Leaving Koh Phangan and getting to Khao Lak was a bit of a mission. We'd opted for the 'faster’ way of getting there. Our first transport was an early taxi minibus to get to the dock. Here, we exchanged our ticket from Mr Nice for a series of tickets for our onward travels. We waited for the catamaran under a small piece of tarpaulin, to avoid the horrendous downpour. The catamaran was certainly faster than the car ferry we’d taken to reach the island, and the crossing wasn’t too rough. The seats were less comfortable, however, and we weren’t able to nap the time away. On arriving at the dock in Donsak, we had difficulty getting off the boat because the boat was misaligned with the steps – meaning a large jump down from a moving platform onto concrete, with heavy bags, or twisting ourselves around a moving platform onto a small and slippery set of steps where there was nothing to hold onto. Of course, no one helped with this enterprise and we were left in the soaking rain to work it out for ourselves.

We quickly found our bus and were whipped along to Surat Thani town in comfort, in our wet clothing . Here, we were taken to an office and told to get off the bus, to wait for a connecting bus. This gave us time to get some breakfast and coffee, and then we waited. Eventually, we were crammed into a small minibus with many others, and taken about 15 minutes away to an older style bus and herded onto that. It was another case of ‘hurry up and wait’, as the bus proceeded to do nothing for an hour. Eventually, we got going and were finally on our way to Khao Lak. It wasn’t the fastest of buses, nor was it particularly comfortable. The only time it stopped was when we were only 20 minutes away from our destination, which was simply frustrating. After four hours of sitting on the bus, we arrived at Khao Lak. Phew. The whole journey had taken 11 hours, and significantly longer than we’d been told.

We found and checked into our guest house, called Riverside. The room was small and not the cleanest, and the bed wasn’t great, but it did the job and it was pretty cheap. The owner was extremely nice and she had a great pet dog called Poppy who was all fluff, so Jayna was happy . Riverside was located on the large concrete road, about a mile away from the sea. It was convenient for access to shops, businesses, the sea, our dive shop, and other beaches. We were happy.

Khao Lak is used as a name to describe a stretch of coastline on the Andaman, or west, coast of Thailand. It covers an area about 24km long. It was also where the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami had its greatest and most devastating impact in Thailand, where thousands of lives were lost.

There were no vegetarian places in Khao Lak, somewhat surprisingly, so we found a couple of vegetarian friendly places nearby instead. We had an okay meal at one of them and retired, feeling tired after a day of travel and not a lot else.

On Thursday 24th, two days shy of the 11th anniversary of the tsunami, we decided to witness some of tragic history of the area by going to the Tsunami Memorial Park and the Tsunami Museum . These were predictably indelibly sad. The Memorial Park contains the police boat, washed to its current location, over a mile inland, by the tsunami. The boat was guarding the King of Thailand’s daughter and her children. At the time of the tsunami, it was looking after the grandson of the King of Thailand, who was jet skiing off the coast. Unfortunately, they were unable to save him, and he became one of the thousands of casualties of the tsunami in Khao Lak. There were also some displays and a hard hitting book full of pictures of the devastation, showing the impact in Khao Lak, Banda Aceh, and other places affected by the tsunami.

We took this in and went to the Tsunami Museum. This contained a series of videos about the impact of the tsunami, at the time and on the lives of people and children afterwards. It was hard watching. Again, the videos focused on areas which were not just Khao Lak. It really brought home the impact and devastation wrought by the tsunami, in very visceral ways .

We cheered ourselves up with the thought that it was Christmas Day the following day, and we would be joined by our very good friends, Jack and El. We put together a ‘care package’ for their arrival, of consumables they might want or need after their long travels – basically, items based around caffeine, sugar, salt, and alcohol. Plus a couple of healthy fruit based items. In the evening, we walked to the beach, had a meal and a couple of drinks, and enjoyed the serene atmosphere as people set off paper lanterns. (We enjoy watching paper lanterns, as they are very pretty. However, we cannot condone their use because of the dangers they present in falling alight, onto people, wildlife, livestock, and houses. Not to mention the fact that the metal parts are left to pollute the area in which they fall. All of this is entirely unnecessary.)

