Koh Tao

After spending over 36 hours of train-plane-train-bus-boat we arrived on Koh Tao, Thailand! It's a balmy 35 degrees here with a water temperature of 28, not bad eh?!
After a first day of relaxing and snorkeling, we started our PADI Open Water Diver course. A bit tough to start with, but that was overcome with help from our great instructer, Scouse Luke. We saw while diving many many cool sea creatures, including Butterfish, Bannerfish, Triggerfish (which Luke had a good old mexican stand off with!), Skunk-anemone fish, Angel fish, Spotted ray, Gobi fish, Barracuda and many many more. The reef was amazing, too good for words. We have mainly been lazing on the beach and eating on the seafront as the sun comes down and the fire jugglers come out. Best way too, as our apartment is a one room affair with a cold shower and a slab of rock for a mattress!! We also hired a scooter in with we rode around trying to see more of the island, only to find it impossible to get up the rocky steep dirt roads carrying two people... but we did ride down to a nice bay and swam with Blacktip sharks... Yana having to deal with two near death experiences in one day... sitting on the back of a hire scooter and trying not to be eaten by completely harmless sharks!

                                                         Our "house"

                                 but plenty of house music is fine though...plenty

                                                     Our balcony...

                                                      Yana's dinner

                                               fire juggling for dinner

                                 gimpy legged dog helping Yana with her meal

                            this Gecko sounds like a bird who has eaten a donkey

                                                         wild hog

                                          owly non-christmas tree decoration

 we got lost 3 times and wasted half a tank of fuel to find the whale skeleton. disappointed   faces made happy by the much much better coconut shake attraction!

                    Scouse Luke (calm down calm down) taking us on our final dive

 Mr Pants (no joke!) take time off from selling fishy pants to let us write in his book of travellers he has met... but mostly pant buyers

 

                click on picture and see the wrongness of this wheelchair company. Wow.

                                           the soundtrack to our nights...