Koh Tao – Snorkelling Heaven

Sunset on the first night

After we checked into our bungalow on Koh Tao, we slept for the morning (not much sleep on the night boat) and then went out for an English breakfast at the cafe next door. We then went out in search of the snorkelling area, which meant clambering over rocks and through murky water. At first I was really disheartened, as the water looked really dirty and I spotted what I thought was a sewage pipe leading into it. Jemma had read on the internet, that the water in Koh Tao is dirty so you have to be careful in case you have any mossie bites that might get infected. Also, we have come to expect, as standard, that the water in the showers in the hotels will smell of sewage, either for the first few minutes of running the shower or for the full duration of the shower. We have been brushing our teeth with bottled water ever since our sink spat out brown water on Koh Phi Phi. I told Jemma that I had had enough of islands and couldn't wait to get to Bangkok. However, after a while more of walking and wading through the sea, we finally came to a bay with a few people snorkelling in it. As soon as I looked into the water, I could see huge fish around my feet, and the water was so clear! We immediately began to snorkel and were stunned by what we saw. Clown fish, trigger fish, parrot fish, every fish you could imagine. So many more fish than we saw on the Barrier reef! This is without a doubt the best snorkelling we have found on the round the world trip. We continued snorkelling for about 2 hours but then had to leave to go back to the bungalow because we had agreed to meet Jemma's friend from home, Lisa for dinner at 5.30. We rushed back, in the sweating heat, got ready and then walked the 4km into the main town (we regretted having picked a hotel so far out). Jemma really wanted to do a PADI diving course, but after my traumatic experience on the great Barrier Reef, I didn't want to do it. Thailand is one of the cheapest places in the world to get certified (only £200) but even so, I didn't want to spend that much money on something I didn't think I would enjoy. Jemma was very disappointed and didn't want to do it alone... to cut a long story short, we ended up signing up for a PADI course and paying a £10 deposit, with a company that Jemma's brother's friend works for. We then went to meet Lisa for dinner in town, who wasn't very well and had to go home early to lie down. We walked the 4k back to our hotel in the dark, with so many mopeds speeding past us (Koh Tao has too many mopeds). When we got in, I just couldn't rest with my decision to do the course, I was too scared and told Jemma I was going to pull out the next day and lose the £10. She decided to do the intro dive and not the rest of the course. Then we went to bed. As we were lying in our beds trying to get to sleep, Jemma came out with: 'I've been having really disturbing thoughts...' when I probed and asked what the thoughts were, a problem shared is a problem halved, she told me she was worried there was a murderer on the lose and that they might break into our hut. I wish I'd never probed. We hardly slept a wink that night, every time the fan made the curtain twitch, we thought someone was outside our window. We were terrified. It was the girl on the minibus' fault, who told us that she was worried the driver was taking us to the middle of nowhere to kill us and sell our organs. We left the bathroom light on and tried to go to sleep. As if we weren't scared enough, there was a power cut, and the fan and the bathroom light suddenly went off. I was convinced someone had done it on purpose in order to facilitate the murder. After a while, the fan and light came back on, and somehow we went to sleep, we didn't get much sleep though as the next day we had to be up at 7.00 to check out and go to the diving school.

Koh Tao Photos