Hello everyone, after a bit of a gap, I'm back to report on what has been happening East side. Well, firstly Bridget (Steff) has arrived. Now Steff brings a certain uncertainty to my travels as she has not really done any planning and refuses to turn her phone off for longer than about 5 minutes. Anyway she appeared through the doors of the arrival area clutching a massive rucksack. What it has in it I hate to think but clearly there is no taught process to her packing. Not only was she carrying such baggage but had also managed to befriend two randoms from the plane who we subsequently had a beer with. After one night in Bangkok, we headed south to Koh Tao.
The journey south was planned to military precision on my behalf. I had got a good price and to Steffs horror we were going to get the night bus so we could get a night’s accommodation as well. We turned up to the coach and were surprised slightly by the lack of co-ordination present. We entered the bus having been given a sticker and in true teenager style, headed to the back. The bus stated and we were off, no looking back now. It took about an hour or so to get out of Bangkok and as soon as were, the bus stopped - this was to become a regular occurrence over the next evening.
Now growing up as a child in a family of 7 was both fun and exciting, but on long journeys could get frustrating. Sitting in the back of a Peugeot 505 listening to audio tapes was a novelty, but it would run out after a while, especially when you have a high-maintenance sister like steff. I was reminded of such memories after 5 minutes of being on the bus. Questions such as, "Ed I'm cold have you got a blanket" or "Ed how long is this journey gonna last again" and my favorite "I can't open the toilet door, can you come and do it for me?" - Ed is thinking there might someone in the toilet and that Steff should wait for them to come out. Needless to say Steff happily used full use of the back seats confining me to just two out of a possible 6!
After various different stops for I don't know why reasons and 0hrs sleep the bus stops again and a man comes up top and tells us to get off at the side of the road. Let me point out that it’s around 3:15AM and we are on the side of some freeway in the middle of know where. We get off along with some other travelers and watch as the bus takes off and leaves us there in a cloud of smoke. 20 minutes pass and still nothing. 30 minutes pass and still nothing. Eventually nearly an hour later 2 men arrive in you guessed it "a Hilux" beckoning us to get on and sit in the back. It was at this point I started thinking if I could get a good price for Steff, I might be alright.
After around 10 minutes we were dropped off in some ghost town and were told someone would be back in 2 hrs to pick us up. At this point I did some maths. The time was 4:15am; I had been awake for around 19hrs, been traveling for 10hrs and was hoping I was in the right place. I was, we ended up on the boat heading towards Koh Tao.
The journey to the island was pretty quick. We were then in under 90 minutes and were picked up by our scuba people. We are staying in a resort on the South West of the Island and have a room near the beach. After being awake for around 27 hours, I played it safe and crashed in the shade. Steff and Marie did not however and now have some pretty sexy red burn marks. I laughed a little inside.
I have today completed my open water diving and will up date you on that next. Enough from me cos the meter is running.
Until next time, what’s next...
Ed
p.s check out the pictures so far here -
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7101&l=c10e3&id=505411301
