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It has been a while since I have even thought about updating my blog as I have been buried away in Sydney working and saving. Well as it turns out we have only one week left in Sydney and I thought people might start to think we didn't make it out of Bangkok alive. Because of this I think it's time to update the blog with more details from our trip so far. Luckily I have an amazing memory and should be able to remember every little detail from the last month of our travels in Asia (this is a lie, however I will try my best).
From what I do remember, in my last instalment we had just returned to Bangkok and were about to travel south to visit some of the Thai islands. This meant another epic journey on another overnight train.We bought ourselves a few bottles of Chang, took our seats and continued our ongoing, world domination game of s***head (wish we hadn't bothered as Scott already owned Vietnam and with how the games went looked as if he might own Thailand as well). Unfortunately or game was quickly interrupted by some lovely little cockroaches and the train staff flipping our seats into beds, the two things happening at once didn't make me feel to comfortable! Luckily after our time spent on the Vietnamese trains we knew there would probably be food carriage, so after trekking the length of the train and seeing the people without this knowledge climbing into bed at 7.30pm we spent the evening with some locals drinking plenty of beer and watching very loud Thai songs on a tiny TV.
After strapping ourselves into bed we managed to get a few hours sleep before we reached our stop at about 4am. Our first stop off in the south of Thailand was going to be the island of Koh Tao; unfortunately I woke up not feeling very well; a dodgy stomach plus an hour's drive in that back of a prison van followed by a two hour boat journey were not a good combination.
Excluding the first night we arrived in Vietnam we had not pre-booked any accommodation, so far this had worked well for us as it meant we weren't tied to anything and if we turned up somewhere and didn't like it we could walk straight back out. However when we arrived on Koh Tao it was HOT, I was ill and walking about trying to find somewhere to stay made me want to sit down on the side of the road and have a tantrum (I cannot confirm or deny if this is what I actually did). Eventually we jumped into the back of one of the open back jeep taxis and asked the driver to drop us off somewhere; anywhere!
The reason we had come to Koh Tao was for the diving; wonderful, wonderful scuba diving. The island is famous for its cheap diving; there are absolutely loads of dive schools and it was what planned to do for the whole time we were there. So first things first we booked on to go diving the next day and the day after that, ohhh and the day after that too! Now I still wasn't feeling very well but we decided to go for a drink anyway, the main beach in Koh Tao is pretty amazing. It's a beautiful beach lined with bars, which all set up cushions along the sand where you lie back, drink a beer and watch an amazing sunset. Once the sun has set, performers come out with fire poi and fire sticks and you don't really want to move, well that's until you realise you are being eaten alive by mosquitos!
The next morning we woke up to go out for our first two dives, unfortunately before we made it to the dive shop I'd been sick twice and the thought of this happening again 30m under the sea made me decide to have a day by the pool instead. I'm still upset about this nearly 4 months on as not only does it mean Scott has done more dives than me he also saw a turtle and was nearly attacked by a trigger fish.
The next few days were all pretty similar but amazing at the same time. We woke up early; that early that people were still out partying, we went diving and we spent the evening chilled out on the beach. The diving was amazing and we fell even more in love with being under the sea, everyday we went out with the hope of seeing a whale shark unfortunately they didn't want to see us! Whilst on the island we also did our first wreck dive, an old Japanese ship form WW2, it had been sunk for divers but it was still very eerie when we were descending and it appeared in the water seemingly out of nowhere.
The time we spent on Koh Tao was amazing and anyone who wants to learn to dive should get their selves there!
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