The last few days have been really nice, keep on reading what we have been up to!
Day 15
After going to the Marine Park we had gotten a message from the Italian owner of the guesthouse we had been staying before. He asked us whether we wanted to go out and party that night. We thought it would be fun to go and party with him, so we hopped by his guesthouse. He told us he would close the guesthouse around midnight and he would then come to the club later on.
We had a little fresh-up and then went on to the club area. We had a few drinks, as we were used to by now. Around 1:00 AM Luigi sent us a message to tell us he was coming over to the club. I waited for him outside. Once he arrived we had a great time. We partied through the whoie night. Around 5 AM I decided to head back home. Luc and Luigi were still staying at the club. I wanted to grab a taxi back to the hotel, as I couldn’t figure out where I was. A taxi on a motorcycle offered to ride me back to the guesthouse.
Unfortunately he had no idea where the hotel happened to be. He was just driving rounds and rounds through the busy streets. After at least 20 minutes of driving around I told him to just bring me to the 7-eleven shop from where I would walk. Once I got back I went to sleep straight away. With my sleepy head I had locked the door. Luc came back an hour or so later. While I was fast asleep, he had no idea how to get into the room. He ended up sleeping on the bench outside of the room. Around 9 AM the cleaners of the guesthouse walked by and asked him why he was sleeping in front of the room. Thety were kind enough to let him back in.
Day 16
We decided to stay one more day in Koh Samui, as our French friend Oliver had told us he was coming over to Koh Samui to meet us on the island. We woke up fairly late after the big night with our Italian friend. We decided to pay him a visit and have some lunch at his guesthouse. We ended up sitting, talking and laughing together with Luigi about the great night we had. At the end of the afternoon our french friend Oliver arrived. We met up with him and had some dinner. After dinner we went out for a few drinks again, as we couldn’t spend our last night doing nothing while Oliver was here. We had another big night out, which was good fun. Unfortunately I lost my phone that night too, I suppose it has been stolen out of my pocket, as I secured it pretty well in my pants.
Day 17
We had to wake up fairly early as we had to check out from our guesthouse and catch our taxi to go to the supposedly speedboat. Once there the speedboat was just an ordinary ferry. We overpayed far too much for the ticket, but at least we got on it to go to Koh Tao. On the ferry I didn’t feel amazingly well. The drinks of last night were still in my stomach apparently. Meanwhile we met two Irish girls. One of them offered a little drink to Luc. Luc drank it as if it was water, but once I smelled it, it turned out to be wodca. Even the Irish girls were impressed by the way how Luc didn’t seem to care – he even said he thought it was just water.. Crazy stuff..
2,5 hours later we arrived at the port of Koh Tao. We hadn’t made any reservation, but we had heard good things of a diving resort called Ban’s. Usually these resorts are very expensive, but they’re offering cheap accommodation if you decide to do any scuba-dives with them. As I was planning to do so, we figured it would be good. Unfortunately the only rooms they had on offer were 3000 baht (60 euro) a night. I told the woman straight away this was faaaaaaar out of our budget and we moved on. We left our big bags at Ban’s, as this would be easier to walk to find something else. We walked along the beach and met a few dutch girls who pointed us into the right direction. We ended up in an apartment for 1200 baht (24 euro) with air-con – but fairly far out of town. This was the cheapest we could find so we took it anyway. That night we were both really tired. I had to find a diving center as the next day I wanted to go diving. I found a nice divingresort and they told me I could join in the next morning around 9:30.
Koh Tao is a very chilled out and relaxed place. We had a little drink on the beach chilling out and watching little kids doing tricks with fire, juggling sticks around and the likes. We went to bed pretty early as we were both really tired AND I had to go diving the next morning.
Day 18
I woke up early as I had to go on my diving course. I walked to the diving center, signed up for the refresher’s course – as it had been 2 years since I got my open water certification. I also tried to get some cheaper accomodation, so I asked at the diving center whether they had a cheaper place for me. They told me they did have cheaper accomodation for me , but not for Luc – as Luc wasn’t going to dive with them. In the end they went through quite a bit of effort to find us a cheaper place. They found a guesthouse in the middle of the center with air-con for 800 baht (16 euro). The room was much bigger and very clean. I borrowed the phone of the girl at the diving center to call Luc and let him know where we were staying now. That morning he had to check out out of our current guesthouse, find the new guesthouse and then bring his AND my bag to the new place.
