OFF TO THE ISLANDS: KOH TAO 🐠

Our final destination in the islands was Koh Tao. We wanted to do our open diving course here so we just booked one night accommodation at Sarin Guesthouse (£13.00 inc breakfast) as a lot of diving courses include accomidation. After some searching we booked with Ocean Republic based down by the ferry ports. It was 8500 BHT for 3 days SSI open diving including 3 nights accommodation (£210.00 approx). 

I won't bore you too much with the details but it involves mornings of theory and then afternoon dives except from the last day when you go out for a big morning dive.

I had a lot of trouble with my ears and had to equalise like every metre on the way down or I was in so much pain. At one point I didn't think I'd make it to 18m, our instructor, Diego was SO patient with me (as was Josh) and once I’d just given myself a bit of time to get down I was absolutely fine. I’m so proud of myself for pushing through and doing it. Such a incredible experience for Josh & I under the sea 👫🐠. I would deffo recommend this company and diving in Ko Toa! It’s magical 💖  

Ocean Republic as a company also support ‘Sea Shepherd’ (a non-profit conservation organisation). The dive school organise weekly beach clean ups and educated us on some of then issues with sea environment, the Coral etc. If anyone loves this kind of stuff watch ‘A plastic Ocean’ on Netflix it’s very eye opening! We also ventured out one night to Lotus Bar for the well known fire show. They have loads of seats on the beach and 3/4 guys playing with fire. Drinks are on the more expensive side (for Thailand) at 120-150 BHT (£3-4) but it’s free to watch and a great experience... just try not to wear hairspray.

We didn’t do much in Ko Tao other than dive as it took up most of the day, we also had the worst weather here out of the islands. 

We didn’t get a bike, it’s quite small but the roads are ALOT of steep hills, up and down but we did walk to the beach, to get coffee etc; was sweating like a PIG mind😂...

We ate at the same places quite a lot so I don't have too many recommendations on food in Ko Tao but.. Breakfast

Zest Cafe - probably one of the best breakfast places I've been to in Thailand. The full English and the 'Salt Rock' bagel were amazingggg. Around 100-140 BHT (£2.50-3.50ish).

Lunch

Baguette stands - they have quite a few stands along the road by the port; we always used for lunch or to take with us diving. Just simple fillings like tuna, egg, ham etc but they were 60 BHT (£1.50ish)They also do a lot of juices and smoothies for 50 BHT (£1.10ish) so we just stuck to these the majority of the time we were there.

Dinner

BamBam - Cheap local food place - I had seafood glass noodles here everyday LOL 80 BHT (£2 ish) and it was the biggest portion ever. Josh also tried the hamburger, pad Thai and fried rice and they were all also good! 

We really lucked out with our weather in the islands considering it was wet season. The rain did effect visibility of diving but we were just grateful for the ok weather. 10 days to do the islands was just enough time to get everything done we wanted to - we could of easily spent a lot longer here though! It was a perfect getaway before a wild week in Ko Chang (won't be blogged - basically slept, tanned and drank!). 

Unfortunately I did have a football to mouth incident while drinking from a large glass which enforced a no ball games by pool rule. I now have half a front tooth hanging on for dear life. Just hold in there 6 more weeks pal 🤦🏼‍♀️. Next stop -> Canggu, Bali! AbbieJS xxx

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