Diving, Islands, and BURGER CHALLENGES!!! Ie (Thailand Part 2)

 So much for consistent blog posts eh team? I do have an excuse though so hear me out! I finished part two (ie this blog post) and half my Malaysia blog about two or three months ago. BUT… because I am a cotton headed ninny mutton I didn’t bring a small netbook to upload pictures from or type out blog posts. Thus, I have been using the Swiss army knife of travel tools…. An itouch. Unfortunately this amazing lifeline was destroyed when a power transistor outside my hostel in Kuta Lombok blew up and sent a power serge back threw the sockets frying anything plugged into the wall, which… included Jessica (my itouch). As you can imagine it took me many a moon to complete a blog post use an itouch and there were tons of other important documents and random memories on there. So living with this loss has been hard. I am sure you guys have all been there right? It’s really annoying when you have worked hard on writing something and then it gets lost or destroyed and you have to rewrite the damn thing again; and you know it’s going to be exactly the same but only with an extra long paragraph at the beginning bitchening and complain about how you lost it in the first pla…

So Koh Tao!!!! That sounds fun right? …… YOU’RE RIGHT, IT’S AMAZING!!!

Koh Tao, Thailand

Out of all the islands I visited on my trip in South East Asia my favourite was Koh Tao! The chill vibe, small to medium size, nice people, beautiful beaches, amazing diving, and endless options of things to do made this island a real paradise for me.

When you get to Koh Tao there is one question you should ask yourself. Do you want to get your PADI certification? The answer to this doozy is: YES! It’s an amazing experience breathing underwater and exploring the world that’s under those big old wave! I personally think it should be on everyone’s bucket list.

This is the diving mekka of… well I think the world! There is one other place in South America I have heard of that is similar. I am told that Koh Tao is bigger, cheaper, and better but this information comes from stinky, drunk, and unreliable backpackers. SO WHO KNOWS! The important thing is that diving in Koh Tao is unbelievable! The conditions to learn and begin scuba diving are perfect! The macro and micro are great, the reefs are amazing, and you sometimes get to see whale sharks if your super lucky (damn you Krysten!!!). There is something insane like forty three dive schools on Koh Tao, which is nuts because this is a small island! So it’s a buyers market for sure!

Not a diver? That’s okay there is still sooooo much to do and see while on Koh Tao! I stayed there for over two weeks and could have easily stayed there for another two weeks!

Quick Recap

HOLD UP! I forgot to tell you all how I got to Koh Tao. After Fullmoon, I quickly flew up to Bangkok to grab the vivacious Courtney Ross who was just starting her adventure around South East Asia. Court had never traveled before so I promised I would be there when she landed… and I was! Unfortunately, the very first meal Court had made her… well a bit sick. As Canadians we always like to make even the most vulgar situations sound cute and this is no exception. Court was hit hard right out of the gate with some good old… jelly belly. Thus, we had to stay in Bangkok for a few days. This was fine with me because I had a few friends in Bangkok so it was a great way to send them off. I also got to see two beauties from Canada and my JDC West family so that was awesome. Once Court was feeling a bit better we then bused on down to Koh Tao and BAM! You are up to speed!

Dive Schools

I was recommended by some fellow Canadians to go to Big Blue and dive and stay there. Unfortunately when I got there they were all booked up. I was also told by my good friend Brittia Thompson to try Bans, which is the biggest company on the island. What would I recommend you ask? Well Bans has more of a resort feel to it and Big Blue has more of a summer camp feel. The boats and whole driving process is better at Bans and they have really nice accommodation options if you want that. Big Blue like Bans has a restaurant everyone goes there after an awesome day of diving and parties and it is a lot of fun. Honestly I would go to both and just choose the one that gives you the best deal haha. I love freebees and bargaining so I pushed hard at Bans and got hooked up. I got my PADI Open Water for $270 and my Advanced for $253 and I got thrown in nine days of free accommodations! I had an amazing time! It was definitely one of my highlights of my whole trip. I would suggest to anyone that if you liked the Open Water course do the advanced course! My night dive during my advanced course was my favourite dive in Thailand! I got to stun fish with my flashlight then see a HUGE barracuda eat it! I WAS ESSENTAILLY HELPING A BARRACUDA HUNT!!!! The phosphorescence there was really cool and it’s just a totally different world down there at night!

