Koh Tao, Thailand

Oct 23 - Nov 07 '18

2 wonderful weeks on the popular diving island of Thailand. After arriving in Chumphon, we quickly noticed that there is actually nothing to see here except for the night market. So we made the spontaneous decision to bridge our time until the VISA run on Koh Tao. What a brilliant idea.

So the next day we sailed for three hours on the ferry across the Gulf of Thailand. Completely tired and exhausted, we reached the sunny island and first of all fell on the beach, which we had longed for after three weeks in the north. Our next days were very rainy, so we didn't really get out of our corner. Moreover, EVERYONE on Koh Tao rides a scooter. But we found that quite scary because there are mostly very steep, narrow, slippery roads here and people drive like crazy. The taxi prices are astronomical. So we spent 4 days hanging out at Sairee Beach, which was right in front of our door.

A few things immediately caught our attention. There are more white people than Thais here, the power lines crackle so loudly that you think you will get an electric shock when you touch them, and the prices for everything have tripled (even the drinking water!).

So for breakfast we usually had two mangoes for each of us, the best we have ever eaten, we are sure of that.

In addition, there is a diving school every 10 meters on every corner. So our casual idea of getting the Open Water diving license quickly became reality. Koh Tao is one of the most beautiful diving areas worldwide and is considered the cheapest place in the world to be trained as an Open Water Diver. However, choosing a good school is very important and not easy with 50 different ones. Based on several recommendations, internet research and our own inspection, we finally decided to go to Big Blue Diving. And our expectations were met in every detail.

We showed up there without an appointment and with all our luggage and were able to start our course on the same day. Our group consisted of very interesting people, which made these four days very funny. Our diving instructor SJ from Holland was only cracking jokes and singing (even underwater), but he also taught us diving very well. The 3 Americans in our group could not have been more different. A loud Texan who couldn't fit the stereotype any more, a hippie woman who works as a life coach and performed a very bizarre "Ecstatic Dance" with us, and a typical backpacker without a job and without a home from New York. There was also a British guy with a dry sense of humor. Diving itself is truly an "experience of a lifetime" and I can recommend everyone to try it out. We liked the atmosphere there so much that we also did 4 fun dives and a day trip to Sail Rock. It was super impressive, unfortunately the underwater visibility became very poor in the end, so we finally said goodbye. After a week, this was the first place here in Thailand where we already felt at home.

Now it's time to hop over the border to Myanmar. We decided to do only a short visa run, as it is much cheaper than spending a week there.

Please excuse my terrible writing style, but grammar and spelling are the last things I think about right now :)

Until next time🤙🏽