Island Hopping and a spot of Scuba

After our long arduous journey by bus and ferry, we finally arrived in Koh Tao. The main reason why we came to the island was to compete our PADI Open Water Diving course. (A Christmas present to Rob from his parents, thanks again!). Rob was really excited to do this, but I was a little nervous at first, something about being underwater for so long seemed very unnatural.

Koh Tao is the second cheapest place to do an Open Water course in the world (second only to Honduras). We chose to go with Scuba Junction, due to good reviews and the fact they limited group size to 4 people. On our first day we met Alex and Simon, a couple who made up our group and our instructor G. After a really boring orientation video we finally got into our wetsuits and into the water.

In our wetsuits...

...and into the water!

We completed two dives at a dive site called Japanese Gardens, the first in shallow water where we knelt/hovered on the sea floor and practiced skills. This involved pretending to lose our regulator (the thing you breathe through), taking off your mask and putting it back on again (Rob found this fine as he could open his eyes underwater; I however was scared at the thought of taking the mask off underwater. After doing this a few times I got the hang of it, but still didn't manage to open my eyes); we also practiced hand signals and emergency procedures. It was a little boring but it was a good introduction and made us feel a bit more at ease underwater.

At the bottom

After a short rest and biscuits on the boat, we did our first proper dive, it was amazing. We got to see all kinds of fish, coral and marine life, we got to a depth of 10m and swam around for 45mins. To me being underwater was surprisingly fun and not at all scary, I felt quite free and relaxed. Its hard to describe the feeling, but it's something I would recommend.

The next day we watched a few more unbelievably boring videos and did some mini tests on what we have done so far, before doing 2 more dives in the afternoon. It was a similar set up to the first day with our first dive being in shallow water practicing more skills this time such as buoyancy skills (controlling our position in the water through breathing only) and recapping our first day skills. Then before our second dive we had to do a 200 metre swim and tread water for 10 minutes, I was really nervous about doing this but it turned out to be pretty easy.

On our last day we did 2 dives in the morning and then an exam in the afternoon. The two dives in the morning were the best so far. In the first dive the water wasn't as calm and a bit choppy which meant the visibility (or viz as the pros call it) was very poor, we could barely see a metre in front of us but we still felt very comfortable and at ease so it gave us confidence that we could actually dive. We moved to a different location and the second was better, the water was so much clearer and we got to a maximum depth of 18metres (the max allowed for our level).

Blue Spotted Ray - Can you 'spot' it?

"Get out of the way Rob this is MY photo"

The exam consisted of 50 multiple choice questions from what we learned from the videos and the dives. Yet to get a question wrong in the mini tests Rob was hoping to get 100%. However he got a bit too big for his fins and got one question wrong (ha ha) and scored 98% (Rob: which was top of the class), anyone who knows Rob, will know that he was still disappointed in not getting 100%.

We enjoyed our diving so much and it was so addictive that we decided to do two Adventure dives. This will contribute to our Advanced Open Water Certification, which we are planning on completing in the future. We chose to do a Deep dive (meaning we could dive to 30metres) and a Wreck dive (On the HTMS Sattakut, an artificial wreck). These were are best dives yet, we got to see a lot more marine live and was a different experience diving on a wreck. We got to swim through the cabin and around the guns at the bow and stern.

Apart from diving we didn't do much in Ko Tao except lie on the beach, watch a beautiful sunset or two and watch a fire show.

On the next leg of the trip we went to Railay via a night in Krabi. We didn't spend very long in Railay but we made the most of the short time we had. We climbed up to the top of the viewpoint, it was a similar experience to the one in Koh Rong in that it was a steep climb up a rocky, slippery surface with ropes hung down to help us get up.

I think you can see that the climb was worth it

Despite it looking like we are superimposed, we assure you we were there.

There was also a route to a hidden lagoon, but it looked too dangerous, you almost had to abseil to get down and we had no idea how we'd get back up (Rob's excuse was that he was worried for my safety but I think he was just as scared). In the evening we got to watch another beautiful sunset - I think we are getting a bit spoilt by these.

You're lucky that you can see these as an hour before both our camera batteries died on us, thankfully whilst Rob lay in the sun, I ran back to our room to charge them for a few precious minutes... Leanne to the rescue!

From Railay we went to Koh Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee), which is a beautiful island and is where the film 'The Beach' was filmed. As a result of this the island is very busy and touristy. We went to Long beach on the first day, it was not that close to the main hub and we had to get a longtail boat there, as a result it was quieter. In the evening we went to the main beach which at night has lots of lively beach bars, all of which seemed to have a fire show starting at exactly 9pm. It was quite cool seeing the beach lit up with a row of fire throwers.

