Getting to Koh Tao

Hey everyone,

After having the most amazing time ever in Chiang Mai we embarked on a brutal 36 hour travel experience to Koh Tao. After chilling in Chiang Mai for a few hours before the bus left we set off on a 10 hour trip to Bangkok, luckily the bus was only half full so we managed to spread out a little and get some rest. We arrived in Bangkok at around 6am with nowhere to stay and with all our bags and everything with us! Luckily we were able to leave our stuff at the tourist info but it didn't open for another few hours - perfect! We sat around on the street amongst the crack heads and weirdos before it opened by that time we were pretty hot and sweaty and not looking forward to the day ahead. Still we went to our favourite road and managed to make a couple of cokes last about 5 hours each. We fended off some lady boys and women selling frogs and fell asleep on some bar tables. Before long we had wasted the day away and it was time to catch the next 10 hour bus followed by boat!

This time we weren't so lucky and the bus was rammed. The staff were extremely dodgy, didn't speak a word of english and were probably going to kill us all! We listened to the film previews for about a million times until we knew the words and then we were there! Or not! We got chucked out at the side of some road with our bags and deserted - interesting! More and more people got thrown out of many buses until there was quite a gathering, it was about 4am. After about an hour of worry a small truck turned up and pick up about 5 of us leaving the rest behind! It took us to the most banter port in the world but there was a boat there so things were looking up. Unfortunately the boat didn't leave for another 3 hours but we met some classic people who made the wait slightly less depressing, Cat, Debs, Chris and Paul the German with only a pair of small bags, one of which has a book, no 2 books in it - what a hero!

We boarded the boat and I slept, we arrived in Koh Tao with its sandy beaches and palm trees - Hooray! We had arranged to do our diving with Bans Diving and so they picked us up and took us to the resort, easy. We checked in about 9am and aquired our Open Water Diving books ready for our first lecture at 17:30!! Pretty tired with checked out the resort and the beach, it was beautiful, thanks for the tip Gems, Bans is awesome!

So glad to be by the beach and the atmosphere was great, so much more relaxing. Going to have a great time here.

Ed