Day 92 - 6th May 2010

Up and dressed we headed out on the bike to Deep Down in Maehaad.  Just as we pulled up, the heavens opened.  It's strange to see so many people happy to see rain.

After the rain had stopped I left Deep Down and walked down to Crystal as I was going to continue work on the 'Tower of power'  I'd spoken to Nath and the idea for the tower was just to have it as a coral nursery with no swim throughs.  So with that, I attached netting to most of the structure, trying to make use of all the off cuts that had been left from the previous jobs. I must say it's taking shape.  Perhaps a few more pieces of netting need to be added but by 4.30pm my fingers were pretty sore and cut up, so I decided to call it a day, bought some water and walked back to Deep Down.

As I arrived, they were just watching the last segment of the documentary to ensure everything was ok, as it premiers tonight at 8.30 at 'Dirty Nelly's'.   All looked good and you could tell that Andy was pretty excited.  

The evening went very well.  There must have been well over a hundred people attending. To start with an Open Water video was shown and then a couple of short films made by a couple of trainee videographers which were very good.  Towards the end of the second film, the food came out, a mixture of pizza's, salad, potato, green thai curry, rice and bbq'd chicken.   Everyone tucked in and it made a refreshing change for Simon to have something to eat apart from Salad, rice and bread at these bbq's.

Once most people had got there food, Andy's film was put on.   The dramatic music really captivated the audience and near enough everyone watched. 

He's done a good job with Simons help.  There were a few bits that Simon would have liked changed but in the time frame that he had and with all the problems with rendering it just wasnt worth taking the risk.  I will hopefully get a copy and put it on the blog for you guys to watch.

A few beers later Si & I retired after a very sucessful night.

Day 91 - 5th May 2010

Last night we headed down to Crystal to meet Tina her leaving dinner was off as she was running late and it also clashed with Jonnys (DM) birthday BBQ which most people were going to, so we decided to meet at the BBQ and say our goodbyes there.  We only stayed for an hour or so as Simon wasn't feeling great, he'd still had his rash and felt and looked pretty drained. 
Today, we woke around 9am, I got dressed, jumped on my bike and cycled down to Sairee to buy some bread & orange juice for breakfast as I thought I'd make boiled eggs & toast as Si was still feeling pretty rough. 

Once we'd eaten breakfast, I washed up and we set off to the clinic to get Simon checked out.   Si showed them the antihistamine he was given yesterday and they advised him to continue taking them but to drink lots of water as he might have a mild strain of Dingue but to come back if he gets any worse.  Si's not one for complaining or being fussed over, so I think he might find the next few days pretty challenging

As Simons student Andy has a deadline of the 6th for his documentary, Si needed to go to Deep Down to help/advise him.  So we spent the rest of the morning there.  Around lunch time I walked down to Crystal to see if I could do anything with the 'Tower of Power' (PVC tower which will be used for a coral nursery) which will be put down at 'Junk Yard' but all I could find was some unfinished bits of netting that needed to be tied down, so finished that and went back to see how Andy and Simon were getting on.

After a lot of waiting around, Andy was putting the final touches on his documentary and around 7pm, Si and I headed off for the 'Save Koh Tao' meeting where they covered current, up & coming projects, fundraisers, beach clean ups and gave a presentation about the increased water temperature and what we can do to help monitor any changes to the coral.

Once the meeting was over, we headed yet again to Deep Down.  Andy was having various issues with the rendering and in the end, Simon had to bring the students work home as his pc is more powerful.

Its wasnt a great night  ...Simon was up for most of it trying to save the student's project, eventually managing to get a backup working..

Day 90 - 4th May 2010

Simon left around 10am and went to Deep Down to help Andy with his documentary and I stayed at home.   I got up as soon as Si left and caught up with the blog, emails and charged my phone & Ipod.

After blogging and mailing, I sorted out all my Open Water paperwork and typed up all of my notes/sequence of skills that I'd taken from the courses that I've team taught, then filed all my Advanced Open Water paperwork and exam answer sheets.  I still need to write all the skills onto a white slate but I think I'll do that after I've assisted on a few more courses just to work out the best sequence for me.