We also went on a day trip around the surrounding islands. First stop: Bamboo Island.

As you can tell, this place is paradise. Beautiful turquoise waters, clear blue sky and white sandy (almost empty) beaches, what more could you ask for? Afterwards we went to Monkey Beach, which is another great beach that was only accessible by boat. It was a narrow beach surrounded by a jungle with cheeky monkeys that were waiting to steal tourists' food and drink. It was a bit sad to see the monkeys depending on the tourism especially when they were downing cans of Fanta.
We sailed around the islands on our way to Maya bay 'The Beach'. It was a bit smaller that I thought it would be, but it was still breathtaking. The limestone cliffs stretched out and cacooned the beach into a little bay. Due to its role in the film, it was the most popular destination and was by far the busiest. We were expecting this so didn't mind it too much, but it would have been cool to see it without the crowds (not sure if that will ever happen).

On our final morning we woke up early and walked to another viewpoint, this time it wasn't a dangerous ascent just a long and steep one, thankfully we didn't do in the heat of the day but it was still surprisingly hot at 8am.

WOW

The view was incredible, you could see most of the main island, and the one you can just see in the background on the left is the smaller island where Maya bay is.

The strip you can see in the middle that links the two sides was completely devastated in the 2004 Tsunami, one man we spoke to said only 1 building survived. When you are there it is hard to imagine such destruction and it must have been terrifying to have been there when it happened with a huge wall of water surging towards you.

Our next port of call was Koh Lanta, a lot bigger than the islands and therefore felt a lot quieter and peaceful as everything was more spread out. We stayed on Klong Khong beach which was around halfway down the west coast of the island. Due to our location we got to see more wonderous sunsets (you are probably sick of seeing and hearing about these but we promise this is the last sunset photo of this blog)

Someone didn't seem to be enjoying the sunset as much as us however...

We did another tour of the islands around Koh Lanta, we visited Koh Mook, Koh Cherk, Koh Kradan and Koh Ngai. In Koh Mook we went to the Emerald Cave. The boat stopped next to what seemed just a sheer cliff but we got in the water and there was a small passage that you could swim through, it was completely surrounded above and at the sides by the rocks, and twisted its way through for around 80m. Apart from the light of a few torches it was pitch black. I was quite scared, good job I had my life jacket on. Inside there is a small beach and the sea water surrounded by 360 degrees of tall cliffs that are peppered with trees.

Looking Good

The small black cave behind Leanne's head is the entrance to the tunnel.

A view out of the top of the enclosure

We snorkelled at Koh Cherk and Koh Ngai although it was a waste of time at Koh Ngai, you couldn't see your hand in the water nevermind any fish. We stopped at Koh Kradan to have lunch on the beach and got to explore it a little.

On our final day in Koh Lanta we went to Kantiang Bay which is in 'The Times' top 10 beaches of 2009. There is an amazing 5 Star resort on the beach and we managed to sneak on to their sun loungers for about an hour before we were politely asked to leave. It was the best hour of the day!

We want to go back!

At this point we were going to talk about Koh Lipe but Leanne's memory card isn't working, it says something about needing to be formatted but then if we click format it says it will delete all the images. Koh Lipe was so beautiful that we don't want to write about it without any photos to do it justice. If anyone has any ideas on how we can get the photos off the card it would be much appreciated.

We are currently in Malaysia and leave for Singapore tomorrow which is our last stop before Australia. Hopefully we get the memory card fixed before our next blog, bonus points to anyone who helps us get it fixed.

Back to Thailand

Despite being sad to be leaving Laos we were excited to go back to Thailand and our first stop was Chiang Mai. We had a few options of how to get there from Luang Prabang a 3 day slow boat and bus; a 17 hour bus journey or a 1 hour flight. We chose the flight!

On our first full day in Chiang Mai we rented a scooter to ride up the mountain to a temple and royal palace. After a bit of a shaky start on the bike I soon got the hang of it and we were on our way, albeit a little slowly. It was an enjoyable ride up the mountain to the temple, the roads were quite steep and very windy but gave good views of Chaing Mai below.

Hells Angels newest recruit

The Doi Suthep temple wasn't anything special really, getting immune to all the temples now although there was a nice view of the city from one part of it.

Us at the temple

After the temple we rode further up to the Royal Palace, this is where the Thai Royal family visit in the summer. There are a few wooden cabins and a palace where they live but the main feature was the beautiful gardens. There was a vast array of all kinds of flowers, including an amazing rose garden. They were all kept in perfect condition and walking through them in the sun was an enjoyable way to spend our afternoon.