As I previously said Big Blue was full when we got there and so we checked into Bans and I slept for about two days haha. I think all my aggressive partying from the last two weeks… who am I kidding last four months, finally caught up to me. I was pretty sick for the next nine days haha. My first full day in Koh Tao all I had to do was walk about 40 meters to watch a three hours of PADI educational videos to begin my Open Water Course but that was even too much for me to handle haha. So I ended up doing my Open Water course pretty sick but every time I jumped into the water I felt ok. Everyday I would come back to my room, chug a ton of water, then sleep about fourteen hours, and then wake up early for a few more dives haha. I had such an amazing time doing it sick I don’t even want to think how amazing the experience would have been if I was healthy!!!!

My first four dives were pretty insane! I wish I had a couple thousand-dollar scuba diving camera! My awesome dive instructor Dom was amazing and was the biggest pro environment, super chill, teddy bear, Englishman haha. He really focused on making sure none of us were over weighted, which now that I have done a few more dives with other dive shops I really appreciate! Some of the fish I saw on my first four dives were: blue spotted sting rays, A Bans sea snake (the most poisonous snake in the world!!!), clown fish, huge barracudas, trigger fish (the first one I saw attacked Dom my instructor it was dope!), huge groupers, big travelly, butterfly fish, banner fish, fusiliers, parrot fish, bat fish, blue ring angle fish, box fish (which I love!), puffer fish, massive eels, and a ton of nudi branches. It was like swimming in a huge fish tank! So much life! 

Here's my open water class 

This is a pic of Dom (my instructor) and I after the last dive of my course!

I think my fondest memory of my first four dives was getting our whole group down to the bottom of the dive site and then we all took off our flippers and had a slow motion underwater kung fu fight!!!! In my humble opinion you haven’t really lived until you have partaken in a group underwater brawl! It was so much fun haha. Each open water group has a camera man following them on a few of their dives and this videographer edits all the footage and makes a pretty sweet video of your Open Water group. Then on your last night you all watch it together in the Ban’s restaurant on a big projector screen while sucking back on some big Chiangs (beers)! It’s great! Our fight looked sick! The video costs about $50 though and I was on a pretty strict budget so I didn’t buy our video but my friend Robin did so I am hoping to see it in a few years when I go and visit him in the Netherlands.

During my Open Water Course I had the fortunate opportunity to share a room with Arin Veerapen! Arin and I met in first year uni and have been friends all throughout business school. The two or three days we spent extremely sick together in our room put us in a whole new friend category. Some scary, unnatural, and just plain bad things happened during our time together and I don’t think either of us will ever see each other the same way again ahah. While I was doing my Open Water course Arin was finishing off his Advanced Course. The last night of his course we went out to celebrate and I met a few other backpackers that were in Arin’s course with him. One of these beauties was Christoph Ludvik! How can I describe Christoph… picture if you can Tom Cruise and Zues’s love child at age twenty-two with a hardcore Swede under cut! Haha anyways Christoph is awesome and we got to talking that night and realized we both wanted to head down through Malaysia especially the Perhentian Islands so we decided right then and there that we would meet in Krabi in a few days to start a new and exciting backpack gang! We of course called ourselves: The Wolverines.

After my Open Water course I took two days off to recover and get back to my normal 100% self. I went on a sick hike with my friend Robin (from my Open Water course) to a little Buddhist temple on top of this mountain. If memory serves me right you take your first right (down a drive way of a resort) after the big main gym and then you find this trail up the mountain. Ask anyone in town about it for better (real) directions. Most dive shops give out island maps and it’s on there. It had great views and was a solid hike.

After my two days of recovery I was ready to get back to diving. I did my two day Advance course and it was insane! As I said before if you enjoy your Open Water course you will LOVE your advance course. You get to learn really cool navigation skills, which allow you to dive on your own and IT CERTIFIES YOU TO GO ON DEEP AND NIGHT DIVES!!!! My deep and night dives were insane! The sheer life you see on a deep dive is soooo cool! You feel like a cameraman in a national geographic movie! For my night dive we jumped in the water around 7pm. The sun was just starting to set and once we all got down to about eighteen meters it was pitch black! You’re given a flashlight or a “torch” (haha silly English bastards) and the world you were just starting to get use to has completely changed! Most fish are sleeping or hunting so it’s a very different feeling. We found a few huge Barracuda, which at first was kind of freaky but then became amazing! We used our flashlights to stun passing fish and then the Barracuda would snatch them up. It was so cool helping this massive beast hunt! We also saw stingrays hunting, which you don’t see in the day because they are always sleeping then. Koh Tao like Victoria has really cool phosphorescence so all you have to do is get away from any light and then move your hands around really fast and the water lights up! IT’S LIKE AVARTA… BUT IN RL!!! (real life). It was an amazing experience!  

