Everything about my time on Ko AllGood is unfolding like the dream in paradise that we all entertain. Having been commissioned by Steph for a painting once this trip was over, all financial concerns were put aside to enjoy the style of holiday that UK lawyers (Lydia), pet insurance brokers (Suze) and pediatric phsyios (Steph) undertake. It wasn't actually that different from what I would normally do, except that the girls don't spend three days trying to find a few dollars saving on anything.
And they definitely don't lower themselves to drinking $1 bottles of whiskey no matter how culturally important I tried to convince them it was. Scuba diving was the one activity that I would have loved to have tried, if only Steph had of commissioned me to redo the Sistine Chapel. The last days on Ko Tao were spent snorkeling instead, either out the front of our bungalow in what we discovered to be poor conditions when we went snorkeling on the other side of the island.
The first stop saw Steph trying to teach me to free dive. Failing to get the knack of equalising the pressure in my ears, I couldn't go beyond three metres before my head felt like it was stuck in an anvil. I gave up and floated blissfully above an aquatic community whose numbers were rivaled only by its diversity. Thanks to a large intake of $1 whiskey the night before, I was constantly warming the water around me, even though it was warm enough to begin with. I noticed a few fish swimming erratically and started to think that something was amiss. Seeing a few of the beautiful Angel fish hitting onto ugly barracudas, (Ta Steph) I realised the alcohol content of my pee was too strong for the life swimming around me and decided to minimize my emissions.
The second stop was utterly magic as we spent the whole time swimming through the bubbles released by the scuba divers swimming 10 metres below us. It was a truly other-worldly experience that no authorship could ever do justice to, nor any terminal side-effect stop me from wanting to do off my face. Having done a free diving course in Ko Lanta, Steph was able to swim down to the depth of the scuba divers, her flesh flowing and rippling like liquid as she kicked against the waters pressure.
The trip back on the top deck of the boat, fried me like a tofu burger, the only thing on my mind after so long inhaling too much salt water through my snorkel. Lydia had been totally crisped the previous day and passed up the second dive as she struggled to maintain her body warmth. I choose not to suggest she swim near me, instead letting her fall asleep on the top deck and fry her sunburn beyond any hope of redemption.
Ko Tao is all about diving, and often about being an arrogant wanker if thats what you are lucky enough to make a living out of doing. A one hour catamaran trip took us to nearby Ko Pha-Ngan where visiting is more about doing nothing. Having spent the first part of my holiday on the eastern side of the island, we changed the decision we had given lengthy consideration to when a smooth talking local convinced us his Guest house was Heaven on Earth. Half of his claims were true in that his place was in fact on Earth, but it was not the slice of heaven we were after.
We spent a night there just so his taxi service didn't lose its free status should we leave straight away. A bottle of red wine later and we were all tipsy enough to think we had chosen the place ourselves. We moved on to Mae Haad when breakfast the following morning removed the gloss that alcohol had added to the place. Something that under-done is not toast; it's slightly warmed bread!
And Mae Haad turned out to be closer to our idea of Heaven anyway, an idea thankfully not shared with many other travelers as their numbers were surprisingly low for such a beautiful spot. The sunsets continued to be enchanting, giving us an opportunity to make up for the photos of the best one on Ko Tao being lost to my computer incompetence. The food ended a long drought of culinary rot, and the staff were even friendly than we had come to expect.
The girls main reason for choosing Ko Pha-Ngan had been the half-moon party. Every night of the lunar cycle is celebrated in varying degrees, and the half moon is the penultimate night to party apparently. The painting Steph commissioned was not enough to see out this portion of the trip, and commissioning another one for an upcoming wedding was still not enough to convince me that a party playing 'funky breaks' (?) was the sort of place I would want to find myself. Apparently the live DJ's were pretty good, much better than the dead ones, but the girls returned home disappointed with the fact revelers seem to be getting younger, not older like they were. I hope they found some solace in my additional four years seeing me in bed by 930pm when they were considering 230am to be an early night.
As I contemplated what to do once I have finished all the paintings I am now indebted to Steph for, it again dawned upon me that I would love to be a writer. So if someone can see any merit in that aspiration, I ask them to forward my journal address to others who may appreciate my writing. You never know, they might know someone whose eighth-cousin-twice-removed once pleasured a donkey owned by a farmer who lived next door to a bloke called Barry whose claims of stigmata were proven to be false by a vicar whose daughter once knew a guy whose Dad ran the corner store below a publishing firm that specialized in printing the sort of stuff I try to pass off as readable. Or any similar degree of separation is fine as long as the right people are put in the know.
