Tuesday, November 9, 2004 (Koh Tao - Thailand)


Diving makes you tired. What about that aborted dive then? Ready to leave this paradise - but another awaits.

Day 246 (56). I think we were both more tired than either of us truly appreciated since we both slept in till around noon today. The anti-inflammatory I took last night seems to have helped and I rested more peacefully than I have in recent days. We already have our onward transportation tickets, having elected to go for the night boat after all, and I’ve also paid up in full, including an extra 300B (€5,77) for the privilege of not having to evacuate our room before tonight. All we need to do is to sit around, lap up some more sunshine and wait for our ferry to arrive at around nine this evening.

Sandy has asked about a refund for the aborted dive the other day when we got separated from the group and had to return to the boat. They are going to talk to the dive master about this when he returns from the morning dive. I’m not too fussed about this since we’ve not had to pay for our own dive master on all the dives but with the West coast diving being more expensive, it may help to offset this some more if we do get the refund.

Well, we’ve now completely packed, eaten our last meal at the Safety Stop pub next door and are sitting here in the bar, slowly allowing the remaining minutes to fade away before boarding our already waiting night boat to the mainland and onto pastures greener. The good folks here at Crystal Divers refunded the 1,400B (€26,92) for that aborted dive the other day without any problems. We’ve handed in our key and will soon bid the island of Koh Tao a sad farewell. We are very much looking forward to seeing what the West coast has in store for us but we’ve also enjoyed ourselves here immensely and so this parting will, indeed, be such sweet sorrow. We ended up staying here for no less than six nights, excluding tonight, which is pretty good going for us. With so much of the world still waiting for us to explore, it’s very unusual for us to remain in one spot for this length of time. Typically, we move on after just two or three days. Our record so far has been seven nights in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and seven nights also in Beijing, China. We’ve enjoyed ourselves so much here that I can quite easily see us returning again at some point in the future, after we’ve reverted back to our ‘ordinary’ lives. Most of the places we’ve seen so far on this trip have been very special in their own right but very few earn the distinction of being noted on our ‘we must return here’ list. What has helped here in particular is the fact that the entire dive resort is pretty much self-contained. The accommodation, pool, dining area and dive operations are all within a few steps of each other. And still, we’ve not felt like we’ve been isolated or cocooned from the rest of the island.

Posted: Tue - November 9, 2004 at 08:49 PM        

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