Thailand
Facts:-
Part 3 - Koh Phangan and Koh Tao
Day 382 - Wednesday 26th July 2006 - back to Thailand
It was another hour or so before we reached Hat Yai, where we had a few tasks (finding an ATM, a chemist, somewhere for lunch and an internet cafe) before heading back to the station for our onward train to Surat Thani. Now, we were back in 3rd class, with windows wide open, which was pleasant. However the scenery was much less pretty than northern Thailand and we bumped along for over 5½ hours. We did, however, manage to buy our usual Thai railway dinner of chicken with chilli and basil on rice.
Arriving at Surat Thani late in the day, we discovered that we had missed the last bus to the town proper (about 14km away) and as the sawthaeng drivers wouldn't reduce their price lower than 120Baht (about $4.25), we took a private taxi for the same price instead.
We were dropped at the Ban Don Guesthouse, where we were pleased to find a decent room. They tried to sell us boat tickets on to Koh Phangan for the morning, but the price seemed a bit expensive, so we decided to see if the travel agent mentioned in the LP was still open. It was a longer walk than we had expected, but we eventually found the travel agent - it was closed. However, a guy on a passing motorbike saw us looking in the window and showed us to another travel agent just 100m down the road, where we bought our boat tickets (they were actually only marginally cheaper than the guesthouse's price). We were also persuaded to pay for 1-night's accommodation at some bungalows in the north-west of the island, near where where we were planning to base ourselves (well, a free taxi pick-up was included, so it seemed a good deal).
Day 383 - Thursday 27th July 2006 - arriving in Koh Phangan
At the entrance to the guesthouse was a restaurant, so we didn't have far to go for a good thai noodle breakfast before our bus transfer arrived to take us to the ferry. We were onboard the ferry and on our way by 8:30am and, despite the fact that it was quite cloudy, we chose to sit outside in the gangway running around the boat.
The journey actually started in a river, but we were soon making our way to the open sea, passing thousands of small islands, while watching lots of little fish jumping out of the boat's wake. Although it was quite an uncomfortable place to sit, we both managed to snooze a bit before we arrived at Koh Samui. Most of the passengers disembarked here and were replaced by slightly fewer heading on to Koh Phangan. We managed to buy a couple of ice creams before we sailed on.
At Thong Sala, Koh Phangan's ferry jetty, the boat was greeted by crowds of taxi drivers. But, by the time we realised that there was no-one here to pick us up, the crowd had vanished. Ian found a shop where he could make a phone call to the bungalows to enquire about our reservation and transfer, only to be told that we didn't have a reservation (in fact there were no available rooms there at all) and therefore there wasn't a transfer either. Clearly we had been conned.
In the end, we jumped on an overpriced sawthaeng to Had Yao (we had been told a journey should cost 50 Baht each, the touts signs showed 80 Baht, but the best we could do was 100 Baht!). We were dropped at Had Yao Bungalows, where Nikki ordered a banana shake and settled in at the beach bar, while Ian went to see what accommodation options were available on this stretch of beach. Although rooms were available for 150-200 Baht, we wanted something a bit nicer, so that we could relax comfortably for a few days. In the end Ian opted for a deal at Sandy Bay Bungalows, where a 7-or-more night stay would cost us only 300 Baht (about $8.50) a night. Our room wasn't right on the beach, but rather up a few steps, which meant that we got a stunning view out over the palm trees and beach to the Gulf of Thailand.
Once settled in, we went down for a swim and snorkel. The tide was out, so the water was particularly shallow on the beach side of the nearby reef and Nikki soon gave up, Ian carried on, amazed by how much marine life he saw in so little water!
Later, we went for a beer at the Eagle Pub, at the south end of the beach, sitting at a table on the sand by candle-light looking out at the lights of fishing boats out to sea. We walked back to our restaurant and ate dinner, again with a table on the sand, barefoot by candle-light. What a pleasant way to relax.
Day 384 - Friday 28th July 2006 - relaxing in Had Yao, Koh Phangan
Over breakfast, Nikki outlined her plans for our day: sunbathing on the beach, swimming, lunch, perhaps a walk along the beach to check out the dive shops, hammock-lazing, more beach time, a thai massage, then dinner - what a busy day ahead!
We managed the sunbathing and lunch, but even at high tide, we had to clamber over the nearly-exposed reef to the open sea, which was quite murky, although there were a few interesting fish around. Nikki saw a big parrot fish, but swimming was hard work in the waves. So Nikki returned to the beach for a lie down and Ian went back to snorkelling in the shallows.