While all this was happening Court and Mick Mack went off on a (haha insanely expensive) trip to Borneo to attend the World Rainforest Music Festival. They came back and I stayed in their room in Big Blue for two days while they started their Open Water course. It was during these auspicious couple of days when Courtney Juliette Ross convinced me to do something I thought I would NEVER DO. I am ashamed to say that she convinced me to try… coffee! Be this I have never had coffee before in my life! She even ended up mind fucking me into chugging a ton of that hot dark muck! What a tricksy minx! Here are some pictures of the gruesome act taking place.

That same fateful day we actually went on the coolest hike my Advanced Diving instructor (Jen, who was DOPE!!!) told me about. I am going to try and recall how to get to the huge rock lookout we finally found:

Koh Tao Rock Lookout Instructions:

If you are in front of Choppers bar where the Koh Tao Pub Crawl begins (WHICH YOU HAVE TO DO!!! I never got to do it because I was always sick when it was happening!) turn left and start walking away from the water. Keep going straight when you get to the intersection. Pass the gym. You will get to a HUGE resort looking development (that was just getting built when we were there) and go left. You walk up a REALLY steep road and there is a sign on the left that says “look out” THAT’S A TRAP! Well not really, that’s just not the one I’m talking about. Keep walking and there will be a driveway on the right hand side right after the lookout sign and that’s what you’re going to want to go up. If you find the lookout bar or the other side of the island with the beautiful little beach and resort you have gone to far. If you walk for about 20 minutes up this driveway (the owner is the nicest dude in the world! His dogs aren’t tho!) You will come onto this HUGE ROCK it has a sketchy ladder built onto it. Climb that and then you are on top of Koh Tao! It’s an amazing lookout spot!!!! 

 Restaurants

The Crazy Viking!!!!

I love this place! If you’re looking at the Bans main office turn right and follow the road past the Ban’s convenience store. It’s on the left and usually has tons of food out on this big table at night! Its like $7 for all you can eat food and the option to watch two new release movies! Here’s a tip for young players… they have a little movie theatre set up inside the restaurant at the back. So grab your food then go get a good spot!

The Koh Tao Seaside Restaurant (or something like that)

I went to this place three times and had their BBQ each time. For $3 or $4 you got two huge skewers of chick or beef with grilled vegetables, a baked potato, and salad. If your looking at the Bans main office you go left on the main road for a bit and it’s a nice restaurant on the beach on your left.

THE SAMOSA GUY!

There is an extremely kind fellow selling the most delicious samosas you have ever had for .50 cents a pop! He is always hanging out just opposite the Bans main office down the alley in between the Bans restaurant and the Bans dive shop at around 12:30 I think it is. He’s there when the morning divers are coming back and the early afternoon divers are just about to leave.  So ya I think its 12 or 12:30.

My Museli, Fruit, and Yogurt place

This is where I went for breakfast everyday because it is as cheap as a Cambodian hooker and it had big portions! I loved it! If you’re looking at the Bans main office go up into their resort and walk up the path. You will walk up a hill and past one of their training pools on your left. Keep walking and you will hit a road. This restaurant is on the right on the corner across the road. They have wifi and are super nice. WHAT EVER YOU DO DON’T ORDER THE LEMON SHAKE!

The Awesome Sandwich Place

I realize it would be helpful if these places had names but Jessica (my itouch had them all saved but then…). This restaurant is big and sold lots of food but I only ever got the sandwiches from them. It was on the opposite side of the crazy Viking and I think a bit closer to the Bans main office. Just check some menus there or ask any of the dive masters at Bans. My advanced diving instructor Jens told me about it. They all went to get a take away sandwich from this place. So good and only cost like $1 or $2! I think it had a bit of a silly name…. dammit!

The Bans Restaurant

This restaurant had really good curry and it had live music every night! Such an easy place to meet people and hangout!

Hostels

Be warned accommodation options on Koh Tao are kind of expensive. The hostels are kind of poopy and just as expensive as some of the bungalows! If you know how long you want to stay try and get some free nights accommodation built into your diving package ;). Here are some pictures of the pool and lounge that were right beside my room at the Bans resort. 

 

Tips for Koh Tao:

-       Don’t even attempt to look for a skimboard there aren’t ANY! Trust me I looked!

-       Do the pub-crawl! But if you’re a female watch your drinks. I met a ton of people that got drugged on that pub-crawl!

-       Go to the restaurants I listed!

