Hitting the beach!

Now it was time to hit the islands and we decided to start with the East Coast Islands and in particular Ko Tao which we'd been told has the best snorkelling and diving in Thailand (to be continued!) We took the overnight boat from Chumphon which was essentially a cargo boat with one deck for passengers - v thin mattresses laid on the floor and basically every man for himself! Paul spent all night like a yo-yo turning the fan on while a Russian bloke promptly got up and turned it off! The psychological battle worked in the end as he moved to the other side of the boat! 1 - 0 Team Smedders!

Hmmmmmmmm!

We arrived in Ko Tao v early in the morning and got picked up by a lovely man in a pick-up who took us to a beach at the other side of the island and made us a much needed cup of coffee while we watched the sunrise! Nice! We found a bungalow a little bit later with a partial seaview (if you positioned the chair on our neighbours balcony) and then set off to explore the island by foot! Now for those of you who have been to Ko tao you will know that the island is full of hills and most of the roads are vertical so this was a challenge in itself but we had fun trying and were treated to spectacular views when we got to the top! We reached a dead-end beach eventually and fluked a pick-up back into the main town - then we realised just how vertical the roads are! We were sat in the back of the pick-up and we had to hold on for dear life (I had my eyes shut!!!) In town we decided that this was a part of the island we'd rather stay on and found a new bungalow with a proper sea view to move into the next day! FAB decision!

Lovely Beaches

We had a great day vegging around the bungalow and swimming from our own little private beach complete with tropical fish galore and stunning sunset and booked to go on a power-snorkelling trip the next day! All will be revealed!

Basically I chickened out on the diving bit (still planning to do in Borneo so haven't given up yet!!!!) and as a half way house we decided to do power snorkelling which involves being attached via regulators to an inflatable air tank allowing you to dive to a depth of 5m without all the normal diving gear. It was great fun - think Paul got the hang of it alot quicker than I did! The water was relatively clear and our last 2 dives were great (although we did both swim pretty sharpish away from a jellyfish on our first dive!), visibility was clear and we saw lots of ickle fish and coral and the likes! Great day if not both abit sunburnt on the back of our legs!!!

Sunrise on Ko Tao

Sunset from our little beach