We ate lunch at the nearby Ibiza Bungalows, then went up to our room, where Ian had strung up two hammocks. But Nikki didn't manage hammock-lazing very well either - not only breaking the string holding her hammock up, but when Ian let her use his, she broke that too! - we'd obviously had too many banana pankcakes recently!
Later, we did manage to have a thai massage on the beach, Ian made sure that particular attention was paid to his neck, which was still very stiff after the night train journey. We ate in our restaurant again, also tucking into a few Chang beers, whilst lounging on the floor cushions.
Day 385 - Saturday 29th July 2006 - relaxing in Had Yao again, Koh Phangan
We decided to get up a bit earlier today and go for a walk before it got too hot. We headed north along the beach, soon reaching a building site. We walked through a half-built set of bungalows and over a headland down to the next bay (Coral Beach), where there was, predictably, another building site of half-built bungalows. Despite 2 menacing dogs barking at us, we continued on down to the shore there and, as it was low tide, decided to cut back to Sandy Bay along the waterline. We clambered over a few rocks and only got our feet wet wading a little at the end.
We enjoyed a decent breakfast at the Had Yao Bungalows and then Nikki set about some serious sunbathing, while Ian repaired the hammocks. After a couple of hours we booked ourselves on a dive trip for the following day and returned to laze in the hammocks during the middle of the day - by now the weather had turned quite cloudy and windy anyway :-(
Later (after carrying a frisbee around the world for 385 days) Ian finally persuaded Nikki to throw it around with him and we stood in the shallows for a bit. Nikki's skills improved from terrible to average, meanwhile Ian dived all over the place trying to catch her bad throws.
In the evening, we decided to walk up to the Magic Bar on the roadside. Apart from us, it was completely deserted, so we only stayed for one beer, but the owner recommended a restaurant just across the road. That's how we discovered the Kop Shop. It was a very chilled-out place, with, when we arrived, only 3 other customers - all divemasters from one of the diving outfits, discussing their day's diving. We ordered some great tasting curries (much better than the mediocre food we had been eating recently), at cheaper prices than on the beach and really enjoyed the atmosphere and relaxing music.
Day 386 - Sunday 30th July 2006 - diving in Angthong Marine Park
We were up for an 8am meet at Haad Yao Divers (right on the beach, next door to Sandy Bay Bungalows). It was a short transfer by sawngthaew to Chaloklum pier, at the northern point of the island, where all the dive boats anchored. Breakfast of toast and coffee was available for us on the boat, but the sea was very choppy as we set off and so breakfast was difficult to prepare! Nikki started feeling sea-sick almost straight away, but luckily there was a supply of anti-motion sickness tablets on board, which helped and she headed to the deck in the fresh air. Ian stayed downstairs, thinking that might be better, but he felt pretty bad too. It was a long (about 2 hour) journey to the closest islands in the Angthong Marine Park.
Today, our divemaster was Kai, from Germany and diving with us was Sven, another German. Our first dive site was Hin Yippon, a sizeable pinnacle emerging out of the sea. As usual, once in the water feelings of sea-sickness diminished rapidly and we were ready for our dive. Underwater, we saw lots of butterfly fish, including a beaked butterfly fish, lots of sea urchins and interestingly coloured and shaped coral all around us. We made a circuit of the island and were back on the boat for a very tasty lunch of spicy red chicken curry and rice. However, Ian was feeling really sea-sick by now and couldn't eat much and eventually resorted to taking some tablets.
Our second dive was at Koh Yippon, another pinnacle just a few hundred metres away. There, straightaway, we saw a nudibranch, and later a scorpion fish, more buttterfly fish and angelfish, pink anemone fish, catfish, a large porcupine fish and lots of christmas tree worms - which we had not seen before.
Back on the boat, we filled in our log books and settled down for the less choppy crossing back to Koh Phangan. We even managed to snooze a bit. We didn't actually get back to our bungalow until about 5:30pm, which made for a much longer day than we had been expecting, but booked ourselves on another trip for the following day.
Once again, we ate dinner at our restaurant - we were too tired to venture further! Then turned in for an early night.
Day 387 - Monday 31st July 2006 - diving at Sail Rock and arguing over the price of a beer
It was a slightly earlier start today, leaving Had Yao at 7:45am. Today we were heading to Sail Rock, supposedly the best dive site in the Gulf of Thailand. The boat journey was shorter (at about 1 hour), but we had been warned that the crossing would be rough, so we both took anti-motion sickness tablets straight away!
