From the title, you can probably guess that this post is going to be far more upbeat than the last one.
After arriving back in the familiar territory of Khao San Road and our old guesthouse, we went crazy and got henna tattoos, whilst the locals celebrated the King's birthday. Little did we know that, arriving in Koh Tao the next morning, we would book a 4-day scuba diving course on which they would be totally washed off. But it was worth the sacrifice!
Diving wasn't something I planned on doing as I'm not the strongest swimmer and am considerably afraid of water, especially the wavy kind. Our instructor was really good, even holding my hand during the training to try and calm me down. Breathing whilst underwater felt so unnatural that I was basically having a panic attack every time I tried. Louise, of course, took to diving, quite literally, like a fish to water. Despite my apprehension I thoroughly enjoyed the first set of dives thanks to the beautiful fish and coral scenery. We saw all kinds of tropical fish (butterfly, angel, banner, puffer, grouper, and trigger to name afew) and learnt the sign language to point them out to each other. We found Nemo, which was a lot easier than in the film as divers had put a ring of stones around his home. The second day was not so pleasant. The monsoon was causing a strong current which meant a lot of bashing into rocks (and other divers tanks) and poor visibility which prevented me from seeing our instructor so felt very vulnerable.
In the evenings, after diving, we ate on the beach whilst watching the sunset. How romantic! One night we even ate barbecued versions of the fish that we had seen earlier (barracuda and snapper). Infact we have been eating like Kings whilst on the islands, so many all you can eat buffets, beautiful Thai curries and late night pancakes I’m actually quite worried that I might get gout.
Apart from diving and eating, we have had lots of fun on Koh Phangan beaches – fashioning a coconut bikini out of various washed up items and dancing about like loons at the full moon party (which was also, we discovered through google, a lunar eclipse party).We are currently in Phuket, staying in a lovely quiet ‘poolside coconut hideaway’, according to the sign - a very accurate description I feel. This is courtesy of Brain Tasker, one of Dad’s old colleagues. It is just like being in Devon, visiting lots of relatives, going out for meals and being driven to the beach – though the water is considerably warmer.
I’m afraid I wasn’t able to take any photos of diving due to a lack of an underwater camera but we did purchase a video of the experience – just to confirm (mainly to myself) that I really did it. Here are my recent photos anyway:
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