It's a tough life on Koh Tao...

Last stop for my Thai islands tour was the very chilled Koh Tao; diving Mecca - the whole island is full of dive fanatics doing PADIs and Dive Master courses. The dive sites look amazing, teaming with tropical fish, mantas, barracudas (and the occasional shark), but not being much of a fan of the water I found that on dry land the island is pretty lovely too... palm trees, clear sea and fluffy sand.

I've been staying with my friend Joe who is living on Koh Tao while he completes his Dive Master training; its a really nice lifestyle - he can dive whenever he likes, lives right near a gorgeous bay with a laid-back bar perched next to the water, and has a monster of a motorbike to get around the island on - we've called it The Beast. After lots of partying on Phangnan its been lovely to just chill out here, eating nice food, having the best massage of my entire trip - looking out across the bay, sunbathing (and sheltering from the torrential rain sometimes, ick), whizzing around on The Beast and hanging out with Joe's dive buddies - including the very lovely Peter who features in my Full Moon Party photos. Oh, and I learnt from a rainy afternoon with Jonny that I am surprisingly good at the board game RISK - all those hours playing Andy at Monopoly when we were little must have paid off. It's not all been lazing around though; I got a lot of exercise dancing at The Castle, a fab Ibiza-style open air nightclub which has UV lights, fun DJs and, um, a lot of ladyboys. By the end of the night I was the only girl on the dancefloor aside from the occasional Thai hooker and the Ladyboys, still, at least there wasn't a queue for the Ladies...

A great way to say bye-for-now to Thailand...

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