Actually the crossing wasn't as bad as the previous day, so after tucking into breakfast, we lounged on the sun deck at the back of the boat. Today, it was just the 2 of us diving with Woody, our divemaster. As an instructor, it was his first fun dive for quite a while. Consequently, he got us to set up all our gear ourselves for the first time for ages - but it was good practice!
At the site, we were in no rush and were the last in the water. Even then, we had a long swim to the rock itself (our boat was the fourth one back). Underwater, the visibility was very good. We saw loads of marine life, including blue-lined angelfish, moray eels, small barracuda, lots of pink anemone fish, porcupine fish, big groupers, smaller hexagon groupers, nubibranches, 6-banded angelfish, banner fish, cleaner wrasse and cod.
After lunch of pasta with a very hot basil and chilli pork sauce, we headed out for our second dive at the same site, this time heading right when we reached the rock. We went around a few submerged pinnacles, saw a big cod, several nudibranchges, including a very small one. Then, at about 18m down, we went into the "chimney", where Nikki saw a cleaner shrimp and a few scorpion fish but Ian was a bit behind, so coudn't see them in the tight space. We exited the "chimney" at about 12m and Ian managed to kick Woody in the face, trying to manoeuver out of the enclosed space, oops!
Back in the open water, we saw more big cod and lots of other fish all around, particularly as we were heading up for our safety stop. Then suddenly, Ian heard a loud "clunk" just behind him and shot to the surface, unable to remain under. He had no idea what had happened, but, back on the boat, as we were taking our diving gear off, he realised that he no longer had a weight belt! That would be why he was suddenly so buoyant!
The sky was dark and it had been raining since we reached the surface. IN fact, it was so heavy the boat just had to stay put, until the storm passed. Fortunately, we were stuck there only for about a ½ hour. But we were all crammed in below deck, which was cosy.
On the way back, most people snoozed. Then, back at our bungalow, we relaxed in our hammocks until dinner, again at Hat Yao Bungalows. The food was decent, plus there were some fun tacky 90s music being played, and We decided to tuck into a few Singha beers for a change, as they were the same price as our usual Chang.
We played some cards and finish our drinks. However, the staff wanted to close the restaurant early and brought us our bill. Unfortunately, on it the beers were priced at 100 Baht, rather than the 65 Baht they had been listed as on the menu we had been given. Rather than simply leaving the right money and leaving, Ian made the mistake of pointing this out. Unfortunately, the staff were having none of it (it turned out that it was only in our menu that all the beers were the same price!). Of course, with our tight budget, if we had known this we wouldn't have drunk Singha at all and certainly not had that extra beer or two. This wasn't the first occasion on the trip where something like this had happened and on all the other occasions we had had no problems. But here, when Ian tried to pay the correct price the staff quickly took offence. Nikki wasn't happy with the confrontational atmosphere, so headed home. Ian left the "right" money on the table and soon followed, but was quickly hauled back into the restaurant by the restaurant heavy. He was now faced with 3 large Thai blokes and an hysterical woman throwing beer bottles around! He decided to ask the remaining tourists in the bar, what they would do and received their support. But that didn't cut any ice with the owners. When Ian suggested they call the police to sort out the dispute, the phone apparently "didn't work", so there was nothing else for it other than to pay the higher price. Even then they dropped a coin on the floor and insisted on more money, (even though one of them had already pocketed the dropped coin) and Ian ended up over-paying before making a hasty exit, followed by abuse and spit. The "you no come back here" that followed him out was hardly necessary - as if we would!
Back in our bungalow, it took a while to unwind and relax, meanwhile Nikki was feeling guilty about leaving Ian to face the problem on his own, not realising it would get so messy.
Day 388 - Tuesday 1st August 2006 - relaxing in Had Yao again, Koh Phangan
This morning, we decided to go for a walk south along the beach. We soon were climbing up to the Hilltop Bungalows and on to the road. There wasn't much there, except a shop and a restaurant. We bought some water (and a toilet roll - which apparently wasn't included in our room rate!) and returned to our restaurant for breakfast.
