Thailand - Koh Tao - part 3

After a long day on the beach in the sun it was time to get ready as we were off to see a Lady Boy show (Lady boys are are men dressed up as women for a dance show, some in various forms of sex change). We arrived early to get good seats and soon the place started to fill up, let the show begin, the show was very entertaining and we had loads of fun with songs like "It's raining men" and music by ABBA plus may more catchy songs with the lady boy giving it all to the delight of the audience. In the end several men from the audience were asked to change into drag to try their luck on stage and this ended the show, people leaving with big smiles on their face.



The days are gettting hotter (33 degrees in the shade) so our energy levels are a bit low at times so we spend a lot of time lying around either tanning or in the room. But we still take time to swim or snorkle. We rented a longtail boat one afternoon and headed to Mango Bay, at the northern part of the island, this was a pretty area with a small beach and good snorkelling with lot's of corals from small to very big with a fair amount of fish darting around the corals.



Wednesday it was time to dive again and this would be a long day with lot's of diving as we were heading off to Sail Rock, a dive site about 1 1/2 to hours from Koh Tao between the island Koh Phangan and Koh Tao. With the music blasting the energy was high, we finally arrived at Sail Rock for our first two dives. Sadly the visiblity did not hold but we were still treated to great underwater show. One of the first things to happen was that our dive master was attacked by a giant triggerfish, and got a bite on his ankle. Luckily, he was OK, and he's bitten before. Our first big sighting was a school of about 100 baraccuda circling around and then we looked a little the right and saw about 200 juvenile trevally followed by about 100 yellow snappers and to top it 25 large batfish. This was only some of the many things, we also found moray eels, 2 meter long groupers, scorpionfish and plenty of sea slugs. The second dive was much of the same and it was hard to leave after two great dive but we had one more stop at Southwest Pinnacle before we head back to Koh Tao.



Southwest Pinnacle was another great site with lot's of underwater life and it started right as I jumped in where met a giant jellyfish with lot's of small fish swimming around it. There were plenty of fish in this area or we could call it clouds of fish in all directions and even some that I had not seen before on this trip, first was the apperance of a nudibranch in the Flabellina family and a small unidentified fish that I will seach for when I get home. Otherwise it was a great dive with loads of thing to see and it all came to an end all too quickly.



Our last days here were spent relaxing and enjoying the hot weather, but there was one funny thing that happened that's worth mentioning. We were having a long walk on the beach taking some picture when we found a group of people and asked them to take a picture of us. We lined up to take a picture when Jorunn decided to kick off her shoes, the first one came flying at an odd angel and I was about to tell Jorunn to be carefull when the second shoe went flying and smacked the girl in the back of the head. How embarrasing can things get, so we quickly apologised, took some pictures and retreated back up the beach (HAHAHA, I was really having a laugh later even though it was embarrasing).

Thailand: Koh Tao

We've changed to a different dive center, it's time dive again and it's an early one (7:00 and I thought I was having a vacation). We picked up our breackfast and waited for a ride to the dive shop and waited and waited and no one showed up. With all our dive gear in hand we set off at fast pace and arrived a few minutes later a bit out of breath but ready to dive.



We are going to Southwest Pinnacle to see lot's of fish but as we decend I got sharp pains in my ear so I had to abandon the dive and let Jorunn have all the fun. The visibility is much better now, and Southwest Pinnacle probably had more anemones than I've ever seen on a dive site. There were lot's of schools of fish, a hermit crab, cleaner shrimps. The next dive site was Shark Island, and once again Christer was left on the boat. This dive site was good, some friendly batfish and a not so friendly triggerfish attacking one of the instructors (He was ok). There was also a Jorunna Funebris (nudibranch) laying eggs, and a couple of baby blue-spotted stingrays. Back on shore I headed for the local clinic and promply found out that I had a large build up of ear wax and that evening got it all sorted out. That night we sat by the water side eating dinner and watching the lightning show in the distance.



