“B”angkok “W”omen “R”eally “A”re “F”ellas: Back to School on Turtle Island
More on the cryptic title later…
I thought I’d been clever, bearing in mind the word express, buying tickets for the Songserm Express ferry from Surat Thani to Koh Tao (via everywhere else first). It did turn out to be slower than every other ferry, save the appropriately named slow night boat.
About six hours later we approach the rickety wooden pier at Mae Haad, Koh Tao. A beautiful island, it’s name means turtle island, but (depending on what you read) all the locals ate them. Or my guidebook says it looks like a giant turtle perched on a rock- which it quite clearly doesn’t, unless you’d been on the Thai whiskey. Possibly.
Koh Tao is also known as the diving centre of Thailand, which is one of the reasons I came here. It’s also the cheapest place in the world to learn which did kind of influence my decision: about 140 pounds with accommodation.
After some excrutiating American videos and homework ploughing through an appallingly written and Americanised book, our Brit instructor Leigh at Master Divers (who I was recommened, and would pass on the recommendation too: their “shop” is the bar next to the Songserm Jetty, you really can’t miss it) takes the three of us out for four proper dives, and a few confined water sessions. The latter would normally be done in a pool, but we do them in nice warm tropical water with lots of curious fishes watching us as we go through the routine skills- and play an impromptu game of underwater frisby. On our third dive at Chumporn Pinnacles, we get a little too close to quite angry 2m black tipped reef shark, from which I am dragged back and down behind a coral mound from. It’s all on video.
As it’s so scandalously cheap, I do another couple of dives before I leave. All good fun.
Apart from this I manage to pass the week sunbathing next to my bungalow waiting for the tide to go out, and when it has, on the sand under the palms on Sairee Beach.
Have I said how hard a life this is?
(Oh and the title: it’s the easiest way to remember the pre-dive checks we were taught; nothing dodgy!!)
Tags: Travel
Nick