Afterwards, Ian lay around on our balcony in a hammock, while Nikki took her turn doing some hand-washing of our clothes. After that, she lazed in a hammock and Ian went for a snorkel. However, he returned shortly, with a "show and tell"! He had a very small (about 5mm long) blue and white nudibranch in his mask. We watched it swim around for a while and then then he returned it to the sea. Soon, the sky started to turn greyer and it even rained a bit, so we had to rescue the drying washing. Nikki fetched a couple of ice creams for lunch (healthy, hey!), but they were a bit soft, and we now realised that the restaurant didn't have 24-hour power either (we knew our room didn't).
We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing on the balcony and for dinner headed up to the Absolute Island restaurant, which was apparently a good place for sunset views. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy taday but we made the most of the Happy Hour beer prices. Although the ambience was pretty good, the food was a bit disappointing. It was a pleasant evening all the same, even though we had to ignore the temptation of the good-smelling pizzas being served. They clearly had more Italian herbs in the kitchen than Thai spices!
Day 389 - Wednesday 2nd August 2006 - relaxing in Had Yao again, Koh Phangan
We decided to do some exercise this morning. So, before it was too hot, we went down and ran along the beach for a while. It was our first running (except to cross roads and the like) for over a year! Of course Ian managed a bit more than Nikki, but we wer both pleased and tired by the end. We showered and headed for a lazy breakfast in the restaurant. Later, it was a bit cloudy, but we decided to lie on the beach anyway as the sun occasionally broke through. After a couple of hours it was much more cloudy and we went back to our balcony instead. Despite the cloud, Ian had gone quite pink, having only put suncream on his face.
We ate an ice cream for lunch, played Scrabble and read, lying in our hammocks. For dinner, we went back to the Kop Shop, where to begin with we were the only diners. Later, another couple arrived, and as usual, when a restaurant is pretty empty, looked around uncertainly. We encouraged them in with compliments about the food. During our meals, we chatted to them on and off and after we had all finished eating, they came over and we enjoyed a longer chat over some more drinks (Nikki enjoyed some vodka lemons, as a change to Chang!). So, we introduced ourselves to Caroline and Barny, from Stafford, a couple also coming towards the end of a 1-year RTW trip. We had both been to parts of south america and so compared notes about various places we'd been to. It was nice to chat to some fellow travellers and we had a lovely evening.
Day 390 - Thursday 3rd August 2006 - diving at Southwest Pinnacle and Shark Island
Again, we were up for a 8am meet on the beach at Haad Yao Divers. We had originally thought that today's trip would be back to Sail Rock, but apparently once a year the Thai Navy use it for target practice! No one knew quite what damage would be caused to the reef by the next time they visited! So, instead, today we were heading to Southwest Pinnacle - over 2 hours away in the boat.
Today, our divemaster was Freddy, and again, there were no other divers with us. The highest point of the pinnacle here is about 10m underwater, so there was nothing other than a mooring buoy to see above the water. We headed down to just above the the thermocline at about 24m and the visibility was excellent. There were big schools, mostly of small fish, all around. But also a large school of chevron barracuda and lots of anemones of different colours. Here, again all the anemone fish were pink anemome fish - we were still waiting to see some clown fish.
Back on the boat, we tucked into sweet and sour lunch with omlette-like fritters. We had already finished when the Discover Scuba Diving "class" from another dive school returned - we had no idea what they could have been doing for all this time - without full training, they were only allowed down to 12m, so there couldn't be much to see at this site!
The boat then moved on the Shark Island, just offshore from Koh Tao. This was a shallow dive. There, we saw a large white and black nudibranch, huge sea cucumbers with 10 legs, walking around and lots of wrasse (mostly small moon wrasse, but also red-breasted wrasse).
Again, we were not back home until 5:30pm or so, but we had managed to snooze on the boat. We decided to go back to Kop Shop for dinner, but he wasn't open - the sign said "closed on Sundays", it was Thursday, oh well... Instead we went to our restaurant, where we saw Caroline and Barny again. We joined them enjoying the food and company over a few beers. We carried on chatting for ages, deciding to relocate to the Eagle Pub as it got later. There we enjoyed a couple more beers (the boys) and caipirinhas (the girls) and couldn't believe it when we realised it was already 2am.
Day 391 - Friday 4th August 2006 - relaxing in Had Yao again, Koh Phangan
We went for a run again this morning and then ate a late breakfast in our restaurant at about 11am. As we waited for our food, we could see dark clouds heading our way and soon there was a storm hitting the island. The staff struggled to pull down the tarpaulins that protected the restaurant, but we still had to move , finding a small corner of the restaurant that wasn't too wet!