 

Krabi

I then journeyed on to the West coast of southern Thailand to meet my new bro Christophe in Krabi. We met at one of the nicest hostels I have ever stay at. It is called “Pak Up” hostel and its phenomenal! I would highly suggest it. We spent no time at all in Krabi and jumped on the boat to Phi Phi right away. I did spend another day in Krabi on my way back from the islands and I would highly suggest you all check out the famous Tiger Temple. It’s only about twenty minutes from the city and it’s AMAZING!!! It is a really cool temple on top of a HUGE mountain. You have to make a life changing pilgrimage up 1,237 knee high steps! The panoramic views at the top are totally worth it though. If your competitive like Christoph and me try and do it under fourteen minutes (I think was our time).

Phi Phi

This is indeed the party mekka on the West of Thailand! If your looking to sunbath, meet a ton of other young backpackers, and party your face off… be here! After meeting up with Christoph and his new German friend Marco we jumped on a ferry and headed to Phi Phi. We had about thirty minute to wait before getting on the ferry. We were just sitting in the… sitting area… and started chatting up some (dare I say it) Really cool Amerrrrrikins! Thomas and his girlfriend Kelsey had just come from Indonesia and Malaysia (where our gang was headed next) and after the South West of Thailand they were headed to the South East of Thailand and then onto the rest of the big 4 (where we had just come from). So we just exchanged helpful tips the whole ride. We decided it would be cool to grab a hostel together so we left the dock and headed out to two different hostels we had heard were FANTASTIC! Unfortunately both these hostels were full so we tried our third choice “Tropical Garden Bungalows” It is a bit back from the beach so a bit of a walk, but it had a sick pool and moderate rates for their rooms. If you walk from the dock and make your way to the “Island Look Out” stairway your basically there. Just walk past the entrance up to the Island Look out and keep walking and you will find it.

Since I’m yammering away about this lookout I should mention that I would highly suggest you all check it out! It is definitely worth the few bucks it is to get to it! 

 Another must, is a full day island-hopping trip. Most tours are the same but you can, like always, get your bargaining on. Try and get the cruise that include a big boat BBQ. Each tour includes a trip to the famous Mia Bay (a beach from the movie… the beach) but only a few actually drop their passengers off in the bay. 80% of them make you swim ashore to a sketchy grouping of ropes in order to access the beach. If you do this I wouldn’t bring your camera haha. Try and get a tour that goes in the bay and drops you off right at the beach. Here are some pics of our day tour: 

After our all day boat cruise Christoph, Thomas, and I finally were mentally and physically ready (we were drinking tons of water all day to expand our stomachs) for THE BURGER CHALLENGE!!!! Ever since I did my triathlon in the summer of 2011 I have been able to eat an OBSENE amount of food. A backpacker told me about this fabled BURGER CHALLENGE that happens at the reggae bar in Phi Phi. He said “unless you are a professional eater there is no way you can physically complete this challenge”. So naturally being the competitive buffet slaying machine that I am I vowed to complete this challenge. The challenge is you have to eat three massive paddies of beef piled on top of each other (three burgers), a pile of the biggest French fries you have ever seen, a heap of the greasiest onion rings you will ever eat, and a big old bowl of coleslaw in thirty minutes. If you succeed in doing this you get the meal for free, a sick trophy, and your picture on the hall of fame. If you fail you have to pay $15 (which is insane for meal in Thailand haha) and instead of a trophy you receive eternal shame and regret. The plate that all the food is on isn’t a plate at all but a giant platter! It was quite daunting and it really was just as much a mental battle as a physical one.

Long story short I… WE ALL FAILED!!!! I hit thirty minutes and I had one bite of the last burger left, one fry, three onion rings, and some coleslaw. I think if I have four or five more minutes I could have down it haha. It was EXTREMELY HARD! Christoph, Thomas, and I had an awesome time attempting it haha. I unfortunately did go back to my room right afterwards and passed out while having the worst stomachache ever haha.

 I just didn't make it!

So close yet SOOOO far :).

Like I said before if you want to get blitzed out of your mind, party your face off, and meet and possibly experiment with a lot of young backpackers who have loose morals Phi Phi is the place for you. A lot of backpackers get stuck here and just end up working a couple of hours each day for one of the many bars or clubs in order to get free accommodations or alcohol. Now as you are reading this I am sure you are thinking: “This totally sounds like something Derek would do! Why didn’t you do this?” Well, I basically did live a similar lifestyle in Shinookeville and Vang Vieng and at this time I was really stoked on hitting the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia and meeting back up with Court in KL. So I never worked as a promoter here but I would suggest it for a week or two. It would be quite the time. The huge beach parties that happen every night are tons of fun, just make sure not to jump off the pole of death! I saw a guy break his arm and a girl knock herself. Everyone thought she was dead! You will know what I mean when you see it haha.

