We spent Christmas on the beach in Ao Nang, close to Krabi. On Christmas Eve, we went for dinner with a German couple we met in the restaurant of our hotel. One completely new feature we got this Christmas: the lady boys. It was so much fun just to sit in a bar and watch the people walking past, having their picture taken with the lady boys.
Since Ao Nang was quite touristy and the beach was very packed, we left for Koh Lanta on the 25th. Our first experience with Thai ferries and their safety standards was a bit disturbing, but all went well and we arrived on the island safe and sound.
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| Safety first! |
Koh Lanta was such a nice island that we ended up spending more than a week here. Koh Lanta has some really nice dive spots and since we found a nice Swedish dive shop, we went for six dives and had a great time. But the best thing about the dive shop (in my opinion) was that they had Swedish candy (lösgodis).
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| New Year's treat: Swedish candy |
Next stop was Koh Samui, which we really should have skipped had we known how developed and mass-touristy the island is. It is very difficult to find a nice beach which is not part of a fancy hotel complex or very full of tourists, so we spent half a day exploring the island before giving up and deciding to spend the rest of the day at the pool.
The following day, we took the ferry to Koh Phangan, the island most famous for the full moon parties on Haad Rin Beach. We had a really nice bungalow on the beach on the northeastern corner of the island, at this place called Mae Haad Cove. If you ever go to Koh Phangan and don't mind staying in a basic bungalow, we can really recommend staying here. The food is great, the bungalows are cheap, the beach is really nice, the snorkelling is very good too and the woman running this place is so nice!
On Phangan, we spent a fair amount of time exploring the island and I finally tried driving a moped, something I have let Matthias do until now. It is much more relaxing to sit on the back though, because you can just enjoy the ride.
We spent some time on the beach. And of course we went diving...
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| "Our" beach - Haad Mae Haad and the island Koh Maa |
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| Matthias engaged in a very long (and exhausting) sword fight with this young fellow. |
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| Paradise Waterfall |
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| Another waterfall |
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| Out diving at Sail Rock |
The real diving adventure however, started when we came to Koh Tao and decided to do the PADI Advanced Open Water course. After two days of diving, five different dives (one of them being the deep dive down to 30 m!), we are now Advanced Open Water Divers. Yesterday night (Friday the 13th!) we did our very first night dive, which was a bit scary since you can't really see what is going on next to you. Sometimes you turn around and see a great barracuda lingering just next to your right ear, waiting for you to shine your torch on to an innocent rabbit fish, so that he can catch it for dinner. They are pretty smart...
Diving has become a huge industry here on Koh Tao and there are dive schools everywhere. We had heard stories about the big dive schools where they had groups of up to 20 people diving with 2 instructors, so we chose a small dive school, Master Divers. This proved to be a great decision since we were the only two in our course and we felt very very well taken care of by all staff, not just our instructor. So a big thanks to Kirsi for being a great instructor!
The plan for the next couple of days? As soon as the weather gets a bit better (today has been all rainy and quite windy), we will go diving again!
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