Thailand. What an adventure it's been so far, with it's exhilarating highs and super scary lows. I arrived in Bangkok airport on 6th June with six hours to kill waiting for Alex's flight to land. I made the most of the post office in the airport and shed a few kilos from my backpack, spent a small fortune in an internet cafe, and generally milled around until finally her flight landed. It was so exciting standing at arrivals eagerly anticipating the familiar blonde figure appearing from around the corner. It was so good to see her when she arrived - the first familiar face in nearly three months! We were a little wary about getting in a taxi to get to our hotel after hearing horror stories about them overcharging, but the hotel gave good instructions and the taxi journey, though fast and without the comfort of seatbelts, went without a hitch. The hotel we'd booked for the first night was nice and in a great location, but we were too exhausted to fully make the most of it. We set off for dinner, where I happily enjoyed my first Pad Thai, which I'd been really looking forward to, and absorbed our surroundings. It was quite a culture shock for me actually, even though I'd just come from Vietnam's capital, Bangkok is far more developed than I could have imagined. I was surprised at how many tourists were there, at how many people spoke English, and at how clean it was. We explored the area to get our bearings before heading off for an early night. The next day, feeling much more refreshed, we took the time to sort out our travel plans, booking a flight, figuring out other transport, etc, and finding somewhere else to stay in the Khao San Road are that was cheaper than our first night. After viewing a few dives we found somewhere that we both liked for half the price of what we were paying and proceeded to move our things in. As we were lugging our things to the new hotel an Indian man asked us if we knew where a hotel was, which he had the address for and as it was in the same direction as ours we said he could follow us. It turned out that we couldn't see he hotel he wanted so he took a room where we were staying. After a much-needed nap and refuelling on some more delicious Thai food, we went on our first Bangkok night out. We headed to s small street bar that we'd scouted out the night before, ingeniously named 'My Bar', which offered a free shot for ladies (of Sangsom, Thai alcohol that we discovered is massively strong), where we indulged in a couple of drinks and a shisha pipe. It was so good just catching up properly that we were having an amazing time, just the two of us messing around, until two men decided to ignore the free tables at the bar and to sit with us. They were both from Ghana, and one was over in Thailand to play professional football (so he claimed) and his friend was visiting. They kept trying to buy us drinks and suggested that we all move on together, but Alex and I weren't having any of that, so we got the bill (which they tried to pay) and scuttled off to the busier part of the area. We went for a bucket at another bar before heading to 'The Club' (another fantastic stroke of naming genius). It was a good night overall, though it got a bit confusing when you staggered back to he hotel to find the gate locked and had to figure out that there was a doorbell to ring to be let inside. The next morning we enjoyed the hotel breakfast, where we ran into the Indian guy again, and as we were talking to him about his amazing SLR camera, we also got talking to Antti, a guy from Finland. Antti very kindly let us use his laptop and we were all discussing what we were going to do about accommodation for the Full Moon Party, so decided that when we got there Alex, Antti and I would share a room to try and make it cheaper. Alex and I then headed off for the train station, starting our journey to our next destination, the island of Koh Tao.

When we got to the station we found that there was a desk saying 'tourist information' outside where they spoke English and could get us a joint ticket for the train, a minibus and boat to get to Koh Tao. So we happily followed a lady to the office where we got our ticket. We then had quite a long time to kill, so had a massage (they should definitely introduce that to UK train stations!), had some dinner and then sat in the waiting area. While we were waiting, there was a noise and a commotion over on one side of the station, then suddenly Alex said "he's got a gun" and flew to the floor. I was a bit confused but followed her, the people in front had done exactly the same thing, but then I noticed that people were walking towards the area and it seemed to be fine. Alex really didn't like it so we moved away, but we think the whole thing was a false alarm, not helped by the fact that Alex is short-sighted, so it's turned into something to laugh about! The time came for us to head to the platform, so we went across and waited for the train to arrive. And waited. And waited. The train was ridiculously late, about an hour an a half, then when we were finally able to get onto it, it took ages to get everything sorted out, meaning that we left three hours later than scheduled. It was a bit of a pain, but we settled down to sleep for the night. The sleeper train wasn't the best place to get a lot of sleep. We'd gone for 2nd class with air con, so there were bunks running along either side of the carriage, and though we had curtains, the carriage was brightly lit for the whole journey and was quite noisy. After a restless few hours we then had to get up at 6am as we'd arrived at Chumphon Station, where we were supposed to get the bus to the port. However, when we arrived, due to the delay, we found we'd missed our bus transfer and that our ferry company only ran once a day. There was a man trying to get us to buy new tickets for a later ferry, but we decided that that was a scam, and along with a French couple, decided that we'd stay in Chumphon for the night and get the ferry the next morning. The four of us were dropped near a hotel after riding in the back of a pickup, and after some indecisive searching, ended up all sharing a room to make things cheaper. The good thing about arriving so early in the morning was that it meant that we had the whole day to play with, so after speaking to the hotel owner we decided to hit the beach. We had to catch the local bus from the market, which turned out to be a pickup with a roof on top, and hoped that we'd be let off in the right place. We were, and ended up on a blissfully deserted beach with white sand and clear, though rocky, water. It was lovely chilling out on the beach and we stayed there for a couple of hours, before having a drink at a beach bar and