Next stop... Krabi. That's where I am now after a very busy and fun week on Koh Tao. We basically loved Koh Tao so much that we ended up staying there 8 nights when we were only planning about 4 or 5!
The diving there was brilliant AND i saw a shark, a black tip reef shark which was about 2 metres long. Apart from that, there were more pretty fish like Angelfish and Butterflyfish as well as a big green turtle and lots of cute other marine life. I did 11 dives there including a night dive and it only cost 100 pounds. For all those who don't know how much diving usually is, in Australia, 2 dives cost me 70 pounds and that was the cheapest option!
So apart from the diving in the day we spent the evenings with all our diving 'buddies' drinking cocktails and eating more nice food. We discovered the 'worlds best pancake' too at this little stand outside our hotel, nutella and banana pancakes, yum yum!
Anyway, by Tuesday we thought we better move on so we got the boat back to the mainland and a bus to Krabi on the west coast. Yesterday we went to the beach for the day by longtail boat which was great, its the coolest way to travel here as its so breezy, the only problem is when you stop and its bloody boiling! The beach was nice but I got stung by a jellyfish! I was in the water and felt like a cigarette burn and then when I got out I had red lumps on my ankle and a tentacle mark. A local lady gave me some leaves to rub on it which seemed to do the trick so after 20 minutes the pain had gone! James also managed to stab his foot on a rock while he was exploring a cave so we weren't too lucky all in all!
Today we have been on an organised tour to 'James Bond Island'. It was the set for 'The Man with the Golden Gun' and is pretty touristy to say the least, but still interesting to see. We got taken there by longtail boat too and then onto a monkey temple and waterfall. We had lunch at a Muslim floating village which was quite surreal actually - basically, after being on the boat for about an hour this village pops out from the middle of nowhere and has 2000 habitants, all on water! Our lunch was lovely but the markets we strolled around afterwards were awful. There were stuffed pufferfish and corals everywhere which certainly put all of us off buying anything at all.
Well, my stomach is telling me it's dinner time soon so I better go with it! Our next stop from here is Koh Phi Phi island tomorrow where we'll stay for a few days before heading North so until then...
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Greetings from Koh Tao
I'm now writing from Koh Tao, an island off the East coast of Thailand and have to say, definately feel more in 'holiday' mode!
Bangkok was a crazy place to be, so many people everywhere and really humid and sticky! We visited the Grand Palace and some other temples as well as some really cool markets. We lasted 4 nights there before deciding that we all needed the sea so we made the 9 hour trip by bus and boat down to Koh Tao.
The weather has been great up until today where its been raining a bit but never mind! Yesterday we went diving on 2 different sites and I managed to spot a blue spotted stingray and we saw some beautiful reef fish. I actually thought the quality of the dive was better than the Great Barrier Reef as it was more colourful and there was more marine life to look at. We're back on the boat tomorrow and hoping to spot some sharks, they're definately around and lots of people have seen them so fingers crossed:)
The food here is amazing, we've been in Thailand for nearly a week now and not had one bad meal or spent more than 2 pounds on a dinner! On that aspect it beats Australia by miles!!!
Our plan from here is to get the boat to Koh Samui in a few days and then get back onto the mainland and visit some national parks and then head up North to Chang Mai, Chang Rai and Pai but we'll see how that all goes! We're staying here longer than planned so who knows!
Well James loks like he's about to fall asleep sat next to me so I better finish here, ta ta for now!
Bangkok was a crazy place to be, so many people everywhere and really humid and sticky! We visited the Grand Palace and some other temples as well as some really cool markets. We lasted 4 nights there before deciding that we all needed the sea so we made the 9 hour trip by bus and boat down to Koh Tao.
The weather has been great up until today where its been raining a bit but never mind! Yesterday we went diving on 2 different sites and I managed to spot a blue spotted stingray and we saw some beautiful reef fish. I actually thought the quality of the dive was better than the Great Barrier Reef as it was more colourful and there was more marine life to look at. We're back on the boat tomorrow and hoping to spot some sharks, they're definately around and lots of people have seen them so fingers crossed:)
The food here is amazing, we've been in Thailand for nearly a week now and not had one bad meal or spent more than 2 pounds on a dinner! On that aspect it beats Australia by miles!!!
Our plan from here is to get the boat to Koh Samui in a few days and then get back onto the mainland and visit some national parks and then head up North to Chang Mai, Chang Rai and Pai but we'll see how that all goes! We're staying here longer than planned so who knows!
Well James loks like he's about to fall asleep sat next to me so I better finish here, ta ta for now!
Friday, 18 July 2008
I have now vacated AUSTRALIA!
Well well well... I am now in Bangkok, a long way from where I was last time you all heard from me! The last 2 weeks in Australia have probably been some of the best I've had whilst being over there!
So, I last left you when we were about to visit Magnetic Island. We spent 3 days on the island and basically chilled out a lot. It wasn't the greatest place we've visited and didn't really have anything special but we met some fun people staying in our hostel dorm room and had a really good time there! We did manage to squeeze in some snorkelling but it wasn't too great, a bit dark and sandy but overall, well worth a visit! From there, we continued North to Cairns stopping at the famous Mission Beach which by the way was absolutely gorgeous! I actually felt like I'd arrived in Hawaii or the Caribbean somewhere, we spent the afternoon there fishing and sunbathing but I would have quite happily stayed longer if we weren't on a strict time schedule!