Feeling refreshed and a little tired we head out on another morning dive, this time to Chumpong Pinnacle and this time things went well. As this was deep and 35 minutes from land there were lot's of fish; large schools of barraccuda, very large tuna, box jellyfish (we've never seen this before), a grouper that was maybe 1,5 meters long and clouds of fish. Sadly there was a fishing boat not too far from the dive site. Next stop was Green Rock which also had several free-swimming white-eyed moray eels, clouds of fishs, lot's of nudibranch a very cute juvenile yellow boxfish and a juvenile angelfish so we were kept very busy with things to see the whole dive. Interesting how a lot of types of fish look completely different from the adults when they are juveniles, and are also very cute. Video of the box jellyfish:



In the last few days we've also been on a snorkelling trip to the Japanese gardens, relaxed by the pool, walked around and just watched people. There has been rain and thunder almost every night, but mostly sunny during the day. There are a lot of backpackers here, generally younger than us (needless to say), the trends for guys seem to be wearing a hat, and quite a few have sixpacks and a perfect tan.



That's all for now, it's time to watch the sunset before we head to dinner and some wine. What a life.

Thailand: Koh Tao

We're now in Thailand (blogging live from a trip for the first time). The weather is fine and sunny, but we've also had some overcast and rain. We've been swimming and diving, snorkelling and walking. And of course eaten lot's of great food & had plenty of fresh fruit juices.



We departed from Oslo in the evening on a SAS flight (not so good food and entertainment anymore) that took us to Bangkok and two hours later on to Koh Samui. We arrived in the late afternoon and then headed off to our hotel, we had thought of staying a couple days but saw that this was not what we liked, so we booked a ferry for the next day for a 1 hour 45 minute ride to Koh Tao. Just a lttle bit about Koh Samui: The Island is fairly big and there are probably a lot of really nice places to stay with nice beaches but this was a place where you would need to rent a scooter to get around and things were much more spread out. The place we stayed did not have a good beach either.



The ferry ride was very pleasant with a short stop in Koh Phangan and the on to Koh Tao where we were picked up by the hotel driver and delivered at the Simle Life Hotel. We had a really nice room the first day that was very roomy and as soon as we unpacked we headed to the beach for a swim. There are two bigger villages on Koh Tao, Mae Head where the ferry arrives at and Sairee Beach where we are staying. There are plenty of good places to eat and lot's of places to chillout and watch the sunset (yes there are lot's mosquitos and Jorunn later found out that there are sand flies).



After a long sleep (jet lag) and a nice breakfast we headed out for our first dive at 12 PM. The boat ride was about 25 minutes to the east side of the island to Laem Thian Bay, this was a very pretty place with a sandy beach and blue green water. It was nice to get back in the water but the visibility was rather poor and there was not a lot to see (Tarpoon, titan triggerfish, anemonefish and lot's of sea slugs). After the dive we moved to Ao Leuk which was even worse, if it can get worse, very shallow, bad visibility and not a lot see (titan trigger fish, snapper, angle fish and a large Jorunna Funebris (nudibranch).

Video of a banded sea snake:


Next day we started diving bright and early, leaving at 7 AM as we were supposed to go to Chumphon Pinnacle where we could be extremely lucky and find whale sharks and much much more. To our disappointment we were told that we would be going t a local site as they had open water dive course people on board and found out that it was common that they would change the without notice. The first dive site we went to was No Name, the visibility was still bad but it was an interesting and we saw: titan trigger fish, banded angel fish, juvenile emporor angelfish, batfish and lot's of sea slugs. The next dive to White Rock was much better even if the visibility was still only ten meters, here we saw: a large banded sea snake hunting, very friendly batfish, several blue spotted sting rays, porcupine boxfish, banded angelfish, titan triggerfish, hermit crab, snappers, groupers and lot's of sea slugs. This was a very nice dive site and we hope that the next time the visibility will be better.



Jorunn's regulator was leaking so we took a wild ride in a taxi to Mae Head and a scubapro service shop where we first got in a small accident, then we got dropped off at the wrong place and had to walk for 10 minutes in the heat and humidity to get to the right place. After we got there we found out that the guy who serviced Jorunn's regulator in Oslo did a bad job and did not put in the proper parts (could have been very dangerous if this happened underwater). So we had to take in Christer's regulator for service also and it had the same problems. But we got some nice walks along the beach to get to the service shop, and we know our way around Sairee beach pretty well now.