Koh Tao Island, Thailand

What an adventure we had getting here. We got the night bus from Chiang Mai on Saturday night. I was huddled up with no space to move as usual. We arrived in Bangkok the following morning at 7am. Rather than getting another bus, we decided to get a train to Chumphon, so we could get a ferry to the islands. It turned out the early trains were full so we had to wait until 10.45pm that night for one, which isn't exactly great considering all the travelling we did so far. And to make things worse, I was really run down from lack of sleep with a bad chest infection. I guess when you travel, delays are unavoidable. Rather than spending the day at the train station, we decided to get the bus to the MBK shopping centre to kill a few hours. Eventually, as the hours past, our train to Chumphon was ready for us. Like everything in Thailand, it was an hour late arriving at our destination, which meant we were too late for the early ferry, so again, we were waiting on another mode of transport. However, they did offer to delay the ferry for us, if we paid a fee. We said no. Imagine the dirty looks we would have gotten from the other passengers. I thought Ireland was bad, but Thailand is in a league of its own. We got a coach down to the pier where we waited for our ferry to arrive. At this point I was still really sick and all I wanted to do was sleep. Myself and Jason got chatting with an American couple from New York. They were telling us all about there travels and how they had spent the last two years in Australia. We got some really useful advice from them, which was really good. After all the messing around, we finally made it onto the ferry, and before we knew it, we were in Koh Tao. Bear in mind that we left on Saturday evening and it is now Monday evening. We got pally with two girls when we were in Chiang Mai who were also on the island. They told us that they got a nice bungalow on the beach that wasn't too expensive. We got a taxi down to the Bow Thong resort. It worked out really well for us, because we were right on the beach and our bungalow was right a across from the girls. I was really hungry, so we decided to join the girls for dinner. At this point I wasn't feeling myself. Half way through my meal, I had to go up and lie down. Finally I was able to get some proper sleep which did me the world of good. The following morning, I was still not great, but an awful lot better. I wasn't able to do very much, so we spent the day on the beach, which was really nice. The beach was stunning with white sand, coconut trees as far as the eyes could see and beautiful warm, turquoise water. Going for a swim was like taking a hot bath. It was amazing, and the water was really shallow, which was perfect for Jason. We even managed to see a large turtle swimming in the distance, which was really cool. There was a lot happening along the beach with lots of bars and restaurants to chose from. Kathrin told us about this really cool bar, Lotus Bar, which had amazing fire shows. The guys doing the displays were so talented. Later on in the evening they set up a burning skipping rope for those daring enough. We then had the option of playing the limbo game but, like before, with a bar raging with hot flames. Jason and Kathrin decided to take part, which was fine. Finally, they setup a burning heart, which you had to jump through. Jason being brave decided to jump through it, which he had managed to do without hurting himself. However, he got too cocky, and did it a second time, except this time he really managed to hurt himself, but lucky enough the guys running it were quick to react and get the whole thing off him. He is a soldier and he has managed to survive to tell the tale. Probably my favourite thing that we did while we were here was getting a boat taxi to Koh Nangyuan island. It's only a small divers island but it is a really nice spot, where we saw some stunning fish from the reef. We then adventured through the island and ended up at the top of a mountain, climbing up onto large rocks. The views we had up here were spectacular. There is a very famous image of Koh Tao of two islands meeting, and this was the perfect spot to see this amazing image in reality. What a stunning view it was. From the boat ride to-and-from the island, to the island itself, all three of us had an amazing day out. Overall, we were really impressed with Koa Tao. It was a really nice island and the beach where we were staying was lovely. The island was not too touristy compared with other islands. I think it is safe to assume that we would like to return here at a later stage.

By Andrew

#travel #delays #trains #boat #island #reef #fish