After another cup of tea (it's a hard life;-)) I washed both Simons new motorbike and my pushbike which I've borrowed from Nathans wife, Tracy.  They're both gleaming now, just wonder whether Simon notices ;-)

I've had another bad ear (now my right one) for the last couple of days and I've been taking eardrops and Ibuprofen for the pain ..its doesn't seem as bad today but I popped down to the pharmacy just to get it checked out and lo and behold, yet another ear infection!   Don't know what's going on, Im always washing my ears with fresh water after diving  ..it's getting annoying now.   Saying that, in the last few days, Si's got sort of rash all over his body.  It's not itchy, just looks really odd.  Im sure he'll be off to the pharmacy to get it checked out later.

Tonight, it's our friend, Tina's leaving dinner.  She's going back home to Canada for a few weeks, so looking forward to that.

Day 89 - 3rd May 2010

We both had a good nights sleep but as per normal, Si was up before me, tapping away on his PC.

After showering and packing what little we had, we lazed about for couple of hours playing games on Si's Iphone (Zombies & Bullseye. Which he's obviously played far too much as he beat me every time) before leaving for the  Lomprayah (5 mins walk away)

At the Lomprayah office we bought our boat tickets and then waited at the restaurant next door sipping on a fanta & coke until it was time to board.

The crossing was only a couple of hours and went really quickly and before we knew it, we were back on Koh Tao.  We walked to the Motorcycle shop Leiderhosen to collect Simons bike & keys and then strapped the case on the bike and headed down to 'Deep Down' as Si wanted to see how the documentary student Andrew was getting along.

An hour or so later, we left and headed home to unpack, sort washing and catch up on emails etc

In the evening we decided to get a takeaway from 'Kanya' where we bumped into Alan, Heidi and their friends, which was a nice surprise.

Takeaway ready, we headed home plated our Green Thai curries up and watched an episode of 'Fringe' and 'Flashforward'.

Day 88 - 2nd May 2010

7am the alarm went off and we both quickly dressed and left the hotel and headed to the mall to queue for tickets to go up the Petronas Towers.  By the time we arrived there must have been a few hundred people already queueing and it was just 7.30  ..so we stood in line and waited for what seems like hours and finally at 8.30 the queue started to move.  I think we must have reached the front of the queue just before 9am and already most of the morning slots had gone which wasnt good.  Finally we were at the front of the queue and I got a 10.30 slot, the only morning slot left and Simon got 12.30  ..so we agreed that I'd go up the tower and Si would give his ticket away as we needed to be at Sebang airport by 12.30.

Instead of going back to our hotel, we stopped at Starbucks and had a large cappuchino and latte.  Around 10:10am, I headed off for my Petronas experience which started with a short film showing the design, construction etc and then was escorted to the lift and taken up to the walkway between the two towers were I had 10 mins to take photo's and a birds eye view of the city,  I dont think Simon would have been that impressed with the whole experience but I enjoyed it and it was something new.

We checked out of the Maderin Oriental and headed for the airport for our flight to Koh Samui where we had to stay a night before catching the Lomprayah back to Koh Tao.

The return flight was good, we flew Berjaya air on a old propeller plane.  It looked and felt pretty antiquated  but we made it safely and then jumped into a taxi which took us to our hotel, a 25 min journey.   Once checked in and shown to our room Si made a dash for the TV to check to see whether the Spanish MotoGP was on.  After surfing through channels, he'd found it and it was just about to begin.  I've never seen someone so happy ;-D   ..I cant moan as I was hoping it was on too.
The race itself started off pretty boring but the last few laps were just amazing. Lorenzo was in 3rd position for pretty much the whole race, when 3 or 4 laps from the end he caught up with Rossi, then somehow managed to catch up with the leader, Pedrosa, by the last lap. After a few attempts at overtaking with some heavy contact, he overtook to win... being a Spaniard, he was overjoyed,  jumped off his bike and ran into a lake... absolutely hilarious!

