So the alarm was set for 4.55am. Jamie’s was set for 5am should my alarm not work. What could go wrong eh? Two alarms on two different phones sure we’re bound to wake surely? Unfortunately something had not dawned on us, and I am assuming would not dawn on many people. As we’re on a budget, and a strict one at this rate, we opted for one of the cheaper rooms available near Khao San Road. This particular room came with a fan rather than proper air conditioning. Being the Irish people that we are, the weather in Bangkok can be sweltering and this does not differ at night therefore we had the fan on high. The fan being very noisy unfortunately drowned out the sheer ringing of both our alarms!!! Only for me wanting to know the time during the night did I remove my phone from the plug way over in the corner and bring it back to bed with me and put under my pillow during the night. I barely heard the familiar sounds I so often dreaded when rising at 7am back home, but at this stage it was 5.09am! Oh my god, we had 21 minutes to get up, get ready, check out and make our way to the bus. We got there by 5.25am. Boy, did we hurry! The bus then left at 5.49am. I guess everyone who had booked was already checked in and boarded at this point.
Yippee we were on our way to Koh Tao.
On board the Lomprayah High Speed Ferries - I'm looking very exhausted at this stage!
We arrived in to Chumphon Pier around 1.15pm, an exhausting 7.5 hours later, or thereabouts and to Koh Tao about 3pm.
Koh Tao is like paradise, as in, actual Paradise. After arriving on Tuesday we just lounged around for the afternoon and went and got something to eat later in the evening. On Wednesday then we hit the beach for most of the day and decided to look for new accommodation because we weren’t entirely satisfied with the one we stayed in the previousnight . For starters there was no Wi-Fi (advertised as having Wi-Fi but didn’t reach the room we were in, just the reception) and secondly the owners weren’t the friendliest. In that, when we requested something of them e.g. laundry service, it was almost like we were intruding or something! So we found somewhere else a little closer to the town, with Wi-Fi (woohoo!) and cheaper at 550 baht/night (€14).
Relaxing on the beach, I didn't notice the stranger sunbathing in
the background until afterwards!
What a sunset!
On Thursday we had decided the day before we would go on a snorkelling tour. We had passed a few places that advertised for 500 baht (€12.50) a whole 250 cheaper than anywhere else. I read some reviews online and it appeared that the AC Tours crowd advertising at 500 baht were just as good as the others plus all the boats stopped at the same points anyway so we weren’t actually missing out on anything by choosing the cheaper option. The tour included endless teas & coffees, water, fruit (watermelon and pineapple), lunch which was fried rice with either vegetables or chicken and rental of the gear, not bad! That morning we rose at 8am, checked out of our hotel at 8.30am, arrived at our new hotel at 8.55am and got to the AC Tours for 9.20am. Great timing as we were due to leave at 9.30am. We even had time to stop for some fruit in 7-Eleven along the way.
We didn’t end up leaving until about 10.30am or so, I think there might have been something wrong with the boat but we had an absolutely brilliant time. I had invested in a pair of prescription snorkelling goggles before I left home and I was delighted I did. I probably wouldn’t have bothered with the snorkelling otherwise, as I wouldn’t have been able to see anything! (Me and contact lenses don’t see eye to eye either, pun intended!) I used the Go Pro for a lot of it and the footage is pretty cool. I must put a video together at some point. For now though the photos speak for themselves. We also visited a little island called Nang Yung Island, this incurred a further charge of 100 baht each (€2.50 each) however it was so worth it. We did another bit of snorkelling there and finally lay on some lounge chairs. We spent a total of two hours or so here and made it back to Koh Tao for about 5pm.
Our first snorkelling dive off Koh Tao - happy out!
You say Paradise I think of Nang Yung Island. Wow.
Thumbs up!
So we’re both exhausted after our day in the water and we’re relaxing for the evening in our new hotel room with Wi-Fi!
Happy out. Sure why wouldn't we be after a day like that!