After two long weeks away you should know that we're having a horrible time. We've never seen so much sunshine, so much coral, so many really-cool-looking fish, so much good food and such cheap beer: awful. We are on the island of Koh Tao, off the south-east coast of Thailand where many many people from across the globe (but mostly just France and the UK) come to take their shirts off... oh, and SCUBA dive.
The journey from home to here was a little fraught but we made it and were pleasantly surprised by our first longhaul budget airline experience. We'll see how we're feeling after the next one... Anyway, there were four flights, a taxi, a bus, a ferry and another taxi but we made it here safely and were greeted by our pals Amy and Claire at the jetty. Amy's bags didn't arrive with Amy, but she made the best of this by wearing the same clothes for the whole time she was here. "This is my OTHER outfit." Claire left us yesterday, but fortunately James is here to help us get over her. Here's to James getting just as sunburnt so that we can peel the skin off his back too. Oh, and say things like "You look like the Danish flag" and "it's like a mangy dog back there"!
A tip for you travelling novices: pack sunscreen.
Now that Nick's an Advanced Open Water Diver we can go diving any time and any place we want. The dive sites here are spectacular. Yesterday, for example, we dived at Chumpon Pinnacle, a big underwater pinnacle about 5 kilometres north-west of the island where huge groupers hang around, and butterflyfish, parrotfish, batfish and anglefish abound. We're waiting for the elusive whale sharks to appear, though they may never come. Nick's dive instructor Paivi (who, in light of her striking resemblance, we've affectionately renamed "SCUBA Barbie") tells us that if you rub your nipples and chant, "whale shark, whale shark", they'll appear. That'll do us.
Here you can also save money by drinking buckets of cocktail. Being the budget-conscious (i.e. unemployed) travellers that we are, we find this appealing. This, however, tends to lead to willfully participating in the Lady Boy Cabaret, skinny dipping, and various other (usually unadvisable) nocturnal activities. Fish eyeballs, Amy? Uggh...
Anyway, we've just arrived back from a morning of snorkelling at Shark Bay, where Nick spotted a MASSIVE baby reef shark. It would have been (AT LEAST) 1 metre long! We also spotted some Clownfish ("Nemos") in a small anemone. This place sucks.
Miss you all (a bit) and we hope you're having a wonderful time. We're not.
Love from us.
