More fun and sun on the island of Koh Tao
Thursday, January 24th, 2008After an extended stay at Railey beach, we decided to get our act together and continue on with our trip…so we left our cozy west coast beach and headed out towards an east coast beach! Koh Tao is a small island off of the east coast of Thailand and is mostly known for its outstanding scuba diving. In fact, the beaches aren’t much to speak of, but the diving was certainly amazing. We signed up for two days of diving with a popular diving outfit on the “quiet” side of the island (away from the pier where the parties never end). Although the company was very professional, they did tend book a lot of divers for each dive. The boat was a little too crowded for our taste, especially after being spoiled in Pemba with our very own boat. We quickly came to find out that having 25 people on our boat was nothing compared to the amount of other divers there were in the water at our dive spots. At one point we counted five other dive boats in the water. There had to be about 75 or more people diving with us! It was madness. We spent a lot of time trying to avoid other divers than really enjoying the view of our dives, but we managed and we still saw some really beautiful fish, coral, turtles, etc. Definitely worth it, especially since it was only $60/two-tank dive with equipment included!
We were again able to score a cute bungalow (this time on the beach) on the south part of the island away from the main party/touristy areas. One of the first things we noticed were the number of dogs running around. The island was full of dogs, which made us miss our own, but we loved having some four legged friends hang out on the beach with us. They were so mellow…that is until about 1:00 in the morning when they all decided to howl at exactly the same time for about ten minutes straight. No idea what they were howling at, but every dog in the neighborhood joined in. It was kind of funny in a strange way until it happened again about an hour later….and then again an hour later. We weren’t too happy with our four legged friends after a few nights of restless sleep.
We took a break from scuba diving one day and decided that the best way for us to tour the rest of the island was to rent scooters! Neither of us had ever driven a scooter, but at least Christy had experience riding a motorcycle. It didn’t matter though, everyone rented scooters on the island regardless of whether they knew how to ride or not. We had a great time racing around and exploring remote beaches. We stumbled upon some really cool coves and remote beach bars where we enjoyed some delicious banana shakes.
After a fun day exploring around on the scooters, we were hanging around our bungalow deciding on what to do for dinner when Steve asked me to look at the cut on the bottom of his toe, which he got while we were on the beach in Pemba (Africa) almost two months ago. It was still swollen and I told him that we should probably have a doctor take a look at it. But, being the stubborn male that he is, he decided he would just buy more antiseptic for it and visit the doctor later. So, as I was getting into the shower, Steve headed out the door to find a convenient store for more antiseptic. He finally returned an hour later (the store was only a block away!!!), white as a ghost and all sweaty. I asked him where he’d been and he said that he came upon a clinic and decided that he would just ask inside for some antiseptic, but when he explained to the nurse why he needed it, the nurse became conserned and said he better have the doctor look at his cut. Of course, the cut was infected and the doctor needed to “open” it up to get the infection out. Most of you who know Steve, know that he cannot handle anything remotely due to blood or doctors or wounds, etc. So, the minute the doctor began working on him, he became sweaty and dizzy and asked her if he could lay down awhile. So, the doctor made him lay down on the sofa in the waiting room so that he didn’t pass out. She was able to clean up his cut, which was actually a hole in the bottom of his toe about 1/8 inch deep, bandage him, and send him on his way…all for less then 4 U.S. dollars. Amazing what third world health care can do. His cut was almost healed within a few days.
Steve