My great photography

Outside the log cabin

The next day we went on a cooking course called Thai Farm, one of the things we were looking forward to most about Chiang Mai and it didn't disappoint. The day started at 8am when we were picked up and taken to a local market where we met Tsurian our instructor for the day. We also learn about some of the ingredients we were using later in the day and then got a chance to explore the market ourselves.

We then went to the farm where the course was held, it was around 45 minutes outside the city in the countryside. Before we started cooking we got a tour of their extensive gardens where they grow a lot of the fresh ingredients we used, so we picked some of the stuff as we went along.

In the garden - The hat was compulsory (well according to Leanne)

Then we got down to the real business, in total we made 5 dishes. First up was the best Tom Yum soup we have ever tasted, I say mine was better and Leanne insists hers was.

Tom YUM soup

Next up was the curry course, I made Red whilst Leanne opted for Yellow. We started from scratch and made the paste which took a lot of griding in the pestle and mortar, good job we've got the big guns!

Ingredients for the paste...

...The finished product. 

We also made a Pad Thai, Chicken with Basil and Chilli, Chicken with Cashew nuts and for dessert Mango sticky rice and Coconut milk with Banana. I wasn't that fussed about the desserts (no chocolate) but Leanne loved her Mango sticky rice.  Leanne - It was creamy and sticky and warm and fresh and comforting all at the same time. Even though I was full I still ate every last bit of it, definitely better than any chocolate based dessert I've had!

Leanne's Pad Thai

We spent two more days in Chiang Mai but didn't really do much just explore the city. We hadn't really spent more than 3 days in any one place in a while so it was nice to have a base and relax. Moving all the time, having to pack every other night and finding new accommodation is quite tiring and gets to you after a while so its good to have a little break from it all to recharge. Not that we are complaining we are still enjoying every minute.

We decided to leave Chiang Mai and head straight to Bangkok, we arrived at 6am in the morning spent a day looking around the shopping malls and the night exploring the night markets and street food before leaving the next morning at 8am. It was another brief encounter with Bangkok but we felt we made the most of it.

From Bangkok we decided to visit Khao Yai national park, two hours away, we weren't really sure whether we were going to go until a few days before but it was a good last minute decision to make. In Chiang Mai we were tempted to visit some elephants but decided against it in the end as we didn't really want to see them in captivity doing tricks, being made to perform or carting tourist around. So this was our alternative and there was a small chance we would see some wild elephants.
We did a 1 and a half day tour of the park with Greenleaf tours, who were amazing and knew the park and it's animals inside out. The first half day we visit a natural spring and bat cave where we witnessed the nightly exodus of 2 million bats.

The natural spring

Spiraling bats

It was an impressive spectacle to watch all the bats fly out of the cave, the sound they made was quite eerie. As they were streaming out there were a handful of birds of prey circling above before swooping down to get the bats.

The next day started early, we spent a few hours driving through the park slowly in an open top pick up truck stopping to look at the wildlife. Our two guides were amazing and spotted so many animals and birds along the way that it seemed we spotted every other minute. Here are some of the things we saw;

A Flying Squirrel 

Bird

Bird 2

Leanne's best wildlife photo

We also saw countless other birds and wildlife including a Hornbill. Unfortunately it flew overhead and we didn't have time to take a photo but it was huge and made an unbelievable swooshing sound with its wings. We couldn't believe how loud it was.

We then stopped the truck and trekked through the jungle for a few hours seeing more incredible wildlife;

Scary spider

Even scarier millipede thing 

Fungus on one of the huge towering trees.

A poisonous scorpion our guide found on the floor

My favourite wildlife photo

During the trek we visited a waterfall that they used in the filming of 'The Beach'. Just before we got there though the heavens opened and we got absolutely drenched.

Sporting our fetching Leech socks

After the trek we got back in the truck and started on our way back out of the park on the way hoping to see an elephant. The guides told us that we were unlikely to see one as they were quite rare and after an hours drive we had pretty much given up hope. Then suddenly we saw a huge one up ahead, we were very excited. We slowly overtook it and then rode just in front of it for a few hundred meters. It was amazing to be so close to it but we couldn't stay near it for that long as it got a bit scared and tried to charge at the truck. Luckily our driver had fast reactions and kept us a safe distance for both us and the elephant. It was quite scary and impressive to hear it go 'arrruuuu' (we can't describe it better than that) and then start running.

Ambling along

The elephant was beautiful and it was the perfect end to a fantastic day, we still can't believe how much wildlife we got to see.

The next morning we got the bus back to Bangkok where we spent another 7 hours before getting a night bus/ferry to Koh Tao to start island hopping. We have just finished island hopping and are now in Malaysia so  we know we are a week or so behind but hopefully we will get back up to date in the next week.