Koh Tao and Bangkok and nearly my birthday!!
Wednesday 13th December 2006
Koh Tao is a beautiful island. We didnt explore very much of it but even the commercial parts are still fairly unspoilt and you can definitely relax here. We stayed on Sairee Beach. This is a lovely beach where you can sit in the evening having a drink and watch the sunset. Absolutely amazing to watch the sky turn all different shades of pinks. The only down side of the beach here is that mid morning the tide starts to come in and so you dont get much of a beach in which to sunbathe on. The local Thai occupents also havent really got on to the idea that they need to provide lots of sunbeds either so it is a case of trying to find a dry spot that is not so crowded you are actually lying on top of someone.
For us this wasnt so much of a big deal because we went diving. We did two dives around Koh Tao, one at Green Rock, where our dive master who took us out started getting attacked by triggerfish and he had a complete freak in the water. Quite funny now but he was really scared. He said that here is the only place that Triggerfish actually attack you. Funny really. We did see lots of other fish although i do need to work on my buoyancy. I basically couldnt keep down underwater on the second dive. Not great when you are trying to dive.
We left Koh Tao and are now back in Bangkok. Yesturday we went to Kanchanaburi. This is where we visited the Tiger Temple and The Bridge Over The River Kwae. Very interesting and a great day, although we did do a lot of travelling and on our own steam too. We caught a local bus to Kanchanaburi and then another to The Tiger Temple. The bus dropped us off outside so we began walking. Suddenly a mini bus turns into the road and stops and tells us to get in as it is too far to walk. We get a free lift to the temple. Pretty cool. It was a pretty long way. The temple is famous because the monks there look after all sorts of wild animals that visit the temple including tigers. You can go and stroke the tigers and have pictures with them. There are animals everywhere. Now, im not the greatest animal lover and mixing with big horses, cows, Asian bears, pigs, peacocks and chickens all in one go is a bit overwhelming. Different though.
We then left and began walking to the main road when a mini bus pulls up and says we shouldnt be walking, “two girls on our own its dangerous”. How it is dangerous outside a temple i have no idea but we got a lift to the bridge anyway which was pretty handy as the local buses come every half an hour to an hour. The driver was Thai and he was driving three guys from Singapore. One guy from Singapore said it was like “a chicken talking to a duck” when they communicate. So funny. We hopped out at the bridge, thanked them and walked accross the bridge that is still in operation. The bridge wasnt as big as i thought it would be but it is still impressive. The bridge was build when the Japanese occupied Thailand. They used POW to build it and many many died building it. The bridge still links Thailand with Burma today.
Tomorrow is my birthday!!! Yay!! I will be hitting a quarter of a century. I cant quite believe it myself. I am very excited.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that i have a monk pen pal! Very bizarre but when we were in Laos we got chatting to some monks and we exchanged emails and one of them is emailing me to practice his English – how cool is that??!!
Tags: Bangkok, diving, Koh Tao, Thailand, tiger temple, Travel
georgiebees
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