catching the bus back with the French couple who'd also ended up at the beach. The only unfortunate thing was that I got eaten alive by sand fleas while on the beach, so was becoming ever-more reliant on my new best friend, tiger balm, to relieve the itching. After showering we headed out for dinner, though unfortunately there wasn't much of a selection, so it turned out to be quite disappointing. We were exhausted after the bad night before, so got an early night, ready to wake up early to catch our ferry. The bus to the ferry was hilarious as there were so many people piled into one small space, but we got there safely and, more importantly, on time. We piled onto the ferry and were sitting on the outside deck until it started raining. So we went below deck and ended up sitting next to a couple of guys I recognised from Halong Bay. So we passed the time chatting and sleeping, and after about four uncomfortable hours we finally made it to Koh Tao. First impressions of the island were good, and we were picked up by the resort we'd booked with, Crystal Dive. We both booked on to do our PADI Open Water Diving course, which is done over four days. The timing worked out really well with going to the Full Moon Party. We signed in and were shown to our bungalow, which was pretty basic - you had to flush the toilet with a bucket of water - but which was comfortable enough. We had time to grab some lunch before our lessons began in the afternoon. The new arrivals were split into two groups and we had our lessons in the purpose-built classrooms. They consisted of watching videos and answering questions as we went along, then taking tests to make sure we'd absorbed all the information. It felt like being back at school! We got the first three out of four sections out of the way before we were done for the day. We had dinner in exactly the same place we had lunch as it was cheapest, which would in fact turn out to be the only place that we went to for meals! We got an early night, ready for an early start the next day. The morning consisted of finishing off our lessons, before we finally had contact with water in the afternoon. We had a session where we were all kitted up, and made to assemble our gear four times in a row to comply with PADI specifications, which was actually good as it committed the process to memory. Then we headed to the swimming pool to get used to breathing underwater and to learn some basic skills. It was along five-hour session in the pool, where we had to do everything from taking our masks off underwater while still breathing calmly, to learning how to swim safely back to the surface if you ran out of air. The whole pool session was a long five hours, and a few of our group ended up with some fetching sunburn. After another easygoing night, we took our final exam the next morning, which ended all the classroom section, and happily the whole group passed first time. After lunch came the exciting part - diving in the sea. We were all given the equipment we'd need and made our way to the boat. I was a little surprised at how big the boat was as there were several groups going diving, which I hadn't realised would happen. The boat was really well organised, specially kitted out for the dive school, and I was reassured that they took registers before and after diving so that nobody would get left behind. I had been scuba diving before, but that was from wading in from the beach, rather than jumping off a boat, so I was a little nervous. There was a flurry of activity as we neared the dive site and everyone got themselves prepared. Then the big moment came and we all jumped off the boat, ready to start our dive. We followed the buoy line of the boat down as we descended, then sat in a semicircle at the bottom before swimming off. There is a 'buddy' system in place to make things safer and I got quite alarmed when Alex didn't appear and swim with us. It's quite hard to communicate under the water, but one of the staff said that she was having trouble equalising her ears. So I buddied up with the staff member instead. The first dive was just to get the hang of things, and it was great, though I was excitedly pointing out fish to my buddy when I realised that she's probably seen them hundreds of times before, so it would have been better if Alex was there with me. After a break on the boat to get our nitrogen levels down, we then went on our second dive. It was in the same place, but this time we had to perform skills before we swam around, or 'tricks' as Alex named them, like taking your mask off and putting it back on - a little more unnerving 12 meters down than it was in the swimming pool! As it was our second dive they let us try entering the water a different way, rather than just jumping in forwards. It's known as the 'dead Mexican' and involves letting yourself fall backwards into the water off the boat, with your legs perfectly straight. It was a bit scary, but I plucked up the courage and found it was much more fun to go in that way! It was a fantastic day and we couldn't wait to carry on again the next day! Our final day was filmed from start to finish, which added an extra element to it. We went to two different dive sites, got the last of our skills out of the way and went a depth of 16 meters. At the end we all jumped off the top of the boat, which I was super scared about and which took me a while to pluck up the courage to do! I'm not sure I would have if we weren't being filmed, but I'm glad I did, though it's definitely the longest drop I've ever experienced. The two groups jumped separately for our videos, with the other group going after us. One of the boys in the other group did a massive belly flop, then didn't realise he should have stayed in the water instead of getting back on the boat, so he jumped again. However, for his second jump he decided to do a back flip and nearly knocked himself out on the edge of the boat. Everyone watching thought he was going to smash his head and possibly die, so all had our hearts in our mouths. Luckily he managed to land safely in the water unharmed. Later on that evening we all gathered in a bar to watch our dive films, which was highly entertaining. Afterwards everyone went to a club called the Castle for a night out that only happens once a month - we were lucky with our timing! It was a fun night which ended with a few of us deciding to go night swimming in our underwear in the swimming pool back at Crystal. As we were swimming a guy walked past, so we invited him to join us and he happened to have an underwater camera - it was a pretty funny end to the night! Alex and I then had to get up nice and early the next morning to catch our ferry to Koh Phangan for the full moon party.