After the storm had passed, we lazed in our room - our hammocks were wet now, of course - and fell asleep. Tonight, Kop Shop was open so we were able to eat there one last time. It was a bit busier today and we ate with Caroline and Barny again (once again, we hadn't arranged to meet up but they arrived just after us). We had previously seen "no name" vegetables on the menu now and decided to try them - they turned out to be bit like a cross between a bhaji or dumpling or fritter. Actually, when they arrived, we had to check what the dish was as we had just been expecting some sort of unusual stir-fried vegetable, but they were certainly very tasty, if rather unhealthy!
Once again, we enjoyed chatting to Caroline and Barny, but didn't last as long as last night. Kop had been friendly on each of our visits, but today, he was definitely a bit worse for wear in a happy way!
Day 392 - Saturday 5th August 2006 - on to Koh Tao
We were breakfasted and packed in time for our transfer to the ferry dock. Once again, as we checked out, an attempt was made to overcharge us (we were getting a bit fed up with the "money, money, money" attitude of so many of the southern Thais, which was a sad contrast to the friendly northern Thais we had come across earlier). But we were soon back at Thong Sala. We killed an hour or so using the internet and then checked-in for our ferry to Koh Tao. The place was really busy and we just sat on our backpacks near the end of the jetty. We soon learnt that he ferry was delayed and the guy who was trying to sell overpriced drinks to everyone suddenly broke into song to entertain us. He was pretty good and got a round of applause when he finished! We bought a couple of baguettes for lunch from the smiliest woman on Koh Phangan, who was doing a brisk trade!
Eventually, the ferry left (about an hour late) and as the boat was smaller than our previous one, we had to sit inside in the chilly air-con cabin. There were several dive shop touts on board and we agreed to take a free ride to the Big Bubble dive centre - we liked the name and logo and the offer of available accommodation seemed pretty good too.
Once there, the dive centre seemed pretty good too. The building and equipment were both new, and we were able to book ourselves on a dive for advanced divers only, so, a little later, we did. The staff even helped us find a room - apparently most of the budget rooms in Chalok Ban Khao were full (it turned out that many of the bungalows advertised themselves as "full" even if they weren't, so that dive shops would be able to find their divers somewhere to stay). We checked out a couple of places, deciding on a nice room at Sunshine 2 Bungalows, overlooking their pretty garden.
As we were settling into our room, we saw Carlonine and Barny walking past. They had struggled to find a room and ended up with one that was far too big and expensive, just next door. That evening, we had a couple of beers on our balcony and, again without arranging it, met up with Caroline and Barny and chatted over dinner at our restaurant. The food was decent here too, but continued to be a poor reflection of thai food, compared to that in northern Thailand. But we tucked into a few Changs, including after the restaurant had closed, when the staff had to go to the next door bar for supplies!
Day 393 - Sunday 6th August 2006 - diving at Southwest Pinnacle and Shark Island, again
We were up early, but had to look around for somewhere to eat breakfast. Our restaurant was supposed to be open at 7am, but it wasn't by 7:15am, so we ended up at Sunshine 1, just a little way along the beach.
When we arrived, the Big Bubble dive shop was extremely busy, almost chaotic. But, eventually we got our dive bags and put them and oursleves on sawthaeng for the journey back to the main dock at Mae Hat - the tide was too low at Chalok Ban Khao. There were at least 20 fun divers on the small boat plus divemasters. Five of us we with Erroll - supposedly the Advanced divers group. However, one guy was still doing his advanced PADI course, which wasn't what we had expected, especially as our trip to Southwest Pinnacle was to be his training deep dive, so we knew we would be wasting time and air heading into the murk below the thermocline, just so he could get experience of being down at 28m or so.
Sure enough, we spent about 15 minutes down in the murk, seeing almost nothing, eventually heading back up above the thermocline. Although the visibility here wasn't as good as our previous visit a few days before, we saw a couple of undulating eels, schools of crocodile needle fish, a few nudibranches and a scorpionfish. Erroll was annoyed with us lagging, and (given we had used down to 130bar - from 200bar, simpy waiting for the student to finish his skills) Ian was annoyed to have to finish the dive with 70bar left in his tank. All in all, we were pretty fed up with the dive, especially when compared to our previous dive here. Back on board, things didn't improve when there was no sign of the promised noodle soup and we even didn't know where the drinking water was - there had been no boat briefing after all. Consequently, we were told off for still wearing our wet suits on the upper deck (how were we supposed to know?), and clambering down the ladder again to take them off, while the boat pitched around didn't improve our mood at all.