On Friday 25th, it was Christmas Day! We treated ourselves to a semi-fry up from what was to become our favourite Khao Lak eatery, called Mars Bar, and chilled out for the day . We opened a card from Ken’s parents, kindly delivered by Jayna’s parents in India. Later we had a spot of lunch and waited for Jack and El to arrive, and the owners of Mars Bar gave us some Christmas cake. Yum. On our return to the guest house, we found Jack and El in reception and had a joyous reunion, not having seen them since staying at their place in London before we left for our travels in February. We presented them with their care package, and they went to sleep for a few hours – their travels had involved four flights and 37 hours of journeying. We called our folks to wish them a merry Christmas.

In the evening, we all headed out to the beach and back to the bar we’d found the previous evening. Here, we got some drinks in, followed by more drinks. And then some more drinks. A band kit was set up, and some children played adorably and incredibly well for a bunch of 6-10 year olds. Later, Jack and Ken went to see if they could play with the equipment (both having been in bands previously) and proceeded to play prodigiously, for several hours . They would occasionally be joined by ‘guests’ on a particular instrument, such as an 11 year old on the drums, and the bar staff on the drums and guitar. This was of great amusement to El and Jayna, and the bar staff. We’re not sure about the rest of the bar’s clientele. Much merriment later, it was well past midnight and we’d forgotten to eat anything for Christmas dinner. Ken, Jack and El went into the sea for a swim. Jack lost his pants (the start of a series of losing his stuff, see the end of this entry) to the ocean. Ken and Jack were offered a gig for New Year's Eve, but could not accept as we would no longer be in the country. Shame.

On the way back to the hotel, we decided to stop in for margaritas in another bar. Which were delicious. It was gone 2am by the time we made it back to the hotel, and we stayed up until 4am chatting and drinking rum and generally having a lovely time. It was a great Christmas Day! Merry flippin Christmas!

On Saturday 26th, it was Boxing Day! We woke up late and didn’t do a lot . Eventually, we got ourselves to the dive shop, Sea Dragon, to prepare our stuff for the following three days of diving. We filled out the necessary forms and waivers, and put our kit together. Jack and El needed to do a dive refresher course, so whilst they did that, Ken and Jayna went to a glorious nearby beach and ate pizza. We spent a while enjoying food and drinks when Jack and El arrived, and headed back to the hotel to get some decent kip before the following day’s diving.

On Sunday 27th, it was our first day of three, diving infamous dive sites off the Andaman coast of Thailand. Considered some of the best dive sites in Thailand, we were very excited about it. Our dive site for the day was a place known as Richelieu Rock. We were picked up early by our dive instructor, Andi, and driven 20 minutes along the coast to the dock. Jack almost didn’t join us, due to sickness, but he made himself get up and onto the boat. Ken, also, had developed a full on cold since Koh Phangan, and was worried about being unable to equalise due to bunged up sinuses . In an effort to make sure he was able to descend down to 18 metres he filled himself with decongestants, and hoped for the best.

On the boat we met others other divers and instructors including one we would also get to know, Will. It was a professional set up, and the catamaran was compact but suitable for everyone’s needs. We headed out of the dock, had our boat briefing, took some anti-sea sickness pills, and nearly two hours later were at Richelieu Rock. Unfortunately, it was deemed unsafe at Richelieu Rock due to the conditions of large swell. So, we turned around and headed back to shore. Though this was very disappointing, all was not lost. After another hour and a half, we were at an alternative dive spot, called Bang Sak Wreck. This was a dredger, before the tsunami of 2004 wrecked it into three pieces on the sea floor. Now, it is a home for sea creatures.

The first dive was to 19 metres for 44 minutes . The dive was otherwise referred to as fish soup, due to the high quantity of fish in the area. The visibility wasn’t fantastic, but served to give the wreck an atmospheric quality. The change of the dredger to becoming a home for sea life was fascinating. We saw many common porcupinefish, which are usually shy. Here, they were not, and were instead everywhere, sizeable and cute. We also saw coral banded cleaner shrimp, masked porcupinefish, durban dancing shrimp, and so many scorpionfish. The second dive was on the same dive site, though we tended to stay over the wreck than circumnavigate it. Here, we saw the same as the above, plus lion fish and honeycomb moray eels. The dive was to 18 metres for 46 minutes. It was truly an experience, and an awesome one at that.

