Koh Tao (Turtle Island)

After Koh Phangan we took the short ferry north to Koh Tao, we were planning on spending a night or two only here but I ended up signing up to do my PADI open water license, so we're here for 4 nights. Yesterday I had to return to the classroom to watch some tedious videos and then today we spent a few hours diving in the swimming pool. The next two days I have to be up at 7.15am (!) to head out and do a couple of dives on each day. After that I have to sit a test and then I should get my open water diving license. Very exciting, bit of a burn on the wallet but I figure It's a pretty good opportunity to do it. The place we're staying and doing the diving is a massive place by the looks of things, so many Rahs around here though, it's like a cliquey club of gap yahs - a bit strange but pretty chilled. The grounds are nice but we had our first bit of accommodation we really weren't happy with last night, we just got put in some dirty little room infested with ants and spiders (I think the rooms is usually held off until they're busy since every other room is numbered but we were in room 'number' A). Anyway, thankfully today we've been moved to somewhere a lot nicer.

Sadly Maddy couldn't do it also because she has problems with her ears, so diving would basically mean days of pain and probably trips to the doctor - not really worth it. Thankfully she can still come on the boat with us and go snorkelling around the diving spots if she wants to - which will be nice that I'm not the only one getting up at stupid o clock.

No more pictures yet - the internet around here is all 2baht/minute which is about 4p/minute, considering how long the photos are taking to upload it's not really worth it so we're going to wait until we find somewhere a bit cheaper.

After Koh Tao we're going to head across to the islands on the west side of Thailand to see what they're all about. Not really much else to say other than we have been kicking back, loads of fresh fish barbecues here which are awesome. We ate Barracuda steaks last night which were incredible, going to watch the Arsenal game tonight. Was pretty gutted that we couldn't find anywhere to show the Leicester game on Friday but whenever we asked we were just told "no, small team" - brutal. Got caught in our first proper bit of rain today, never seen it raining so hard, I'm pretty sure some thunder hit the building we were sitting in as well, pretty scary!

On the scuba diving theme here is some music from Scuba, he bridges the gap between techno and dubstep really well, really unique stuff and his label Hotflush Recordings puts out some amazing music. I'd seriously recommend checking out his Triangulation album, easily one of my favourites of 2010 - can't pick one song so here are three. The first two are just quality tunes and the third a bit more representative of his dancefloor stuff, enjoy.

Full Moon Party

On Monday night we headed out to the infamous Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan, thankfully about ten minutes before our "taxi" there we went and got chatting to a couple of guys who are from near London, they were meeting up with a few people from a resort opposite ours too so in the end we had a nice little crew of about ten of us - everyone was so cool, we really feel lucky that we met such a genuinely nice group of people before heading down because the night was infinitely better for it.

The party itself was crazy, incredible atmosphere with thousands of people from all over the world partying on the beach.

Yesterday was spent having some much needed downtime, but one of the guys we headed down with had his birthday, so we ended up sat on the beach sipping beers 'til 4am just chatting - really nice atmosphere. Sadly everyone else headed over to Koh Tao today but hopefully we will catch up with some of them down the line at some point. It is our last night in Ban tai tonight, after which we head up to the north of the island to Thong Nai Pan which supposedly has beaches that are even nicer than these. We feel that the bar has been set pretty high now after the past few days we've had and the people we've met - if we can carry on with more of the same it's going to be a great four months!!

We found a cheeky little bar at full moon party playing some drum and bass - I bumped into someone i knew from Manchester outside which was a pretty big coincidence, this is one of the tunes that stands out most from the night!

Welcome to Thailand

Finally arrived in Thailand after a lengthy couple of flights - didn't manage to get too much sleep on either of them so have been feeling pretty tired since we touched down. We arrived pretty early on so checked in at the hotel, had some lunch and set off to see Bangkok. First we headed down to Wat Pho, one of the bigger temples in Bangkok, it was all very impressive, despite the significance of it being slightly lost on us. We randomly bumped into Goldie strolling round the temples too which was pretty unexpected - there are loads of photos uploaded now on the flickr page if you fancy a look, quality control is pretty nonexistent on the photos though, sadly.