Cairns is a beautiful city and the base for the Great Barrier Reef. We met up with some friends up there and had a crazy night out at Rhino Bar resulting in me having the longest lasting headache from Saturday morning until Sunday night, I guess the night out we had was worth the pain! Hmmm? Cairns doesn't have an accessible beach so it has an amazing artificial lagoon which is so nice to lounge around in and by, it's the biggest pool I've ever seen!
So... did I mention that I dived the Great Barrier Reef??? That's definately up there on the list of things to do before you die and now it's ticked off for me! We went on a day trip and because me and James are qualified as advanced divers (I mean on paper!) we got to dive without a guide which was really cool. We did 2 dives in the inner reef and saw lots of really brightly coloured coral and some funky fish. I have to admit, we didn't see anything amazing and it wasn't as good as diving in the Red Sea in Egypt but definately worth the money. I'd like to dive the area again and explore the outer reefs which aren't as damaged.
So anyway, after Cairns we drove down to our final adventure in Australia which was a 3 day sailing trip in the Whitsunday Islands. This was an absolute blast!
We were on a boat with about 35 people, all backpackers and about our age and had a crew that kept everyone laughing. We basically sailed to South Molle Island which was our home for 2 nights and then explored the other islands and sea in the day. Everyone was so friendly and we all had so much fun building human pyramids on the beach and boats from sand! Whitehaven beach was the main place to visit and it is a stunning white beach which stretches for 9km with the clearest torquoise water. After the sailing trip we all had a beach BBQ and then some of us went out in Airlie Beach which is where we were all staying and got rather drunk on goon (the classy and cheap 'wine' you get in a bag over here)! Overall, the Whitsundays was definately the best way to finish our trip in Australia!
So now we're in Bangkok. We had a long trip to get here - 2700kms of driving from Cairns to Sydney which we did over 3 days and then our 9 hour flight which wasn't too bad. I watched 3 films in a row, a record for me I reckon! We've only been here a day, we arrived in the middle of the night. James' sister arrives this evening which I'm really looking forward to so all in all, its going to be a good month here in Thailand. Today has been a 'get your bearings' day and 'walk around in a daze' day due to lack of sleep so I will keep you all posted about our plans when we actually make some!
So for now, ciao!
So, I last left you when we were about to visit Magnetic Island. We spent 3 days on the island and basically chilled out a lot. It wasn't the greatest place we've visited and didn't really have anything special but we met some fun people staying in our hostel dorm room and had a really good time there! We did manage to squeeze in some snorkelling but it wasn't too great, a bit dark and sandy but overall, well worth a visit! From there, we continued North to Cairns stopping at the famous Mission Beach which by the way was absolutely gorgeous! I actually felt like I'd arrived in Hawaii or the Caribbean somewhere, we spent the afternoon there fishing and sunbathing but I would have quite happily stayed longer if we weren't on a strict time schedule!
Cairns is a beautiful city and the base for the Great Barrier Reef. We met up with some friends up there and had a crazy night out at Rhino Bar resulting in me having the longest lasting headache from Saturday morning until Sunday night, I guess the night out we had was worth the pain! Hmmm? Cairns doesn't have an accessible beach so it has an amazing artificial lagoon which is so nice to lounge around in and by, it's the biggest pool I've ever seen!
So... did I mention that I dived the Great Barrier Reef??? That's definately up there on the list of things to do before you die and now it's ticked off for me! We went on a day trip and because me and James are qualified as advanced divers (I mean on paper!) we got to dive without a guide which was really cool. We did 2 dives in the inner reef and saw lots of really brightly coloured coral and some funky fish. I have to admit, we didn't see anything amazing and it wasn't as good as diving in the Red Sea in Egypt but definately worth the money. I'd like to dive the area again and explore the outer reefs which aren't as damaged.
So anyway, after Cairns we drove down to our final adventure in Australia which was a 3 day sailing trip in the Whitsunday Islands. This was an absolute blast!
We were on a boat with about 35 people, all backpackers and about our age and had a crew that kept everyone laughing. We basically sailed to South Molle Island which was our home for 2 nights and then explored the other islands and sea in the day. Everyone was so friendly and we all had so much fun building human pyramids on the beach and boats from sand! Whitehaven beach was the main place to visit and it is a stunning white beach which stretches for 9km with the clearest torquoise water. After the sailing trip we all had a beach BBQ and then some of us went out in Airlie Beach which is where we were all staying and got rather drunk on goon (the classy and cheap 'wine' you get in a bag over here)! Overall, the Whitsundays was definately the best way to finish our trip in Australia!
So now we're in Bangkok. We had a long trip to get here - 2700kms of driving from Cairns to Sydney which we did over 3 days and then our 9 hour flight which wasn't too bad. I watched 3 films in a row, a record for me I reckon! We've only been here a day, we arrived in the middle of the night. James' sister arrives this evening which I'm really looking forward to so all in all, its going to be a good month here in Thailand. Today has been a 'get your bearings' day and 'walk around in a daze' day due to lack of sleep so I will keep you all posted about our plans when we actually make some!
So for now, ciao!
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