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Arrived in Koh Tao on Sunday (i think, ive lost track of the days) and were picked up in a truck to take us to our hotel, which is amazing. It's a dive centre too so you do have to swim around scuba divers doing training in the pool but it's on the edge of the jungle and our balcony looks out over it which is amazing (see pic). Although one criticism, they have leather pillows...yes, i did type that correctly - leather pillow! Its pink leather with a pillow case over it. It's like someone's just taken it off the end of a sofa because they ran out of regular pillows, not the most comfortable.
When we arrived on Kao Tao we headed straight to the beach to have dinner and watch the sunset. Which I regretted at 3am when I woke up itchy and covered in mosquito bites...again!
Monday we spent the day by the beach. There are bars all along the beach with raised decking so we sunbathed there while being brought drinks all day which was pretty nice. The water is amazingly clear and the views swimming out in the sea looking back at the shore are amazing (I'm determined to find a pc today and upload pics as haven't put any on for ages). Once we felt sufficiently cooked we headed back for a swim in the pool and then went out for Tom Yam.
Tuesday we decided to walk across to the other side of the island to find a little bay to ourselves to go snorkelling. Our map showed a path right through the middle of the jungle behind our hotel so we headed out in searing heat for our little trek. Surprisingly, our trek did not go to plan (standard), we ended up basically having to climb a mountain, the path disentergrated about 10 minutes in and we walked across dirt trails and rocks. After over an hour of walking uphill we were both covered in sweat and I was becoming increasingly edgey about the jungle noises, and bright red bugs we were walking past. About an hour and a half in we started debating whether we were actually going the right way, but couldn't face walking back so decided to carry on. About 2 mins later we stopped when the sound of what we originally thought was crickets got really loud, I was convinced it was rattle snakes (!). We (Robin) nervously edged forward to check out the noise and decided that we probably wouldn't die if we carried on so we kept going, at a slightly picked up pace. After about 2 hours we found a tiny little bay with derelict bungalows on (not the place we were looking for). We really wanted to go for a swim as we were both drenched in sweat, but given there was still no other way out than to walk we didn't fancy doing it wet, so we carried on.
After being in the jungle for about 4 hours we eventually found our way back the way we came. So pretty unsuccessful trip, in hindsight our map was 2 years out of date so maybe there was a path there once! We were pleased to get out though, I was convinced we were goin to get bitten by something poisonous and it would be on the news 'two Brits die in the jungle in Thailand' and everyone would think, why did they wander off into he jungle by themselves, idiots - and i would have to agree!
Yesterday we took a day boat trip around the island to different snorkelling sites and to another island off Koh Tao where you can walk arcoss 3 adjoining islands where the beaches connect them, it was very idiallic, although the locals have cashed in on it and now charge 100bhat (£2) per visitor and have filled the place with bars and beach umbrellas. The snorkelling was pretty good as the visibility here is about 35meters, although we didn't see anything that exciting (although one of the guys on our trip was excited to see a tyre in the water?!).
As you would expect I got exceptionally sunburnt being out on a boat all day so came back looking pretty red, the boat captain told me to put powder on, I'm not sure what that does but I opted for a full body aloe vera massage instead, these are amazing! They really shcatherine these anywhere where Brits go abroad, they'd make a fortune! However, despite my massage I still spent the whole night in pain and am very definitely going to have to spend today in the shade!
Just a random musing to finish this blog on - I have noticed since I've been here, and in Koh Samui, is that all the shops, hotels etc have a dog, unlike everywhere else we've been in Asia they're not mongrels and a lot of then are very poncy little fluffy dogs, they have a doggy salon in Samui, yet we couldn't find a hairdressers anywhere! The massage place yesterday had a hugely fluffy white poodle, the hotel has the softest fluffiest Pomeranian I've ever seen and laundry place across the road has two little adorable dogs. One of the shops very randomly has a massive (fat) fluffy white cat (think James Bond villian) on a lead sitting outside it! When I get home I think I will miss the cats and dogs that seem to roam around everywhere. We went to pick up some water from the tiny shop near us last night and had to step over a sleeping cat in the crisps isle, a sleeping Labrador by the fridges and another Labrador that was just standing in the queue and everyone had to stand behind him until it was their turn as he wouldn't move!
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