After that we decided to head down to Khao San Road - the taxi driver that brought us from the airport told us that it was Thai New Year and we should expect to get very wet - in hindsight that was a bit of an understatement as we were soon to find out. The tuk tuk couldn't even get close to Khao San Road since it was absolutely rammed full of people - literally thousands upon thousands of Thai people all armed with buckets of water, water guns and a concontion of flour and water which they enjoyed spreading all over our faces. Khao San Road is a pretty infamous backpacker spot, but to be honest westerners made a tiny fraction of the amount of people there on friday - presumably because it was Thai New year, we will head back to see what it is all about when we are back in Bangkok after the carnage of new year has calmed down. We eventually made it to the end of the road after stopping off at a couple of bars on the way - we had to walk for about 20 minutes before cars and tuk tuks were around again because of the massive amounts of people that were about - it's hard to describe in words really, the ultimate water fight that you could only dream of as a kid, except we had no gun....

After that we headed back to the hotel to get dry and get some food - the water fight carried on all the way home except it was a lot less concentrated (still had a couple of full buckets of water poured over us at traffic lights though!) - it was a very good time, really friendly atmosphere everywhere, people would rub the flour in your face, say thankyou and then carry on down the road!

On saturday we got up early and headed out to Chatuchak Market which was absolutely huge, but pretty good fun. Afterwards we headed off  to Chinatown to try and get some food before our train to Koh Phangan. This turned out to be a bit more difficult than we anticipated. When we got out the taxi we found ourselves at a decent looking restaurant and headed inside, when they bought the menus over though everything was ridiculously overpriced - we think they bought us a different version of the menu (more expensive) since it wasn't the nicest place in the world, but cost more than a decent Chinese meal would do back home. We decided to move on, which the waitress didn't seem to happy about, oh well! We carried on for a little while but couldn't really find anything that appealed except some dodgy looking street food - we admitted defeat and headed back to the restaurant at the hotel before going to get the train.

Like the flights on the way over here, the train started out as great fun, but became a little tedious after hours of trying to get to sleep with not alot of luck! Anyway, after a 12 hour train journey (the train seemed to stop and start about every half hour, so not surprising it took so long), 2 hour coach and a  3 hour ferry we eventually arrived at Koh Phangan. It was definitely worth the wait! We're staying in a tidy little resort right on the beach front which is so chilled out - the pictures do it more justice than i can so i won't go on too much. Suffice to say it has exceeded our expectations though. The food is incredible and the owners are really laid back. Going to be a nice few days i think - we open our door to this!

Finally got round to signing on here and catching up with things. Pretty disappointed to see Leicester lost, and my fantasy football team took a battering - never fun, but i don't think i'll be losing sleep on it. We're going to get showered and get some food soon - then head out to watch the Arsenal game. Tomorrow night is the full moon party so we're going to make sure we're all caught up with sleep before that!!


In case anyone was wondering, it's very hot! Had a listen to the ( ) album by Sigur Ros on the train to try and send me to sleep (the train was very loud), it didn't work too well but made trying a bit more enjoyable!

Bags packed, ready to go!!

There we go! To be honest, just wanted to make sure i knew what i was doing posting photos on here, hardly the most interesting photo in the world! That said, there is a link to my flickr account at the side of the page - all the photos i take will be uploaded there so there is a link if anyone fancies a look!

We fly tomorrow morning at 10am, can't wait!! See you all on the other side.


The Minilogue album was getting a spin on the train to London

One Week To Go!

Just under a week to go until we fly out now! Right now most of my time is being spent arming the ipod for four months without an update - new music galore! I'm also trying to rip my whole vinyl collection to mp3 which is taking a very long time, should be worth it in the end!

The plan: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and then Japan.

I'll keep the blog updated with some photos and what music we're listening to, so on that note here is a a song from Tipper's most recent album, Broken Soul Jamboree