The boat was heading over to Shark Island, where we were surprised to moor up on the exposed southern side of the island, with no protection from the big swell and strong current. As we got into the water, the advanced course student almost got washed away - not that Erroll noticed of course. Eventually, they were both back with us and after about 10 minutes bobbing around in the rough swell, while they faffed around with their equipment and we felt sea-sick, we headed down.
We all had to work hard against the current and after only a couple of minutes, we had to wait for the other divers to catch up. It was already obvious that the student was really struggling and, with a very poor swimming technique, he was making almost no progress against the current. We went a little further, seeing almost nothing. We waited around again, then suddenly, Ian realised that he was on his own, Erroll had apparently signalled that we were heading back, Nikki had seen this, Ian hadn't. Ian followed and soon we were all hanging onto the buoy line. It was still somewhat unclear what was happening, but it was clear there was a problem. We finished the dive with 6 divers sharing 3 tanks of air - luckily we had enough between us. We finished our safety stop and came to the surface, where Erroll, could only say "what an exciting dive". Of course, it turned out that the student had panicked, struggling against the current, drained his tank, drained the trainee divemasters' tank and his buddy's tank, causing us all to end up sharing air. Needless to say, we didn't think the dive was exciting, just a disaster of planning and organisation - why were we swimming into such a strong current, when a sheltered mooring rope was unused less than a couple of hundred metres away? and why was a student diving with us, when he clearly was a very poor swimmer? The "excitement" wasn't over, as on the surface, the student once again struggled with the current and may not have made it back to the boat had Nikki not instucted to swim on his back and kick strongly! Once again Erroll was oblivious to this problem!
Back on the boat, we were pretty speechless, Erroll did comment that nothing like that had ever happened to him before (in several thousand dives). Luckily, it was only a short ride back to Shark Bay, so we didn't have to speak to him much more. There the boat moored up and we walked up to the road. The disorganisation continued, however, as the divemasters stayed on the boat and no one told us where we were walking to!
Back in the dive shop, we eventually were able to speak with the manager - he turned out to be the owner. We explained how unsatisfactory and actually dangerous we thought the dive trip had been, how disorganiased and unproffessional and how upset we were. He was reasonably apologetic and looked concerned about most of our complaints.
Needless to say, we agreed not to dive with them again and agreed only to pay their discounted rate and only for one dive. We spend the rest of the day wondering how we had managed to choose such a poor dive operation! (they were a PADI ***** Gold Palm Resport - which sounds good, we'll have to check out what that means!)
We ate lunch in our restaurant and told Caroline and Barny all about our morning. Then, exhausted, we snoozed for most of the rest of the day. Later, as Caroline and Barny had recommended their dive shop, (Reef Rider, a small - and cheap - place, at Laem Klong resort, just next door to Sunshine 2), we decided to go out with them in the morning and booked ourselves in with Peter, the owner.
Later, we relaxed with a Thai massage on the beach and for dinner, walked out over a concrete boardwalk to the Taraporn restaurant, where we were lucky to find a table. The highlight here, would have been the view out to sea, but our table was near the bar instead. Still, the food was OK. So after a stressful day, we headed to bed early.
Day 394 - Monday 7th August 2006 - Diving Southwest Pinnacle again
We had been looking forward to a potential lie-in before going diving today as Reef Rider usually went out about 9.30-10am. However, today the dive boat had to go to the mainland in the afternoon for some maintenance and so we had to leave at 8am. We had breakfast over at Laem Klong restaurant and then, since the tide was too low at Chalok Ban Khao, we were taken in a truck to the next bay where we got on a small boat out to the dive boat. Soon we were on our way to Southwest Pinnacle (for the 3rd time!)
The sea was pretty choppy today and there were some huge waves spilling over the front of the boat which soaked us all in no time - we wished we had put our wetsuits on straight away, especially as it was also pretty cold in the wind. When we arrived at the pinnacle there were no other boats there so we had the site to ourselves. The visibility was pretty good but unfortunately not as good as on our previous visits. Also, Peter, the divemaster, did tend to swim on and not look back very often, just as Caroline & Barney had warned us. Still, we managed not to lose him.
