Getting to Ko Tao was pretty easy, there's a ferry which goes there directly from Koh Phangan. It took around 2 hours to reach the island. When we got off the boat, it was chaos, as much as when we arrived on Koh Phangan. So many people were trying to call us from all directions to either get a taxi with them, to book a tour, or boat trip, and hotels and resorts were trying to gain business too. I thought Ko Tao was going to be a quiet little island!

As we're too far from the main port to walk, we had to take an expensive taxi ride to our hotel. Luckily, we booked a place where you can check in from 9am. We booked the early morning boat to make the most of our time here, as we're only here for 2 days. Booking last minute caused the prices to be quite expensive for our budget too, so 2 days here will have to be enough. We heard there is good snorkelling around the island, so we said we'd do a snorkel trip tomorrow and just spend today walking around, getting to know the place.

It feels even hotter here for some reason, so just being out and about in the heat is hard work. We had a wander though the streets around us as we needed to draw some money out. I don't know why, but just drawing your own money out in Thailand costs you at least 150 baht each time, sometimes up to 180 baht. It's ridiculous getting charged to withdraw your own cash. Even having a Norwich and Peterborough account does not stop those fees in Thailand, although we've saved a fortune elsewhere, so can't complain too much. Around the village where we're staying, there are lots of stalls selling all kinds; clothes, sunglasses, swimwear, snorkelling equipment and so on. I normally love shopping, but even I was too hot to enjoy looking in them. We settled on getting some iced smoothies to cool us down, then headed down the beach. It's a pretty beach with some palm trees, which grow up in a strange shape. I liked the look of them, it gives the place character, it will look nice at sunset.

As we walked down the beach, we came across a restaurant right there. It seemed like a cool place, so we stopped there for lunch. I hadn't had a jacket potato for ages and they had them in there, so it made for a perfect lunch. I think the area where we're staying is an ideal location. It's right near the Sairee beach, so it's a bit further away from the madness of the port, but has loads of restaurants, cafés and bars to choose from. By the port is the main town, but we're staying in the village. It's around a 10 minute taxi ride here, but it's a good setting. It's full of backpackers, I expect most do the Ko Samui, ko Tao, Ko Phangan route.

After lunch, we went to find out about booking tickets to get to Bangkok, and also the snorkel trip around the island. There was an agency across from our hotel, so we managed to book a boat and bus ticket from here. It will save us going back to Surratani, and it's a shorter distance from here, so win win situation! We just booked the snorkelling though the hotel as we found out all companies offer the same trip, at the same price. Afterwards, we went back to our room for the rest of the afternoon to escape the heat and soak up the air con! Later on, we went out to find a restaurant for dinner. There were so many to choose from and as we walked past a Mediterranean restaurant, the smell of delicious pizza drew us in. It had a good atmosphere and was busy, so we had a great dinner in there. God knows why I didn't end up choosing the pizza!

Snorkel trip

The next morning, we had our breakfast in the hotel, then we were picked up by Sangthong Tours in the pickup truck. There were a few English, and when we checked in, we realised they were a big group of around 15 of them. I guess this is the kind of place we'll see more Brits than anywhere on our travels! So we boarded our boat and set off on our excursion around the whole island. I think doing a trip like this is the best way to see to see it, or you can hire a long tail boat if there are a few more of you, though that's more expensive.

Shark bay

Our boat wasn't full, but most of the boats we climbed across were. We managed to get a seat together, right at the front of the boat. I'm glad we came on this boat in the end. We were given biscuits and fruit, and there was plenty of tea, coffee and water available. We sailed for about 40 minutes until we reached our first port of call; shark bay. It's so named as there are black tipped reef sharks here. We got in the water to snorkel for about 20 minutes. It was all a bit rushed as we have so many stops, we need to make it around the island. Some people in the group saw the reef sharks, we didn't. I wasn't too bothered though as we've seen many of them on our trip already. Some of the other English guys saw them and they were only on holiday, so I preferred it that way.

After shark bay, we sailed for another half an hour or so to reach our next destination; Aow Leuk. It's a place where there is suppose to be a lot of soft and hard coral, but when we got in the water, we weren't really that impressed compared to the coral we saw in Fiji. Some of the coral was different and there were lots of nice tropical fish there, but some coral was dying so wasn't that colourful. We got back on the boat for a short 10 minute ride to Hin Wong Bay, where we'd do more snorkelling before having lunch right here. There wasn't anything that we hadn't already seen before, but it was still fun getting out to see the island. Ko Tao in general is a beautiful island with lots of rocky outcrops dotted around it. Lunch was a nice rice with chicken dish with more fruits for desert.

Mango bay

Once we'd finished lunch, we set sail towards mango bay. This is supposed to be one of the best spots to snorkel around Ko Tao. It took about 15 minutes to arrive, and we'd only have 20 minutes time in the water. It wasn't really long enough, so just wanted to make the most out of the time in the water. We snorkelled towards the rocks and we took some biscuits to feed the fish. There were bigger fish about, but they didn't take the food out of your hands, so I just crumbled it in front of me and the fish came near me. Apart from that we didn't really see anything really interesting.

Koh Nang-Yuan Island

We returned to the boat to go to the last stop. We though it would take 2 hours to get there, but he meant we'd have 2 hours on the island. It only took 10 minutes to get there. Koh Nang is suppose to be one of the most beautiful islands in the world. I'd never heard of it until we'd arrived. This is the place where everyone gets those iconic photographs of Ko Tao. There is a viewpoint that you can climb, so we plan to do that. You had to pay 100 baht entrance fees, but it was worth it. We docked up and there were loads of small long tail boats in the docks. They looked pretty as they'd been dressed with colourful ribbons.

We walked up the board walk to enter the island. There were so many tourists here, but you can see why; it's a stunning island. It has white sandy beaches with turquoise waters, and the views are to die for. When we navigated our way though all the crowds, we decided to climb to the viewpoint first to get it out of the way. We crossed onto the island and had to take lots of steps up. It was hard work in this smouldering heat. When we got to the top of the steps, we had to climb some big rocks to get to the viewpoint. I couldn't believe it but there was a traffic jam going up to there, it was too busy!

When we finally waited our turn to reach the top, we were rewarded with the most stunning of views we'd seen in a long time. There's a strip of white beach connecting this little island to Ko Tao, which has a small hill. We waited our turn to get a picture from the rocks overlooking Ko Tao, then John climbed up to the higher point on even steeper rocks. I just waited there, they were too steep for me! Then we had to try and weave our way back down through the crowds.

After that, we were so hot, so went in the water to do some snorkelling and to cool down. The water is shallow here, so I didn't think we'd see much, but I was mistaken. There were loads of really big fish all feeding off the sand. They were colourful fish, and make a loud noise while they're feeding and you can get real close to them. That was pretty cool. We also saw some strange creatures guarding little holes and lots of small fish. This was just by the beach, so I would say this is our most interesting snorkel of the day. Once we'd done that, we relaxed on the beach until it was time to go. It's a beautiful place and I wish we had a bit longer here as everything has to run on a time limit when you do a tour.

I'm glad we booked this trip around the island though, it was definitely worth it. We got the boat back, and a free taxi back to our hotel. We came back to shower and went straight out again to watch one of the most amazing sunsets of our trip. The sun sets right over the sea here and the colours were bright pink, red and blue. Those palm trees looked cool behind the setting sun. I must have took a hundred photos, John was bored so we had to leave and get some dinner. We found anther cool restaurant, well good for John as he got to watch the football at least. We had a lovely dinner then headed back to pack the stuff for Bangkok tomorrow.