STILL on this island!
Trip Start
Aug 23, 2005
1
34
50
Trip End
Aug 2006
Koh Tao, Thailand
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Kate managed to get herself locked in the toilet one day in the bar. She said she was going before we left so I sat down and carried on reading my book for a while until eventually she re-appeared all red and rosy in the face. Somehow she locked herself in and there was a table full of dive instructors sat near the toilet who had to kick down the door to get her out! One said that had never happened in the 12 years he's worked here and now they all laugh at her when they see her. It could only really happend to her I suppose.
We also got mates with a couple from darn sarf, Kent i think. He was a Gillingham fan of all things. They were sound though, Matt did his diving with the guy so we've been hanging around with them until they left this morning. The other day we managed to start ourselves an aqua-aerobics team in the sea while it was raining. There was nothing else to do so we went for a dip in the rain and then started to perform such wonderfull tricks as human pyramids and stuff of that sort. A little more practice is needed but it was a start. Unfortunatley the idea has been abandoned due to the fact they are no longer with us. (I dont mean dead, they just left the island)
Matt hasnt managed to finish his advanced diving course yet either cause he was having trouble with his ears and couldnt equilise. (Equilise: the popping of ones ears to relive the pressure from the tons and tons of water on top of your head) So he waited a few days and went to the doctor whos first reaction it was to gasp....... Hole, she explained. You have a hole in your ear. Oh dear, thought the big lad, not good news at all. So she sent him packing with a big box of expensive antibiotics and then he saw his instructor in the bar and explained the mornings events. The cockney teacher wasnt convinced and told him to go for a second opinion with another doc. He said if there was a hole then he's have seen bubbles coming out of his ear! Thats true. When he found one that was open (the next day) the nurse told him there was no hole, and his teachers suspicions that the other nurse just wanted some cash out of his western skin were confirmed. It turns out his ear was inflamed anyway so hes carrying on with the HUGE tablets anyway but he can dive as soon as he can equilise. (Although he can't know that till hes under water, how frustrating).
Me and Kate ended up moving rooms the other day as the place were staying has turned into a building site. The first time we went under water it was in a swimming pool that our balcony pleasantly looked over. The day after however the boys were round with their hammers and smashing it to smitherenes! The noise was horrnedous. All they seem to do is hit stuff. By the time we moved they had started on the rooms too and were fitting new doors and bigger window frames, which meant knocking all the bricks out by hand. They start at 7.30 too, anfd then seem to knocxk off about dinner time! So we were woken up in the early hours, with nothing but hammers pounding bricks in the room below us, and then what sounded like a man with a jack hammer on our room. I have no idea what he was doing but the noise was all too much. All they ever did was hit stuff all day. How can you build things by just hitting. the only tools these people owned were hammers! So we moved to the other side of the pool which was a bit quiter and as soon as I looked at our old room from our new room I saw they'd knocked the window out already! So they must have wanted us out of their so why they just didnt just ask us to move in the first place I have no idea, crazy Thais.
So there we were in our new room for the second night last night. First the toilet light started flickering so I hit the switch with my book and the bloody switch fell through the wall. Oh dear, I told them I simply pressed the switch and it fell in order to save myself a bill. Sorted now though. But then on the early hours of the morning Kate was suddenly set upon by an army of creatures. We dont know what yet but its either ants or bloody bedbugs. I seemed to escape unhurt from the fray but she's looking a little worse for wear im afraid, looking like shes just finished a tour of duty in 1969 Vietnam! Her aems and legs are covered, covered I say, in lumps. Just after the horrendous attack that she had suffered in India was starting to become a distant memory, shes turned all lumpy again. Her body is taking a real beating since she's been away but hopefully they'll be no more of these unprovoked feastings upon her flesh. She ended up lying in bed in her full pyjamas, with MASSIVE socks pulled right the way up and positivley reaking of reppelant, I thought she may top the joly outfit off with a hat but it failed to materialise.
Well we finally got diving again yesterday! Whoo hoo. Its actually the first time we've been since we passed our tests. So this was our 10th and 11th dives. We'd put our names down a couple of times before but the weather here is crap at the moment and we've been waking up a bit with awful headaches and sicky feelings in our bellies for some reason so we aint managed it yet. But yesterday it was pretty nice. Me Kat and the Gillingham fan Liam went. Matts ears were still a bit ripe so he gave it a miss. There was only 4 ofus and a dive master to lead us, so Liam got teamed with this mahousive foreign girl, she looked the size and shape of a bomb! And she was useless at the old diving, not like us seasoned pros. She made us wait ages on a rope halfway down for some reason, and then when we started to decend I suddenly felt a big elbow and a knee in my face as she barged past on the rope like my auntie Val fighting for reduced food in Tesco. It was unbeliveble, the stupid wench. We were just confused more than anything. When we were swimming aswell your meant to keep level and flat by cearfull buoyancy controll. Augustus Gloop however was up and down like a bloody yo-yo. We were just shrugging our shoulders and laughing at her most of it. The first dive was really good visibility too, you could see loads and we saw some big ass fish too, but then when we came up she said it was crap! God knows where she'd been before, Liam asked if it was her bath. The second one we did though was crap, you could see maybe 2 metresd at the most and I spotted about 2 fish in all the mirk so it was a bit of a let down. However the old tubthumper did admit that that was crap and the other one had been good. We saw her in the bar later that night on her own and she was standing near like she wanted to talk, but she was an idiot so we ignored her and left to another bar.
Well thats about all for now. The weather is crappy. its raining all the time at the moment. Not quite the tropcal paradise you would expect. I think we may tommorow or the next day. We heard a rumour from a Dutch dive master last night that today would be the last day you could get off the island for 10 days as an almighty storm was coming. A 10 day storm, but how he could know that as the weather is so topsy turvy at the minute I dont know. We took it with a pinch of salt anyway as noone else has even mentioned it. So were gonna get out of here soon. Our bills probably gonna make me sick when we leave, I feel it may be a small fortune. I think we may head over to an island on the west side for a couple of days cause the weather is meant to be much better over there, and then its down into Malaysia where we need to hightail it donw to Singapore. We fly on the 16th December (happy birthday mum) at 9.00 am and then it'll be time for a whole load of new adventures in Sydney, either that or straight down the job centre to find a job. If anyone out there knowsa how we might find out how to get a house to live in in Sydney then please let me know as im not that thrilled at the prospect of spending christmas day in a grubby dorm bed in a hostel.
Well im out for now, i'll let you know when we get away from this island, then hopefully ill post more often and you wont have to sit and read a mini novel every week, I do apologise. So goodnight to all and to all a goodnight.