During the dive we saw (and successfully avoided) a Titan Triggerfish, some blue-ringed angelfish, a nudibranch and baby, a school of snapper and some yellow-tailed fusiliers. There were also scores of small black/grey fish (three-spotted dascyllus) dancing around each other and rubbing themselves on the rock, presumably some sort of mating ritual.
Back on the boat we tucked into some tasty fresh pineapple and even some hot coffee as it was pretty chilly. The ride back to Koh Tao was much smoother and we anchored at the next dive site - Hin Ngam Bay. We swam out to the reef along the sandy bottom, stopping to wait for Ian to get some photos of a red-breasted wrasse. The visibility was ok, but obviously not as good as at the pinnacle due to the sandy bottom. Peter spotted a couple of moray eels. We also saw a school of barracuda, a blue-spotted stingray and a large school of mixed fish (mostly the yellow ones that are often seen in pairs) in a feeding frenzy, pulling chunks off the coral. It ended up being quite a long dive as we didn't go very deep but we eventually got cold and headed back to the boat. Just under the boat was a very large nudibranch (we think?) and so most of us dived down again for a closer look. However, Ian was already very low on air so remained near the surface. It wasn't far from here back to Chalok Baan Khao but the skies were rapidly darkening and, sure enough, the rain came pelting down just as the truck got back to the dive shop.
We showered and then went for lunch at Sunshine 2 (inside as it was still raining). We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing before heading out to Café Tropicana for dinner with Barny & Caroline. B & C had been there the night before and liked it. We all went for the waiter-recommended thai fried curry and spring rolls, washed down with a few beers. On the way home, Ian bought another beer (Nikki opted for ice-cream instead as she'd gone off beer today!) and we sat on Caroline & Barny's balcony chatting until quite late again.
Day 395 - Tuesday 8th August 2006 - More diving around Koh Tao
No diving this morning as the boat wasn't back from the mainland until the afternoon and so we had a bit of a lie-in. We had breakfast with Caroline & Barny - they had just checked out and were leaving later for the night train back to Bangkok. We decided to walk to Mae Haad (the main town) where we were able to book our own ferry/train combo tickets to the Malaysian border. While we were in Mae Haad we had a look around the shops for some hammocks and postcards etc. We also used the internet for a bit.
We returned to Chalok Baan Khao to check on the departure time of the dive boat. Unfortunately, the weather was not looking too good and the boat captain, who had just returned from the mainland, said it was too rough to go out to Chumphon Pinnacle (where we were hoping to go). Instead, they were going to some dive sites around the east coast bays. Although these would be shallow sandy-bottom dives, we decided to go along but had time for some lunch at Laem Klong Resort first.
Peter couldn't dive today as he had a cold and so we had Faschi as our divemaster. It wasn't a long boat ride out to Hin Wong Bay and most of the journey was pretty sheltered, but as we rounded the last headland we went straight into a shower and got soaked - luckily we had learnt our lesson from the previous day and already had our wetsuits on! Again, we had a fairly long swim along the sandy bottom to the reef and, once again, Ian held us up by taking photos of some nudibranches. The visibility wasn't great but we still saw quite a lot, including some blue-ringed angelfish, parrotfish, a little nudibranch, a bigger nudibranch, a moray eel, some pink anemonefish, banner fish and lots of zebra fish at the end, right near the surface.
We then moved to the 2nd dive site in Ao Mao Bay. We had to wait a while to lengthen our surface interval as the 1st dive had been a long one. This was another sandy-bottomed site but visibility wasn't too bad. We saw some nudibranches, angelfish, Titan triggerfish, a hermit crab in a conical shell and a moray eel in some coral (unusual as we normally see them poking out of rocks).
We decided to venture a little further for dinner tonight and so walked up to the Famous House restaurant (which we had spotted on our earlier walk to Mae Haad). It didn't take Nikki long to spot the bargain G&T's on the menu for only 50 Baht and so she had a welcome break from beer. Meanwhile, Ian was less successful with his drink - a rather dubious lemon barley drink (he should have stuck to beer!). Despite a limited menu, the food was actually very good and it was a nice atmosphere in the pretty courtyard.
Day 396 - Wednesday 9th August 2006 - Last chance to dive Chumphon Pinnacle
We had hoped to dive at Chumphon Pinnacle this morning but we awoke at 7am to a tropical squall - very gusty winds and torrential rain - so we realised it was unlikely we would be going anywhere this morning. When the rain eased, Ian popped down to the dive shop and confirmed that the weather was once again too bad to go out and so went back to bed!
