Bangkok and Koh Tao

Sorry for the lack of updates so far, we've been too busy! This is going to be a bit long and rambly, but the next post will be pictures!

Bangkok

The flight was 16 hours, but we got 3 meals and free drinks and snacks, and the time went quite quickly. After each meal we got little packets of "after dinner mints" which actually turned out be seeds flavoured with fennel and mint - they were extremely odd, especially when you're expecting a mint imperial! The security in Mumbai, which was our stopover, was insane. There were guards with giant AK47s and there were about 5 different security checks.

Our first hotel, the Baiyoke Sky hotel, was amazing - the room was massive and air conditioned and the views were incredible.

We spent our 2 days in Bangkok shopping (hooray!). We visited MBK, which is a huge shopping centre, to get Thai sim cards and other bits, and the weekend market, which was astonishing. Both are warren-like with hundreds of different stalls. There's even a pet shop section at the weekend market, there were guys with boxes of puppies, we were sorely tempted to buy ourselves a little travelling buddy!


Koh Tao

We took the night bus to Koh Tao on Saturday, which was a bit of an adventure! We waited about 2 hours to get the 515 to the southern bus terminal, then overshot the terminal by miles! We had to get a taxi back to the terminal from some random village miles from Bangkok.

The bus took about 8 hours, but was pretty luxurious. The seats reclined almost fully, and we got some free crazy Thai snacks and drinks. We even had a hostess lady! We got another coach to the dock from Chumpon station, then finally got a ferry at 7am to Koh Tao!

We're staying in a little hut about a minute's walk from the beach (and the bar) with no hot water or flushing toilet! It's very basic, but beautiful. Koh Tao is really a paradise island.

We started our PADI SCUBA course the day after we arrived and have just finished the Advanced today. It is SO MUCH harder than it looks!! We've both got our sea legs now, I feel like I'm rocking just sat at the computer!

Diving is amazing, we've seen clownfish (Nemo!), angelfish, stingrays, loads of urchins and barracuda, triggger fish - there are so many fish! we're going to Shark Bay tomorrow to snorkel and hopefully spot lots of sharks!

We're going to stay on Koh Tao for another couple of days, then get the ferry to Koh Phangan, we'll give an update from there!

To follow is a post from John about food, which he is obsessed with, and a post full of pictures.

Bye!

Imogen

XXX