Buckets of confidence
The party scene is truly ridiculous and well, sad really. The same songs play every night as tellingly different shades of partyers/westerners rock up (dark brown = local, deep brown = diving instructor, light brown/pink = dive master trainee, light brown = one week in farang, pink/white = new farang) to gyrate against one another, talk only to other westerners, watch the fire displays (identical to last night's) without bothering to tip the performers...it's ok they get their own back by encouraging the tourists to join in skipping a burning fire rope and jumping through a burning hoop - numerous idiots walking round with 2nd degree burns on their ankles, legs and even tummies (that one looked nasty)... The only difference between this and partying back home (besides the fire) is that all the men pee directly into the ocean, people throw up into...the ocean, and the walk home along the beach is strewn with bottles, cans and buckets just waiting to disappear into...you guessed it, the ocean. Delightful.
Of course I'm super hot on H&S and would never encourage an inebriated farang to do anything silly...funny, I have a dress just like that one
The accommodation I was in on Koh Tao was a mixture of heaven and hell. Tom found us an amazing bungalow at Sairee Cabana (A12 if you're ever there) all of two yards from the crystal blue and luke warm sea (ok maybe five yards at low tide) with a porch looking out to the horizon where the sun would set just to the left of our horizontal palm tree...heaven. The hell bit? Bed bugs....I don't think I need to extrapolate, suffice to say that we stayed in the hut for a week despite the bugs - it was too perfect to move. People would come by in the evening to take pictures of our palm tree in front of the sunset and would include our hut and even us in their shots! Postcard perfect!
Guess who's hut that is :D
After a "rest day" or two in which we kayaked to Koh Nang Yuan to snorkel off the sand bar and climbed up to the highest rock on one of the peaks (wearing only our swim stuff - a bit stupid), I booked onto an Open Water diving course. I went with Sairee Cottage next door to our accomm following a recommendation - probably the best place to head if you're ever there not least because they also do the best (and almost cheapest!) kebabs on the beach....ok I'm back from my daydreaming now, where was I?
It's pretty telling how good Sairee Cottage diving's instructors and the course were that on later dive trips I was by far the most competent and confident Open Water diver (despite one couple having been diving for over a year longer than me!) - I was even pulled in to help a guy who'd run out of air when he failed to notice he had reached 30bar (you usually try to ascend before 50!), despite other more "experienced" divers being present...more on that later.
Our instructor Mee was brilliant. Great fun but organised and competent at the same time. The class was (at the maximum of) four students: Josephine (my dive buddy), myself and the most wonderful, ridiculous, Canadian couple, Danie and Tyson. I was worried I'd be claustrophobic or nervous of my breathing and find diving difficult but the instructors and other students put me completely at ease. We laughed at each other constantly - I got a reputation for giggling at myself all the time and underwater (I must have had to clear my mask fifty times every dive) especially every time we jumped in, which was a good thing because I'd always forget to signal to the people on the boat that I was fine. I learned to blow bubble rings pretty quickly and when Mee was busy with other students Josephine or Tyson and I would turn somersaults, do handstands on the bottom and generally be ridiculously goofy. It's hard to be scared when you're laughing all the time. Tyson and I would constantly get distracted by shiny things and go deeper or further from the group than we were supposed to but hey. Even the few times I dropped my reg whilst blowing bubbles I'd just laugh until I found it again - it'd be pretty hard to tell if one of us was narked!
Danie, Tom and Tyson convinced me to take the ukulele to an open mic night which I did. I'm pretty convinced I was awful at the first night but I had too many mojitos to remember much of it (Dutch courage does not make for good music!) and no one would admit that I was too drunk to be any good. The second time around I went for a sugar high with much more success - it really helped that the supporting lot knew what they were doing too :)
Squid fishing boats from the long tail
A couple of nights of candle-lit relaxing on the porch with team Canada were heaven and after they left the island felt a little empty (or maybe I was hungover, I'm not sure which)! Tom and I explored another bay or two, taking a longtail boat (you have to at least once!), and wandered to the island's hilarious bowling alley where a man sits at the end of the lane to put the pins back up and send you back the balls. I have no idea why but this made me so happy - it was just so funny to look down the lane and see a little bloke sat behind the pins on a stool!
It's all about the technique
Every bowling alley should be like this
I took my first night boat to leave the island and the gods smiled down on me as I was freakily lucky to be assigned a "bed" number in an almost secret cabin at the front where only two other people were sleeping amongst ten beds! The beds are about 50cm wide and the main cabin had over 50 crammed in there side by side so having 3/4 to myself in a private cabin was bliss! A South African bloke cleverly noticed the cabin and nipped through so I let him have a couple of my beds (I didn't need six!) in exchange for half a can of beer and some crisps. All in all an incredible experience of the islands that's going to be hard to match!
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