Sometime later we got up and headed over to Laem Klong for breakfast. Although the weather was calmer by now, they still would not be going to Chumphon today, instead they were planning to go to some sandy east coast sites again. We decided not to bother and consequently had a very lazy morning. We did try to get some laundry done through our accommodation but they couldn't guarantee it would be dry by tomorrow morning so we had to handwash a few essentials.
Later we decided to head out in search of some cheap haircuts - both of us needed one! Our first quote was 150 Baht (?2) which we decided was too expensive (!) so we walked a bit further up the road and found one for 100 Baht each - bargain! Nikki's cut went fine but they struggled with Ian's as they were scared to use the number 2 setting on the clippers and so his hair was still a bit long (although the sides were strangely very short).
On our way back we stopped off for lunch at 'Thai Food & Drink' which was advertising all dishes including rice were 50 Baht. It turned out that the only soft drinks they had were Coke (no Sprite or Fanta) so we decided to share a Chang beer. Unfortunately, when we had finished that we discovered the beer was actually 100 Baht (more than we'd paid for a beer almost anywhere else in Thailand) and so we didn't go for a second.
The sun had come out by now and it was low tide so we walked out to the other end of the beach where there was less rubbish on the beach. We stayed here and sunbathed for the rest of the afternoon. Later we treated ourselves to a sunset cocktail at the Easy Bar and sat on the deck overlooking the beach. The view was good but it got quite breezy and the cocktails were distinctly average. For dinner, we returned to Café Tropicana for our last proper Thai dinner :-( The wind was pretty gusty by now and, whilst sitting in the restaurant, a postcard rack was blown into Nikki and the postcards went everywhere! Still, she had a good Thai Green curry (probably the best we'd had in southern Thailand) so it was all ok.
Day 397 - Thursday 10th August 2006 - Leaving Koh Tao
We got up, packed and checked out of our room (by 9am), then settled down to a leisurely breakfast. We spent the rest of the morning killing time by sitting in a couple of deck chairs overlooking the beach, reading for a few hours. Around noon, we decided to squeeze in a final Thai massage which turned out to be very good.
We caught a taxi to Mae Haad and found ourselves a nice tasty noodle lunch before heading to the ferry terminal. We had to wait a while for the ferry to empty of passengers from Koh Phangan - some of them looked a bit rough as it had been the famous Full Moon Party the night before! We sat out on the deck as it was nice and sunny but it did begin to rain about half an hour before we reached Chumphon and so we sheltered towards the back of the boat. The sun returned as we entered Chumphon harbour via a long estuary, floating past hundreds of fishing boats. We were then transferred by bus to the train station.
We were keen to use the internet as we knew access would be limited for the next few weeks, and so we wandered around the town looking for an internet café. Our guidebook had promised there were quite a few but after some time, we had only seen one, which was full. It was some time later before we found another with available terminals.
Having caught up with e-mails, we just about had enough time to scoff down a couple of Pad Thais each(!) - they were only small - from the night market before heading back to the station to catch our train to Sungai Kolok (near the Malaysian border). The train was very nearly on time and we were soon settled into our bunks. Once again there was no room to store bags so we locked them in the aisle again, much to the inconvenience of anyone wanting to get past, but we had no other choice. Most of the other passengers were already in their bunks asleep but it wasn't that late so we squeezed in a game of scrabble before bed. Despite Ian having most of the good letters, Nikki won :-)
Day 398 - Friday 11th August 2006 - Crossing border back into Malaysia
We had slept reasonably well, albeit with earplugs! However, by the time we had put our beds away and were ready for breakfast, the food sellers cries of 'nasi goreng' were no more. So, by the time we got to Sungai Kolok we were pretty hungry and we ignored all the offers of taxis to the border (we were planning to walk anyway) and headed straight to a restaurant for some beakfast / brunch. Given the very limited menu (a choice of chicken & rice or pork & rice), we were very pleased with our roast chicken and rice breakfast. Then, Nikki stayed in the restaurant with the bags while Ian wandered around town trying to find somewhere to change our Thai Baht into Malaysian Ringgit. His first tried a couple of banks - a seemingly obvious choice so close to the border but no, of course, they didn't offer foreign exchange services. However, he did manage to find a nearby travel agent who actually offered a very reasonable rate.
So, with full stomachs and wallets, we walked to the Malaysian border. It was only about 1 km but it was pretty hot by now as it was approaching midday...
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