Thailand ...

Heading off by bus early from Vang Vieng, we headed south to another tributary of the Mekong for some kayaking. The river, idle due to the lack of water, was fun to paddle down and as usual, the environment provided a beautiful backdrop. Finally approaching rapids, we got some action, but our skills just didn’t quite match up to the river and we found ourselves swimming for a while. The tour was one of the first extremely well organized and executed trips we had been on, and as we had bargained properly for once we got a good deal, 150,000 kip each for the whole day.
Leaving the river behind in a dusty pick up we headed to Vietiene which was as expected, pretty mundane and non descript, but a very good place to catch a bus to the Thai border. Leaving Laos took no time whatsoever, getting into Thailand, took a good hour in the sun, blazing away at what appeared to be close to 40 Celsius on my thermometer. The border appears to be very closely guarded by the Thai’s – I suspect it was due to the very lax nature of the Laos concerning drugs of all varieties. We even watched some Monks get searched as they crossed. As Tourists we just had to queue for what felt like forever.
On the otherside we paid a Tuk Tuk for a ride to the station which is probably not more than 10 minutes walk. They are extortionate, so if you are crossing at that border ever, take a walk, it really isn’t far!
The train to Bangkok was superb, the individual seats prepared by the guard and with the AC on it was a really good night’s sleep. The boys headed off to the airport for a flight to Koh Samui and onto Koh Toa shortly after, Jen and I took ourselves to a roof top hotel swimming pool and took it easy for the day- the relative luxury of two Jacuzzis and a nice large pool couldn’t really be beaten we though! Heading back to the train station we had a great ride with a souped up tuk tuk and very chatty driver. He kept his head well down at the lights near some police who decided he might be a little dodgy and came to check him out. Having taken his license away and quizzically examined the photo, the lights, luckily for our driver turned green and he roared away… an got us to the train station in good time to catch another train down to Chumpon where our train was met by a bus to the ferry. We arrived at the same time as the boys in Koh Tao and had spent a lot less getting there! www.seat61.com has some pretty decent information that helped us out – as did the thai online booking service.
The ferry ride was somewhat amusing, the skipper didn’t really seem to know his route too well and did a few 360 turns and course corrections, partially we thought to avoid the reefs, but quite obviously more often as he’d lost his way- 2 hours trip took 3. Enroute we chatted to a sales chap who offered us a what sounded like a good deal on diving – Padi/SSI and with a few others took us to a resort. We weren’t totally convinced by the arrangements, and then bumped into the others who were being offered a cheaper offer which we jumped on straight away! Steer clear of booking them online and ahead of time had been the advice of two Israeli girls we’d met in Kunming, and we’d definitely agree! We saved at least 2000 Baht paying for accommodation and certification 8500 baht..
Diving was amazing and getting a qualification SSI not PADI at the end was rewarding, Koh Toa is perhaps one of the cheapest places in the world to do it. Koh Lanta is double the price for the dives. Taking into consideration the distance to the reefs and dive sites this is not entirely surprising. O-Lee got us to Koh Lanta which is where we are currently chilling out, staying in basic beach huts for 375 baht a night! Lanta LD Beach huts… but get ready to bargain they start at 500! Life is a Beach innit?