalows on the phone we found out that we did not have any booking at all and the owner told us that he does not take bookings over the internet!! Great :).. We made a quick booking in a hostel on another part of the island and made our way there for 2 nights.
6th-10th Jan-
On the 6th we rented a scooter to explore the island and came across Salad beach which was lovely and quiet. Whilst we were there we saw some people scuba diving and after speaking to them they offered us free accommodation for 4nights if we wanted to do a course.
We went along to the Hacienda resort and after a night of beers and a wicked tree top bar, called Amsterdam bar with the divers, we started a 3day PADI course. It felt a bit like being back at school for the first day, until we jumped in the pool! Sarah didn't get on at all with the breathing underwater so decided not to carry on. In 2days I completed 4dives at Sail Rock and went to a dept of 18metres and saw a lot of cool things. Divers the day before had seen a whale shark but our luck wasn't in this time :(
Over the next few days we ate in a local food market pretty much every night and became really fond of sushi. We met a crazy couple called Sarah and Jamie and went for dinner with them on Haad rin beach. We also realised that yoga wasn't as easy as we first thought! Koh Tao here we come..
Matt