Koh Tao

 

  I know I haven't posted in a long, long time...but with good reason.  We just spent the past week in Koh Tao- the first place I have been that looks like an advertisement you see for some paradise.  We abruptly (by that I mean MK and I decided last minute to leave with the early group and I packed in 30 minutes) left last Saturday and headed to the train station in a group of six.  This ended up being the perfect number as we got the LAST six tickets for the train...it was quite an adrenaline rush.  After buying the tickets we had some time to kill, about 5 hours in the train station.  You would be surprised how loopy six college kids can get sitting around a train station for that long.  Our train was supposed to arrive at 1050 but of course was an hour late (obviously on Thai time...) so we missed the 7 AM ferry from Chumporn.  We then had to wait for the 2 PM ferry (on a beautiful beach) so we napped and all were sunburned; with extremely awkward tank tans.  A few pictures from Chumporn--













  After a few hour ferry ride we finally arrived in Koh Tao!  We stayed at Sairee Cottage where we got joint deals for scuba diving and accommodation.  We stayed in adorable bungalows right off the beach, and I would 100% recommend staying here and diving to anyone going to Thailand.  The staff were all so welcoming and friendly, and all with cool stories of how they ended up being a dive master in Koh Tao (most went along the lines of, "I went to college, came to Koh Tao on vacation afterwards and have been here for 2 years..").  I went on 5 dives overall (which gave me 2 free nights of accommodation!) and each dive was awesome!  I dove with the same instructor each time which was definitely comforting and made the entire experience relaxing, plus I got to know her pretty well!  I won't describe each dive in detail because you would probably get bored but, I did see two humongous Grouper that were probably close to my size and a pretty sweet Moray Eel that was out and kinda poking its head around.

Our cottage for the week

Sairee Cottage Diving!

pre-plague dive

   The only bad thing that happened this week was some strange sickness going around the group.  It started on a morning dive boat (for which we had to wake up at 6:30 AM, and all sacrificed sleep for cool dives) with three people getting sea sick, and then spread throughout the group.  When I went to the doctor he told me I had food poisoning but we're pretty sure he was wrong because a majority of the 15 of us have spent 24 hours vomming our brains out for the past week.  But moving on.... 

Dive site: Mango Bay

on the way to a morning dive

  We spent most of the days on the beach relaxing, and our evenings eating western food (we had pizza and it was more amazing that I remembered) and hunting for good (and cheap) Thai food.  We found one place thanks to recommendations by dive masters, called Tik, and I had some amazing pineapple chicken fried rice.  Here are a few random pics from cool beach-side restaurants over the week. One of my faves was the Lotus Bar that had cushions on the sand facing the water, we went one night and watched the sunset which was absolutely beautiful.  Photo cred to MK for the first two pics. 

  One night after dinner W, N, and I decided that we needed to try pancakes- they're not like normal pancakes they're closer to funnel cake fried on a big wok. The man who made them was adorable, he was an older Thai man who got so into making them it looked like he was dancing.  It attracted an huge crowd of people not just eating but taking pictures and videos.  The pancake I got was Nutella and peanut butter, and was amazing.  Although I did drop the first one all over me and the ground (super embarrassing, mainly because W and I were laughing hysterically and everyone just stared), luckily W went and got another.

 
















  After an awesome week of diving and relaxing I was definitely ready to come back to Bangkok to our "quaint" neighborhood.  Even though we were technically still in Thailand, the island is mainly populated with European backpackers/dive masters and the Thai people that are there were for the most part weirded out when we tried to speak Thai to them (or just didn't understand our poor pronunciation...).  The Thai food in Koh Tao was also nothing in comparison to the street food of Bangkok, and having Western food even for a few meals was bland compared to the spicy, flavorful food we eat everyday in Bangkok...I am in for a rude awakening in December when I get home... Here are a few random pics I took of the beach.