Koh Tao

From Bangkok I jumped on a night train. Unfortunately I got the upper bunk, meaning it was way more claustrophobic and made for tiny Asian people. I am a giant out here folks, maybe not in America but here, ahh man. I couldn't imagine being actually tall out here...Originally my train ticket was for Surat Tani, but after talking to to a bunch of people they told me to get off at Chumpon. Chumpon was the main jumping off point to get to all the islands and Surat Tani was the jump off point further south. So, I did that. On the train it was filled with Thai people and a couple travelers. I got set up with this Thia grandma lady who didn't speak a word of English but we both tried to communicate with each other. Very difficult. I was eating some food and offered it to her, she refused but later on she busted out her tupperware full of rice and goodies. She offered some to me but this time I refused. I was drinking a Chaing, give me a break. On the way down the train stopped a few times to pick up and drop off people. When this happens food carts rush in and try and sell you food and drinks. Pretty rad though. I had no idea what they were selling. Mostly it was a plastic bag filled with these cookie like treats and doused with this brown fury hairs that lay on top of it. This bag was organized like a bag of oreos and had about 12 cookies inside. The Thai lady must have loved these things because she bought 6 or 7 bags of these. She's crazy. I asked her what they were but she just smiled at me and pointed to the bag for me to buy them. Next time around I bought a bag. They were good. Weird fluffy flavor but good.

Later on I asked one of the workers when the stop for Chumpon was and if he could wake me when we arrived. It was at 3:15 a.m. and there is no intercom on when and what stop your at, so you gotta be on point and ready to go when they stop. I fell asleep, woke up in a frantic, the guy didn't wake me up. He was passed out in-between the box carts layered in pillows and blankets like he was having a private slumber party. I woke him up. Got ready and jumped off the train. From there waited a few hours for the bus to take us to the pier. From there to Koh Tao. Lots of traveling in one night, about a whole day. On the ferry I met this chick Andre-Anne from Quebec. She was a French-Canadian. This girl has been traveling by bike since Vietnam! Hard as nails and non-shelon when we were talking about it. Made it sound like it wasn't a big deal. On top of that the bike was in horrible shape. Not even a road bike but a mountain bike. She did this for a reason to blend in with the crowd so the bike wouldn't get stolen. Anyways we ended up looking for accommodation together and going to the same scuba diving shop.

As we arrive in Koh Tao it struck me with amazement, white sand beaches filled with large bulky craters that pile on top of one another like play-doh. Some of the rock formations didn't even make sense, it's like the rocks were just balancing on top of each other and if you pushed them they would crumble down the mountain. Regardless, one incredible site to see. I consider this place paradise but each place I go to I say that, so I'll just put it in my top 10.

Andre and I got off the ferry and searched for a room. Luckily this guy sold us on accommodation so we got a free taxi ride to the dive shop. I ended up getting a 10 dive package and they paid for my bungalow. Which was right on the sand and epic view of this point called the Buddha rock.

First day of diving I soon realized that I signed up with a French boat. Everyone (20 + people) were all French. Lots of which couldn't speak English. Then there was me, only American that can only speak one language. Typical American. Oh well, we all got along great and the diving was insane. Saw lots of bull sharks, schools of barracuda, coral, fish I don't even know the names of and more. One of the dives we got surrounded by a school of fish (easily 2000 fish) covered us 360 degrees. I started to swim left and right to catch them but no luck.

Last dive I had I made the decision to do a night dive. I've been wanting to do a night dive since day one and this was my opportunity, so I jumped on it. Kinda nervous going into it. All they give you is a torch and that's it. When we decent-ed into the unknown you see pretty much nothing. Whatever you point at is what you see. So the dive was very slow. You couldn't see the reef until a couple feet away so you had to be careful. The hardest part about a night dive was keeping the right buoyancy. You have no depth reception so we were bumping into each other left and right. Each time the dive master found something we would all get close, but would constantly hit each others tanks together. Some things we saw were flat worms, blow-fish, stingrays, and oh the plankton. We all sat at the bottom of the ocean, turned the lights off and this bright florescent plankton sparkled everywhere you moved your hands at. So cool. That was one of the best parts of the night dive. As we came up toward the surface all you could see was black, then all of a sudden you pop out of the water and see stars surrounding you. This was quite the site. Night diving was amazing and highly recommend it. So glad I made that decision. Tomorrow, I head to koh phangan for the full moon party. What will happen here?