Island hopping
Trip Start
Dec 02, 2007
1
43
55
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
Ko Tao,
Thailand
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Having bid a sad farewell to Chelsea, Piet, Greg and I said goodbye to Cambodia in style. Rather too much style as our sore heads at Siem Reap's airport and throughout our flight to Ko Samui reminded us. Relieved to be on terra firma after the trip on a very, very small plane, we checked into a hotel on Hat Lamai, one of the island's quieter beaches. Quiet on Ko Samui is, however, relative. There is something of an Tenerife feel to the island and far too many western chain restaurants, so we decided to move quickly and take up a recommendation made by our friend Martin. Heading over to Ko Pha-Ngan by ferry we began to see the real beauty of the islands and reaching our final destination, Bottle Beach, by Longshaw boat, we knew we had found the isolated island paradise we had been looking for.
After three days of lounging on the sand, swimming in the warm waters and relaxing over games of cards with an Vicki and Ash, an English couple we had met on the way, the five of us decided moved on to the island of Ko Tao. Here, our activities remained much the same, but with more opportunity to explore as here our beach front hotel could be reached by road, not just boat like at Bottle Beach. We hired quad bikes or scooters and bombed up and down the mountainous terrain, only getting stuck occasionally...With the holiday from our holiday vibe well and truly in force, we played crazy golf, went bowling (on alleys with a Thai man behind the skittles to pick them up in the absence of anything more high tech) and continued our daily swims in the turquoise waters of the gulf.