A bumpy 20 minute boat ride later, we were back at the dock. We were taken back to our hotel, whereupon we immediately set off for the beach. Not having had enough time in the ocean, we went in for a dip and enjoyed the last of the sun’s rays of the day . We got some food and drinks in the evening, and a relatively early night for diving the following day.

On Monday 28th, we went to Ko Tachai Reef on the dive boat. This is known as a challenging dive site, and challenging it certainly was. Another early start, and another long and bumpy boat ride later, we were at the reef. Due to the currents and swells, it took two attempts for Jayna to get to the others on the buoy entry point. After being dragged around by the boat and nearly drowning in the process, it wasn’t a pleasant start to the dive. After that, when we had descended to our maximum depth of 25 metres, we had to keep low to avoid the massively strong currents and navigate our way around large boulders. It was a very pretty dive site, and here we saw triggerfish, butterflyfish, Andaman sweetlips, fusiliers, yellow tangs, titan triggerfish, oriental sweetlips, and many scorpionfish. The dive lasted for 38 minutes. At one point in the dive we ascended from 25 metres to 20 metres, and Ken found himself slightly dazed for a few seconds before the feeling passed .

The second dive of the day was over the same reef, but in a different area. After recovering from her earlier experiences, this dive was much better for Jayna. We dived to 18 metres for 57 minutes, and it was a drift dive over a sandy ledge, which was just awesome and so much fun. Here, we saw giant barracudas, glassfish, mantis shrimp, scorpionfish, and orange-spined unicornfish. We all surfaced saying how excellent the dive was.

In the evening, we did not go to the beach, and instead got showered and ate a very pleasant dinner. Another early night was required. Jayna was doing some homework for the following day, as she was completing her deep dive module of the advanced open water PADI course. During this homework she came upon a sentence that warned that decongestants (like Ken had been taking) could reduce the depth where gas narcosis could occur (usually over 40 metres). After discovering this, we guessed that Ken's dizziness in the first dive of the day could well have been gas narcossis. While not dangerous in its own right, it can affect people in peculiar ways (like feeling the need to swim upside down or remove their air-source for example). Luckily all Ken experienced was dizziness, but we were now wiser to the effects of using decongestants while diving.

On Tuesday 29th, we did our final day of diving. Again, this was spectacular . The first dive was on the Koh Bon East Ridge. It was a wall of reef, and here, Jayna completed her deep dive module. This meant that now, Jayna could legitimately dive to a depth of up to 30 metres. Great stuff. The requirements were reviewing the homework completed, and undertaking a couple of practical exercises. This done, we could enjoy the dive. It was to a maximum depth of 27 metres, and it lasted for 49 minutes. We saw an octopus changing colour which was awesome. There were strong currents again, and we entered some thermoclines which left us in a kind of green sparkly haze of water. It was very odd. At some points, we were flying through the water like superman, due to the currents taking us in its enormous swell.

The last dive was on the west ridge of the Koh Bon Reef, and was just as exciting. This was to 23 metres, for 43 minutes. Here, we saw a white-eyed moray eel, an incredible mantis shrimp out and running around, a banded sea krait (a very poisonous sea snake) and another octopus, also changing colour . Inquisitive trumpetfish and cornetfish would come up very close to look at us. It was awesome.

We’d successfully accomplished our days of diving and said a fond farewell to Andi, who had been just awesome. Ken had managed through his cold. Jack had managed through his sickness. El had managed through her sea sickness. Jayna had managed to not drown. We were absolutely winning.

That evening, we were partying hard, with drinks and dinner down on the beach after another long day of being underwater.

On Wednesday 30th, we had a day off in Khao Lak to do other nice things. Ken and Jayna did some chores in the morning. We bought some more shoes for Jayna (fake Nikes), and got some paperwork printed off for free by a very nice and helpful lady in a hotel. We joined Jack and El on the beach near the dive shop, for a very pleasant day of swimming, and lovely evening of drinks and merriment by the sea. Plus watching the bee eater birds smash the insects.

On Thursday 31st, it was an early start to check out and head to the airport for our next destination – Mandalay, Myanmar/ Burma!

* By the time we left Khao Lak, Jack had lost a pair of his pants, a bandanna, a pair of shoes, a pair of sunglasses, his socks repeatedly, and a snorkelling mask. And we thought we were bad.

** Pictures by Jack, El, Ken and Jayna. All underwater pictures are courtesy of Jack.