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Wow!! It has been such a logn time since we updated our blog! So after a brief stop in Bangkok to meet up with our Swiss friends we boarded the night train to Chumphon. After a night of luxury on the train we settled down to watch Mr Bean on Holiday on the catamaran to Ko Tao. Five minutes in and we started to see the plastic bags appear all around us, grown men making a dash towards the toilets and everyone looking pretty ill! Being the hardcore travellers that we are, we made it to Ko Tao with only a slight dizzy feeling!
After our whistlestop tour of Loas, Vietnam and Cambodia we were in need of a break from our backpacks and decided to do our Open Water Diving Qualification. We stayed at Big Blue Diving Resort which we we would recommend to anyone wanting to try scuba diving. Our accommodation was only 3pounds a night and we had a very own bungalow with en suite, only twenty metres from the sea! Paradise!
Before we started our diving course we went to Ko Phan Yang for the Full Moon Party. For those who don't know, this is a MASSIVE beach party held each month with 10,000 travellers getting together to dance under the full moon. We bumped into som people we met in Bangkok and Hoi An and danced the night away!
After another rough ride back to Ko Tao the next morning we started our Open Water Course. Over five days we did four dives, learnt about our diving equipment, watched a lot of diving videos and studied for our final exam. Parents you will be glad to know that we both got 94%, university education shining through there! Our diving group consisted of a German girl, an Aussie guy, a Dutch guy and an Israeli who had to quit because he kept on panicking in the water. One of the questions he asked our diving instructor was "What happens if I get water in my mouth?". All of us were stunned by this question, including Panos, the instructor, who replied "You spit it out". After the second day Panos had to tell Mike that he was a danger to himself and the group and would probably kill himself if he decided to drop his weights and swim to the surface when diving at 18meters like he had just done in our confined dive of 2meters depth! The visibilty was not great around Ko Tao but we managed to see amazing corals, angel fish, clown fish, butterfly fish, bat fish among others. We also found out that we were swimming with a shark but none of us managed to see it!
We made amazing friends in Ko Tao and spent most evenings relaxing in the restaurant on the beach playing cards and talking about our diving experiences. I'm sure all of you have seen the photos and videos of the Ladyboy show we went to!! This was part of the Dive Master's initiation night and it was the most professional Ladyboy we have seen! On our last day in Ko Tao we decided to explore the island with our American friend Quinn and her flock of Swedes. Ko Tao is a beautiful island and we really felt we had found somewhere off the backpacker's beaten track with Big Blue.
Only another 6 weeks to catch up on! xxxxx and who could tell this was Lucy writing!!! xxx
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