Koh Tao

Mopeds
Not so much here today - 3 adults and a child.
Moto x tyres on a moped. 
I also nearly got run over by one, who was too close to a corner, and hit a parked moped beside me. 
I thought I would update this, in spite of not having done much over the past few days. As you know we took the night bus to Koh Tao, and I enrolled on a PADI Open Water Dive course. The course lasted 4 days, and was very interesting for me, but quite technical so I don't think I'll bore you with all the details. It basically consisted of 3 classroom sessions, a confined pool session, and 4 open water dives, supposedly to 12m and then 18m. 
Unfortunately the weather was quite poor, so instead of diving in 4 different places, 3 of the dives were from the same place, meaning that we only went down to 7/8m. We still saw a good bit though - plenty of marine life and a pair of shorts! On the 3rd dive we did get to go down to the 18m, which was quite good, but the visability was poor, and it was fairly dark down that deep. I was lucky enough to be in a small group - only 3 of us, and the instructor. I found it scarier than I thought I would, and felt a bit panicky on a few occasions, but it was overall very enjoyable. 
We spent St. Patrick's day on the island, but we struggled to find some other Irish! We did however find some Swedish who proclaimed that "Today, everyone is Irish!" It was also a bit odd seeing green balloons hanging beside Chinese Lanterns! 
We have arrived on Koh Phangan today, with the intention of going to the full moon party tonight.


Some other points on Thailand:


The Thai idea of customer service is minimal in some places, but, with all due respect, there are some really lovely people and food in many places. It was said to me that the Thai's only have one safety rule - make sure everyone pays upfront!


Many, many (x10,000,000,...) insects


BYOTP= Bring your own toilet paper.


Lovely food.


Crazy drivers- Italians are tame in comparison.


Michael O'Leary would have a heart attack here, I nearly did. Too many staff doing too few jobs = major overstaffing, especially 7Eleven and receptions.


More to come...

Giant snail. The path doesn't be too well lit up at night, so I wasn't too surprised to see it squished this morning. 

Nick, a fellow student, and Pete, the instructor. 

John on a Songthaew - a pick up, with two benches to sit on. Humidity steaming up the camera. :(
I can't imagine these or any other taxi getting insured at home, and with good reason. Any travel in Thailand comes with the added advantage of making you pray very hard that there isn't a crash or a sinking on a boat!!! I did see a sunken Longtail boat the other day. Doesn't really fill one with confidence. Fortunately most of the time I have been on a boat it's been on the way to or from diving, so I have plenty of equipment with me to keep me afloat/alive in case of an accident! 
And many boats have no or insufficient numbers of  life jackets- for passengers anyway.

Can you spot the real Irish?