Meanwhile I was getting into my open water course. I thought it would be wise to freshen up my skills and knowledge before I would go and dive for real. I was in a group with 3 other people who hadn’t been diving for a few years too. In the morning we went through all the theoratical stuff. That afternoon we got on to the boat. We went to a shallow part where we would repeat all of the diving skills from the exam of the open water course, including taking off your mask and tank underwater etc.
We got back around 18:00. Once back I walked back to the new guesthouse where I thankfully found Luc. He had found the place and brought our bags. He had been relaxing on the beach that day while I was away. That night we had some food at an Australian bar called Choppers. After the food we had a few beers at the beachbar called Lotus. I didn’t want to drink too much, as the next day I would be diving again. We met shitloads of dutch people that night, even a girl who turned out to be going to the same faculty I go to in Utrecht. We went back around 2AM and had a nice sleep.
Day 19
Luc woke up early. He wanted to do a snorkeling tour today, as I would be away again. I could have a little sleep in, as I signed up to do two afternoon dives instead of morning dives. Luc went snorkeling all day. I went to the diving center around 13:00. I grabbed my gear and got onto the boat. It was a rough day with a bit of rain. The boat was going up and down like crazy, but once we got into the water and we were 17 meters down, I had no clue about the weather above. We did have a strong current, which was pretty tough to swim through.
The first dive was the best dive. We saw all kinds of fish, even my divingmaster was amazed about all the different kinds of fish we had seen on the 45 minute dive. The second dive was good too, but not as good as the first one. Less sealive and the coral was not as beautiful as the first dive. Still it became a really nice day. We got back around 18:00 again. I was fairly tired. We had some food at the same bar we ate the night before. Luc had gotten a nice day too, doing a lot of snorkeling around the island. That night I went to bed around 23:00, as I had to get up at 6AM the next morning to do my two morning dives. Luc had a few drinks and got to bed two hours later.
Day 20
So an early start for me this day. I woke up at 6AM, grabbed my bag and walked to the diving center. I quickly had some breakfast and moved on to the car who got us to the pier. We were on the boat around 7AM. The boat took a good 45 minutes to get to the divingspot. We got into our wetsuites and dove in. We dove for 45 minutes. Unfortunately the divingsite was not all that impressive. After the dive we moved on to another dive site. This spot was much better. Lots of coral and lots of fish. Really impressive to see. We heard from people they had seen a turtle swimming around, so meanwhile we had been looking around to find it. Unfortunately we didn;’t find it. Still the dive was really great. After 50 minutes we got back on the boat, which brought us back to the diving center.
Once back at the diving I got my dive logbook signed and then quickly went back to the guesthouse, as two hours later our boat was going to Koh Phangang. Luc had just woken up. We went to have some lunch in town and then went back to our guesthouse to grab our bags. A taxi was waiting for us there who brought us to the pier. Once at the pier we had to wait for 40 minutes. The boat took about 1,6 hours. I slept through most of the trip as I was really tired. Once we arrived at Koh Phangang I was pleasently surprised to see a sign saying “MR ROBIN”. Apparently the guesthouse I had booked with had sent a guy to pick us up. We got onto the taxi who brought us to our resort. Once there we found out we were extremely far away from the party area, which is on the complete OTHER side of the island. A taxi ride to get there costs about 500 baht for us both (10 euro) and another 10 euro to get back.
As you can imagine, tomorrow we’re going to try and find something more close to the party area, cause for those 20 euro we can get far better accommodation. Tonight we’ll have to pay the taxi and see what the nightscene has to offer around here.
It’s only two more days until the full moon party, so it’s going to be extremely busy in the course of the next few days.. We will see if we can find something cheaper soon enough…
More news soon from Koh Phangang!!
Jul 31st 2009 – Aug 4th 2009
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