Sam had a herendious few days following our stay in Ko Tao.  We went to bed knowing there were crawlies everywhere, but had no idea they were the eating kind and very hungry at that.

Sam woke on our our first morning covered with welts and shaking, literally, from the anaesthetic they inject.  We had a quick read on the net and followed the advice – plenty of antihistamines and soothing cream – and thankfully she is now well on the mend.  Not the kind of thing you want when wearing a bikini – it looks like a bad case of acne.

Before we get any smartarse comments, yes I was sleeping beside her (and not on couch as it were), but it seems my blood is not near as tasty.  I had a few bites, but they obviously got bored trying to pierce my thick skin and moved onto the easy prey next to me.  Poor thing was was covered from head to toe.

Travelling can be great fun .

After 10 hours on the bus and 2 on a fast catamaran from Bangkok, we arrived on the island of Ko Tao.  If you’re a diving fanatic Tao would be your mecca, it issues more diving certificates than any other place in the world (even more than than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia) and it’s why we came all excited. 

After a quick read we agreed on a stretch of beach, haggled with the touts and took advantage of a ‘free taxi’ to the resort.  We hadn’t put our rucksacks down for more than 5 mins when we were being bombarded with all manner of excursions and extensions to our existing certificates.  ‘Hold on, fuck, gives us a minute to settle in and get to know the area before we sign up and part with our hard earned bucks’.  It was full moon (also known as king tide) which meant the waves were choppy and visibility was poor (about 10–15 meters), which we had later found out from some very disappointed returned divers.  Unlike us, they buckled under the sweet talking leggy blond who greeted them on arrival and they signed up!  We’ve come a long way since being scammed by the taxi driver in Cairo .

We held off and told them we weren’t interested for the minute, we were going to relax for a few days and see if the conditions improved – as you can imagine – it went down like a lead balloon, especially as they had agreed a heavily discounted room rate.  We were quids in.

We woke the following morning with Sam in tears having being eaten alive with bastard bed bugs (next post).  Enough was enough, we packed our bags and headed south to Ko Pha-Ngan.  Tao itself was beautiful and had the weather been better we would have stayed a little longer.  At different lodgings obviously.

Just some of the few snaps we took.