Railay and Tonsia!

After Phi Phi Christoph and I left our German and American friends and hit Railay and Tonsia! Railay and Tonsia are beaches on an amazing peninsula that juts out from the mainland. I thought they were beaches on an island but I was wrong. There are massive cliffs disabling anyone from making roads out to these beaches. So these beaches and the little village on Railay are actually cut off from civilization and the only way to go to and from these beautiful beach is via long-tail boat.

This picture illustrates the setup pretty well. On the far left you have the smaller beach of Tonsia. This is where most of the cheap bungalows, restaurants, and climbing schools are. If you’re a backpacker trying to say money I would suggest staying in Tonsia. It’s more chill and down to earth. Then on the right of this picture you have Railay West (close to you) and Railay East on the other side. There are a bunch of expensive bungalows and a few resorts on Railay so it’s a bit pricier. When the tide goes out in the afternoon and night you can easily walk along the beach from either beach. If the tide isn’t out you can climb through a rock climbing path or go the back way around which takes a good twenty-five minutes.

Rock Climbing

GO CLIMBING!!! Railay and Tonsia are world renown for the amazing climbing that you can do here! The cliffs that surrounds these beaches are perfect for rock-climbing so definitely sign up for a day class it was so much fun! We did our day course through Base Camp I think it was called and we had the DOPEST instructor and had a pretty amazing day! I think it was only $20 and we learned all the basics of rock climbing like how to tie the knots and how to belay someone. Our guide started us off at the easy cliffs on Railay East then we went hit a cave and climbed out of it. We also went to one of the highest cliffs on the end of the peninsula and climbed up thirty-seven meters high into a little alcove so we could take pictures at the top. That is where the first picture at the top and all these pictures came from.

Hostels

There aren’t really any hostels on Ton Sia so we just booked a HUGE bungalow just up from Base Camp (our climbing school) at a place I was recommend to stay at by my friends I met in Chiang Mai. The place was called “Mountain View Resort” (It was not a resort haha). The guy that owned the place was named Yani. He smoked a ton of weed and was EXTREMEMLY friendly!

Tips

-       If your leaving Base Camp and headed to the beach you will go down this one little street right before you hit the beach and on the right side of this street there is a woman who makes THE BEST AND THE CHEAPEST fruit shakes and yogurt and granola! My advice to you my friend is to GORGE YOURSELF!!! Two stalls up from her (away from the beach on the same side) is a guy that makes REALLY GOOD AND CHEAP sandwiches. Check him out too. (If you’re on the Ton Sia beach looking at the water these places are on the far left side.)

-       Make sure you take some time on a nice day and go climb up to the Railay Beach lookout! The view is okay but what your really after is the secretish (not really) lagoon that is behind the viewpoint. You have to do some really easy rock climbing to get up to the look out and then you have to follow a little path to some ropes that take you downwards. If you climb all the way down these ropes (BRING RUNERS and just know you will be getting very dirty) you will eventually get down to the most AMAZING crystal blue lagoon that is surrounded by cliffs. It’s so amazing! Make sure you don’t go to late in the day and be very careful if it has recently rained. Make sure you go with someone because the climb down to the lagoon is a bit sketchy BUT TOTALLY WORTH IT!!! Christoph didn’t come down with me because haha… he didn’t want to get his white clothes dirty (what a European!) so he chilled at the top with my camera and bag. So I didn’t get a picture of it. We planed to go back the next day but we were bagged after rock-climbing the whole day ahah. I am really sad I didn’t get a picture of it. It was such an amazing little lagoon!

-       If you are planning on leaving try and coordinate with other backpackers because a boat won’t leave until it’s full (eight people) so we saw some people just waiting for hours for more people who wanted to leave. If you’re a BALLER and got mad duckets you can just pay extra and go whenever you want to though.

Christoph and I spent only two and a half days here because we really wanted to hit Malaysia so we jumped on a boat and went to Krabi for the day where we did the Tiger Temple and then peaced to George Town Malaysia!

I had an absolutely amazing time in Thailand and I am so glad I got a two month tourist visa so I didn’t have to do any visa runs and I could go at my own pace and stay where ever I wanted for however long I wanted. I loved how easy it was to travel around Thailand! Boats, buses, trains are all running all the time and for reasonable prices! Every place you go in Thailand has tourists but if you really try you can get off the trail a bit. Ton Sia really didn’t have too many backpackers and the ones that were there were older and most of them were hard core climbers. I completely understand now why Thailand is the tourist hub for South East Asia. Like I said before it has it all!