Turtle Island - Koh Tao

17-20 Aug - After my unfortunate adventure in Koh Phangan, I felt extremely down at a point and was seriously considering of putting an end to my journey to go back to Malaysia. Nevertheless, I decided to finish off the third and final island around the area, Koh Tao.

Named after the island's shape of a turtle, Koh Tao is approximately 40km away from Koh Phangan and is the smallest among the three. Koh Tao was originally an island where Thai government imprisoned political prisoners but later on as tourism blossomed, it was turned into a scuba diving heaven due to its natural landscape and underwater beauty. Today, Koh Tao stands as the number 1 training and learning centre for scuba diving in South East Asia.

As I bid farewell to Carlos on the next morning, I headed to Thong Sala once again to catch a ferry to Koh Tao. The 90 minutes ferry ride cost me 250B and as I am traveling ahead of the other hungover tourist after the full moon party, I had no problem in securing a seat.

Even before reaching Koh Tao, I was swarmed by many diving school operators offering me their packages for fun dives and courses at the pier and on the boat. As I need to be extra careful with my money, I took advantage of this and shop for the best possible deal.

As there are plenty of diveshops in Koh Tao, competition was very keen. The diveshop that I decided to check out even had free transport for me from the pier. Once I reached their premise, I was greeted with a warm welcome and free drinks. HAHA. It's really crazy.

After some intense bargaining with the manager Miss Jai, I ended up doing an Advanced Open Water course with New Way Diving for 8000B that includes 3 nights accommodation in a bungalow by the nicest beach in Koh Tao. Even though I knew I had secured a very good deal, I still felt a bit uneasy about my decision to spend so much more money after what had happened.

Well I spent the rest of the day exploring the beach and of course studying for my Advance Open Water course. :) Beach in Koh Tao is much nicer compared to Koh Samui and Koh Phangan but to me it still wasn't as pretty as Malaysia's Perhentian island.

Early next morning, I woke up to get ready for my course. I was introduced to Tuk, my instructor and realized I am the only person in the class. I had to spend some time in class listening to the theory of what I will do and answer some questions and Tuk, being a local Thai guy speaks perfect English. After the boring theory part, finally I get to go underwater. We went out on a big boat alongside other fun divers and students in other classes.

My first dive went really well and Tuk turned out to be a very good instructor. He points out my mistakes and explains clearly what needed to be done for me to get the most out of my diving experience. The divesite that I went, Chumpon Pinnacle also happens to be the most beautiful in the area. I ended up doing 2 dives in the day and 1 dive at night. The night dive was really an eye opener for me as its totally different from day diving.

On the second day, I did 2 more dives and this concludes the requirement for Advance Open Water Diver certification by PADI. However my duties doesn't end here. Part of the bargaining I did with Miss Jai on the first day include me imparting some knowledge of marketing to help her and the diveshop gets more customer.

That's how I managed to squeeze such a good deal from her. I spend the rest of the day analyzing New Way Diving and its competitors' marketing strategy and gave Miss Jai some advice on how to stay ahead of other companies. I was so happy that my little knowledge in marketing came in handy and Miss Jai even offered me to stay longer to help her in return for free dives.. HAHA. How cool is dat. So at least if I can't get a job back in Singapore, I know I can always go back to Koh Tao to work now. :)

At night, I went for dinner with Miss Jai, Tut and another instructor. We went to a restaurant by the beach which I am staying and after that we went to a pub for a beer. One thing I liked about Koh Tao and the 2 other island is that all of them has some very nice restaurants selling reasonably priced food with excellent ambience. This is something that is sadly lacking in the Malaysian islands.

According to my original plan, the next stop after Koh Tao was Hua Hin, a beach town on mainland Thai and a popular retreat for the Thai King. However as I have limited cash left and doesn't intend to incur huge interest by withdrawing from my credit card, I decided to go straight to Bangkok to wait for my childhood friend Xiu Ting whom will be joining in a week's time. She will also be bringing me some cash along with my replacement ATM cards which sadly can only be issued from Singapore.

I spent the next day in the dive shop exploring more marketing avenue with Miss Jai and she even gave me a Masamman curry treat for lunch. After bidding farewell to Miss Jai and Tuk, I left in the evening on a ferry to Chumpon and from there I took a 12 hour bus straight to Bangkok.

As I mentioned earlier in my previous update on my blog, I was very very grateful to have done my diving lesson in Koh Tao as it helped me got over my loss. I felt that it was even better as I have chose to do it with New Way Diving as the service I received from them really made me feel at home. I would highly recommend New Way Diving and Tuk for those people whom are interested in taking a diving course.