We said goodbye to out tour group in Bangkok and headed to the train station. The night train left two hours late out of Bangkok (we were lucky due to the political demonstrations in the city the station was closed the next day). The train was hot and it was packed. Families slept under seats on mats and in the aisles. People danced over them selling drinks, food and all manner of foods. The seats didn't recline, in fact they were just hard back benches, sleep isn't an option. To try and get air in the carriage the windows were all opened full and the fans whizzed above us pushing the hot air around. Julie and I were the only westerners traveling, in fact even as we scouted the platform before we boarded we couldn't see any Westerners in the 1st and 2nd class sections let alone in slum 3rd class where we were. At 5 in the morning we arrived into Chumphon, which was helpfully pointed out by the locals around us who we had struck up broken conversation with, lots of "Yes" and "OK's". The trip was tough, it was fun, it was an experience. So was boarding the boat at the harbour, kind of orderly chaos ensued as our half asleep souls stumbled through the masses to get on board the boat to Ko Tao.

Ko Tao is the smallest of the three major tourist islands in the Gulf of Thailand and least commercialized but if you see pictures of it from less than 10 years ago you can clearly see the direction it's heading. Nonetheless it is still a charming place and very relaxed, even in Sairee and Mae Head the two main towns that sit adjacent to one another on the west coast it is quite chilled. Sabai, sabai is the order of the day - relax, relax. In the night time there is a host of bar and restaurants, yes it is a little garish in areas but in others orange glowing lanterns line the streets and fire shows take place on the beach bars with background chill out tunes, tourists look at out across the bay laid on Thai floor mats.

The island is diving mad, so whilst its official nickname is "Turtle Island" you could equally call it "Scuba Central". I headed out over 4 days during the week we were there and completed my Advanced Open Water course with Crystal Diving. Crystal is definitely one of the big factory schools on the island, their boats laden with divers on different courses hardly provides an intimate experience for those starting out diving but the instructors and Dive Masters are good fun and despite the disorganization of getting people on the boat at the right times are very professional. The dive sites are pretty good, the visibility was up at 15+ metres at times, 8 at worst. The corals were colourful and there is an immense amount of fish types. The stand out thing is the temperature of the water though, it is like bath water, 31 degrees. Jumping in the sea to cool down from the baking temperatures doesn't help much.

After completing the course we moved down to a more secluded spot on the south of the island staying at Coral View at Hat Sai Deng beach. I did some excellent diving with their much smaller dive school (Coral View Divers), the team there are great fun but the best thing was the idyllic bay which accommodates Coral View resort and only one other small resort, so you are cut off from any crowds. They also have resident Black Tip reef sharks that come into the bay each afternoon, which is cool to watch. Plus, it is pretty darn cheap but I guess everything is here except may be the beer in the bars...

The only issue with Coral View is getting there. You have to head off on a dirt track up and down some severe hills, and I mean severe, through a coconut plantation and then down the other side off another cliff like hill. It is bad enough in a four by four, so we hired a motorbike. Julie loved holding onto me as I opened her up over the slippery dust road, which had various crevices from rain water. If your wheel goes down one it's over. We did fall off once but as we were only going 2 mph we were OK and I just jumped off and held the bike up, Julie popped off the back in giggles, which must have been a cover reaction as she wouldn't get back on whilst we were on the track. Her loss, she had to walk the last kilometer up the hill. On a serious note we saw so many people with battle scars falling off bikes on these roads, it is said that if you come to Ko Tao and don't leave with a Ko Tao tattoo (a graze or worse) then you haven't experienced the island. Nice. Nonetheless we are having a relaxing time, a good way to end our adventures.

Just a week left now. We head to Ko Pha Ngan now.