Koh Tao - 9-12 March

Now, given that this is the first trip in quite a while for either of us, I suggested the train for a bit of a novelty, as well as an opportunity to see the countryside as we moved down the peninsula. And yes, it saved us a night’s accommodation

Anyway, we got on board around 16h00 on the 8th and headed into the setting sun. Ah. I hadn’t really thought this through. The sun set as we left Bangkok so we saw next to nothing except arb train stations and sidings through the night until our stop at 5am in Chumphon (in the dark).

All loaded up and ready for our train trip! 2nd class with aircon!	Booze is the most expensive thing in Thailand, but sometimes you just gotta (a lot)
A guy came through, folded down our seats to make a bunk bed with linen.	5 star ablutions! You can see the tracks straight through the hole in the toilet.

 
The train trip, however, wasn’t too bad. We chose 2nd class (with aircon!) which consisted of the seats of either side of the central walkway being folded down into bunk beds. A curtain slid across the front of the beds so you had privacy. Actually very peaceful – the noise of the train easily drowned out the racket of any snoring. Cath struggled a bit to sleep because the upper curtain didn’t block out the passage’s lights, which stay on all night. I had to stay down below to guard our backpacks, should there be any thieving South Africans on board – I don’t think the Thai would touch them.

The guy who came through the carriage making all the beds wore a surgical mask – now how did he find out about my stinky socks?! The surgical masks were quite common in the cities, mostly in Bangkok where I’d say 1 in 20 or 30 people wore them.

Little water feature on the Chumphon platform	Urgent cup of siff coffee to get the eyes open. Even Cath looked stuffed – and she loves the early mornings!

A bus took us to the nearby dock where we boarded a ferry for the 1h30 trip to the island. Got off to a shaky start when I got off the bus to discover my bag wasn’t in the pile of bags that had been offloaded. I gave my bag to someone loading at the station and he’d walked around to the other side of the bus, presumably to another baggage hold. The South African panicked!!! Far too early in the trip to lose ALL my clothes! Once everyone had picked up their bags and walked towards the ferry only one bag was left. Sort of similar to mine. I took it and ran to the ferry, hoping like hell someone had taken mine by mistake, and lo, there did scamper a Frenchman towards me, looking equally pale and sickened and clutching my backpack! All smiles and apologies and “Phew”s of relief (I don’t know how he would have spelt it) and we steamed off (ok, dieselled off) to Koh Tao.

The very long jetty along which I did the half-jog of panic with someone else’s bag	Arriving in Koh Tao…. Aaah
Typical island village – awesome!	This holiday is going to be gooood!

Our Koh Tao hotel was called Simple Life, but we were in a newly built block and the rooms were big, very comfortable and very quiet. Apparently Cath made a request to be far from the madding crowd and they literally couldn’t have stuck us further away. It took 5mins to get to the front of the hotel by the street. But it was a great spot. The hotel collected us at the ferry and drove us straight to the hotel, maximising time on the beach. I think a beach swim was our first activity.

Second activity was Cath’s urgent need for cocktails	Our hotel (bright yellow sign) in the middle of our street
Sightseeing around the island – I had to sprint to get into the pic with the timer running	Just soaking up the sun and vista

We agreed to hire a scooter at every island we could, so we could explore the whole island and not just spend every day lying on the beach. In the end we probably only spent the equivalent of one full day on the beach the whole trip! Just so much to see!!

One of many viewpoints around the very steep and rocky island	When the scooter couldn’t make it up the hill with two, Cath had to leg it while I motored up past her, shouting words of encouragement behind me (“Put some effort into it!”)
So much of snorkelling sexiness. Cath looks ok too	Nearly lost a finger on the sharp coral!

The racket are cicadas – this is a resort with temple statue and beautiful beach	A great spot for a cocktail and swim

Every resort on the island pretty much has their own beach, bar and restaurant. And they are open to all – better revenue I suppose. They restrict their swimming pools from the general public but are more than happy for us to swim in the sea, and eat and drink from their beachside bar, which does make exploring the island a lot more worthwhile.