and back to Koh Tao

After another crazy couple of days and another couple of crazy buckets it was time for us to leave the island.
Leanne was going nowhere without her full english, and FINALLY we had found somewhere that serves proper english sausages.
Finally.
So i gave in too.

From Koh Phi Phi back to Koh Tao is a little bit of a trek.
We caught the boat at 3.30pm to Krabi. Then a 3 hour bus to Surat Thani. Then an overnight (slow) 6 hour boat to Koh Tao.
But like i said, overnight travelling saves a nights accomodation and you don’t waste any sunbathing time…
Not that thats our priority or anything…

Overtired.

To our surprise our over night boat had beds!!! We haven’t had beds yet! For the last couple of weeks sleeping had been minimal and we were prepared to sit on upright plane like boat seats for 6 hours. So to see these…

Before we had decided to hop on a boat and catch up with the others in Koh Phi Phi we had come to Koh Tao to do an Open Water scuba diving course.

Koh Tao is one of the cheapest places in the world to do the course and once you have the certificate you can dive anywhere in the world.

We arrived at 6am and headed to a resort that had been recommended for diving. Simple Life 5* Dive Resort. We signed all the papers and chucked our bags down.

Seeing as the sun wasn’t yet out we headed to the doctors just to check a couple of things that were bothering us.

First up, Leanne.

Cleverly Leanne has stood on a sea urchin in the sea in Koh Phangan which had left two little dots on the bottom of her foot. They had given her no bother (happened a week prior to this) until now. It had become swollen and she was becoming a hop along.

The doctor said there was infection and the sea urchins needed to be removed. After hearing a couple of horror stories we had our sensible heads on and decided 60 GBP wasn’t the end of the world (2300 baht ish).

My injury i think was just a clumsy trip which had opened my toe, and a combination of stubbing it about 10 times and people standing on it it had got itself infected. And was silly sore to walk on. So i got it cleaned + dressed.

This was all well and good until we were told we couldn’t go in the sea for 5 days. And we had come here to scuba dive.
We had only just come back to Koh Tao and didn’t really have the time to hang around as the course takes 4 days itself. So we decided to chill out for a couple of days and give the diving here a miss.
Koh Phi Phi is actually in the top 10 diving locations so although it’s more expensive we may do it when we get back there.
It was a shame but there really wasn’t much we could do, and we kind of felt like we had gotten off lightly with these injuries after the last couple of weeks events.

Anyway we soon got over it…
We returned to O’Chai Bungalows on Sairee Beach (the place to be) where we paid 250 baht each for the night. (about 5 GBP)

It was a perfect location and clean BUT there were so. many. flies. and insects. Generally there are in Thailand but along with some random cockerel that decided to call at 5am 7am and 9am, some creature that moos like a cow and a lizard on the ceiling, i did for the first time- MISS MY OWN BED.

But as they say you never do remember the nights you slept well…

Leanne bandaged up.

Sairee Beach, Koh Tao.

Sunset, Koh Tao.

Our favourite restaurant by FAR on Koh Tao.
Portobello, Sairee Village, Koh Tao

Followed by a good pancake off the street stalls for 35 baht.
Banana + Nutella.

One thing i miss from home like crazy is music. I have my ipod and i’ve had a sing song but I havent had my guitar, been to a gig or had a good YouTube session in a month now!
So when we saw ‘LIVE acoustic music on the beach’ we were straight there.

It felt like the first time we had properly chilled out in a while and as we sat there in the candle light on the beach front to a cover of Mumford and Sons i realised how lucky i am.

When I’m at home, the rain is pouring and i just want to get on a plane. This right here is exactly where i’d want to be. And here i am.

For the last 4 weeks we have gone from one paradise to another and we have kind of started to take our surroundings for granted.

But this place is SO beautiful.

Mum will be proud. I hunted down a lady with a juicer to restore my vitamin levels!

Seeing as we couldn’t go in the sea, we wanted to do some exploring instead.
We waved down one of the taxi boats that line up along the shore and asked him to take us somewhere cool. Simple as that.
We had to paddle up to the boat but with Leannes more significant bandage and being the good friend that i am, i gave her a piggy back so that she kept dry.

And we arrived at a little island just off of Koh Tao.

Can’t get enough of the clear blue waters…

Hop along…

It was getting the the end of the day and the clouds had descended. All these photos are on my iphone as i dont like to take my camera over water, so these photos and clouds do not do this place justice.
But honestly this is one of the most beautiful places i have been and its so small and quiet too. Alot of the islands are just so commercial so this was a breath of fresh air.
(Definitely somewhere to have a wedding!!)

We returned to Portobello, and o.m.g.
I have never had a goats cheese salad anywhere as good as Fegos, but this one was serious competition.
Salad leaves with roasted peppers, onions, cucumber, crispy bacon, and warm goats cheese on top with a pot of raspberry to drizzle on top.
Wow.
So good we even went twice.