Koh Tao

Leaving Koh Phayam and heading for Ko Tao was a last minute decision made the night before we left. We read about the island in a travel guide somebody left behind at our hotel. We booked a ticket with a lady? travel agent who hand wrote a ticket and told us to look for Mr. Pow when getting off the ferry to the mainland. You have to be trusting in these situations so off we went looking for Mr. Pow. I thought we had a snag when the ferry ubruptly turned and changed destination from the ferry dock to a random commercial fishing pier. The gangway was thrown across and we were asked to get off. I asked the conductor if they intended to continue to the ferry dock and he replied incredulously, "of course not, there's no water!" He was referring to it being low tide and the ferry's inability to make port at its scheduled time. Luckily, we found Mr. Pow mixed amongst the fishermen in the fish drying shed. Pow whisked us away to a restaurant that watched our bags as we checked out the town's market until our bus was ready. The bus took us from the west coast to the east coast of Thailand. We were deposited at another restaurant to wait for another ride. At 9:30 pm we were thrown in the back of a truck and driven down a dark road to what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. Finally, we arrived at the night boat dock. We, it turned out, had purchased tickets on the commercial cargo boat. The ship was of a landing craft style with a front lowering gate to get goods on and off. 

They had the deck loaded up with everything from a giant pile of coconuts and motorcycles to eggs and water. We had to march through the cargo deck and up stairs through the crew area. The raggedy Thai crew greeted us with amused smiles. Finally we came to passenger quarters where we learned we actually would have beds to sleep on. The plan until this point was to string up hammocks, so bunks were a great improvement. 

We laid down in our bunks and were asleep before the boat left the dock. I awoke once at 3 am and walked out on the fantail to use the restroom over the stern. Looking around I could see traffic all around us out in the Gulf of Thailand. The night air was warm and refreshing. I miss the sea. 

We simply walked off the ferry a 0500 onto the dark mainstreet of Koh Tao. A man was standing there and asked if we wanted to scuba dive and if we needed a place to stay. Yes and yes we told him and he offered us a place. We signed up for an advanced open water scuba course two hours later and the dive school gave us a beach front bungalow on the house for the duration of our stay. 

We dove 5 times over the next 2 days and studied between dives. The diving was good and it was nice to be busy. We had a really cool Italian dive instructor named Mateo. We did a night dive our second night there which is always exciting. 

Before leaving the island we took our scooter to check out some viewpoints on the island. Riding on bikes goes back to the start of Arwyn's and my relationship, so we always enjoy these times. 

After this it was off on a ferry headed south to Koh Phangan to reunite with Ben and Autumn. We had a blast diving and were exhausted. A successful time on Koh Tao all in all.