Day 174 – Koh Tao, Thailand

July 30th, 2019

Today I got up at 5am to go out on my morning dives.  Brendan didn’t have to be at the dive shop until later for his rescue training.  Koh Tao has the reputation of being the cheapest place in the world to get your initial open water dive certificate.  I feel like everyone is coming here to dive and it is a major operation.  I’m not even sure that is true about it being the cheapest for that certificate since regular ‘fun dives’ are not as cheap as Malaysia.  They are actually about $10-20 more per dive than what we paid in Malay. 

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with the diving here as they filter so many people through, but it turned out to be better than I expected.  The visibility was just okay, but it was still pretty and there were a lot of things to see.  Since Brendan is always the underwater photographer and he wasn’t with me, I do not have any pictures, but they were  both nice dives. 

After I got back, I went to the hotel so we could check out of the terrible smelly room.  The internet did not work the entire time at this hotel so we couldn’t look up any other places.  Brendan had to leave to go to his rescue course, so he just booked another night at this same hotel but in a different room.  They said if we wanted to switch rooms it wouldn’t be ready until 2pm so we had to pack up all our stuff again and store it at their reception.  Luckily the pool here was really good which is the only saving grace to staying here.  I hated the room last night so much I was ready to go back to the bungalow with no trash can or air conditioner, but Brendan had already paid for another night.  B went to the dive shop, and I went to the pool to wait until the next room was available.

I ended up staying at the pool all afternoon until Brendan returned around 4:30pm.  I met a couple from the UK, and we chatted the entire time.  After the pool we got some drinks and snacks and went with our new friends to the beach for sunset.  We hung out on the beach for quite awhile until we decided we should go for a late dinner.  They knew of a good local place called Mamas and it turned out to be a great recommendation.  This little restaurant was so full the four of us ended up sharing a table with another couple from Spain.  We all hit it off and enjoyed good food and company.