Happy New Year!
Trip Start
Oct 12, 2005
1
28
48
Trip End
Mar 31, 2006
Koh Tao,
Thailand
Sunday, January 1, 2006
Our first day of 2006 will involve a 2 1/2 ferry trip from Koh Tao to Chumporn where we will catch an overnight train to Malaysia. We'll arrive on January 2nd and stay in Penang for a few days before moving on to Kuala Lumpur where a modern apartment (with kitchen and tv!) await us for an entire week.
Our stay at the Sensi Paradise Resort in Koh Tao has been great. We've met some great people -- Bob and Wendy from Seattle; Scott, Fawn and their boys - Griffen and Oakley from Toronto. The staff is amazing and the restaurant serves great western food. (Inour opinion, the Thai food isn't as good but you can't have it all!). We feel like we've been here forever since we arrived before Christmas and are leaving in 2006! So what have we been up to for nine days? Not much but here are a list of the highlights (all other time was spent lazing on the beach reading as many books as possible):
* Christmas morning stockings -- we filled each other's hiking socks with little trinkets purchased on the island. Kristy received a coveted Beer Chang t-shirt in addition to neon bandaids and other practical traveling items. Matt received an Adrian Mole book, a new yellow rain poncho, mentos gum , a Koh Tao calendar and other exciting trinkets purchased from the convenience store.
* Christmas dinner - Thai buffet with friends Bob and Wendy.
01 Xmas Dinner
Matt didn't care for the buffet but the company more than made up for it. Strangely, they have fireworks here on Christmas which cracked us up.* Snorkel Trip -- We joined Bob and Wendy on an exciting snorkel trip around the island, stopping at various reefs filled with coral and fish. The snorkeling here is great and very accessible from various beaches or inexpensive water taxis.
* Scuba Diving -- Matt tested out the world of scuba diving with guided "fun" dive about 12 meters deep. There's probably a certification course in his future at some point.
* New Year's Eve -- We splashed out on New Year's by upgrading from our ($26 a night)little beach hut to the Honeymoon Bungalow. Wow what a difference! It was gorgeous, private and even had an Ipod and speakers for use in the room! We had an outside sleeping platform as well as a sundeck and AC!!! It was definitely worth the extra cash. We had dinner at the resort complete with grilled king prawn, white snapper, mashed potatoes, salad and a bottle of Australian wine. (Wine is tough to come by and very expensive so definitely a treat). As I mentioned we didn't make it to midnight but we know the rest of the island did because the techno music didn't stop thumping until 9:30 am this morning!!!!! I think that's the only word of caution we would have about visiting Koh Tao. Although it's convenient to stay near town at a resort like Sensi Paradise, the noise from the bars and clubs that are springing up here and there can be disturbing to sleep. Even on non-holidays we could hear the annoying thump of the bass. Hwever, the downside of staying out of town is that you have higher transport costs if you need to go buy groceries or get to the Internet. Ideally, the island would put some regulations around noise to save it from being overrun by techno maniacs. We would hate to see this beautiful island and Sensi Paradise suffer because a bunch of 18 year-olds can't live without the latest trance music mix.