The time now was only 8.30 so we went for a walk to check out the hotel facilities, beach, pool, bar, restaurant etc and then decided as it was so quiet, to head into town to eat and perhaps do a little shopping.

In Chaweng, the main stretch of Samui we took a stroll, popping into a pharmacy (to get some ear drops as my right ear is sore & inflamed) a couple of clothes shops and then found a quietish bar to chill and have a couple of beers.  By the time we ordered our 2nd beer a reggae band appeared who were very entertaining.  It was only a small bar an after the first track an older couple got up and danced ..that was the most entertainment I've seen in a long time, even the band members we giggling away.  The singer had a good voice but the saxophonist after a couple of tracks brought pain to our ears so we left.

As we were both pretty hungry we stopped for pizza & colzone, before catching a taxi back to the hotel and a good nights sleep.

Day 87 - 1st May 2010

Today we were up pretty early and headed out to try and get tickets for the Patronus Towers.   Apparently every day,1000 people are given a  free pass to go up to the tower.  We arrived there just before 9am and already all of the tickets were gone.  People must get there ridiculously early, so we planned to get up tomorrow at 7am to start queueing. Hopefully we'll get a time slot in the morning as we were leaving for the airport around midday.

It's stupidly hot today and after popping to the motorbike shop to sort out a few details we thought we'd go to KL tower to get some panoramic shots of the city.  After a short white knuckle taxi ride we arrived.  To the left of the entrance there was a crowd of people getting a 20 meter pony rides, how bizarre...  After climbing up the steps to the entrance, we queued and finally got the the ticket desk where they were charging a ridiculous amount of money to go up the tower but thrown in with that was a 20meter pony ride, a free go on F1 simulator (which was 'Out of order') and a nature walk where animals were enclosed in tiny cages and a free photo in front a a false backdrop of the tower with fireworks going off ...Nice!!   None of that appealed to us in the slightest so we hopped on the free shuttle which took us down to the main road and headed back into the main shopping district.  We would have caught the skytrain but for some reason it had stopped running so we walked. 

Tired and very very sweaty, we reached town and looked around the huge maze of shopping malls, taking a quick look into the camera shops to see if we could find anything reasonably priced for Nathan.  No joy there but we did see some amazing 3D & 2D tv's on display, the picture was incredible.  Feeling tired hungry and dehydrated we searched for somewhere western to eat as Simon had bit of a dodgy tummy.  You wouldn't think that finding something vegetarian would be that hard, We tried Nando's, who in the UK do a great falafel wrap but everything on the menu had meat in it, even McDonalds didnt have a veggie option.  So frustrated and so hot that both of us were about to pass out, we decided to go back to the hotel and make a plan.

Our hotel was next to a shopping mall just by the Patronas Towers so we cooled down, rehydrated ourselves and ventured out, well more like staggered out.  The lower level was a food mall with cafes serving meat, fish dishes of every description and cakes.  By this time Simon was very frustrated and just wanted me to choose something, so I stopped at an Indian stall and got a beef curry dish.  I must say it was tastey but I felt guilty and urged Simon to go off for another look.  He came back with a plain Naan bread ..argh!!!     It wasn't all doom and gloom, as on our way out, we suddenly figured out that there must be a supermarket  (must be the heat that's affecting us) and there was.  So we marched quickly there and got a basket full of cheese, crips, biscuits, chocolate, beer and wine  ..yes I know, not the most healthy of options but at least it was what Simon wanted.

Back in our hotel room, Si took a beautiful photo of the Petronus towers from our bedroom window and then we put on a movie and had a picnic in bed ;-D

Day 86 - 30th April 2010

uess what, Si still woke around 7am and was typing away at the PC when I woke.

We both showered and got dressed and headed into town.  We decided this time to catch a taxi back one of the huge shopping malls as we had a couple of chores.

Alan & Heidi had a couple of faulty dive computers which needed taking back to a shop but unfortunately the few dive shops we tried didnt know of any Oceanic dealers/distributors.

Then next, was to look at camera's with underwater housings for Nathan  ..we checked out a few and mailed him the makes & models.  Funnily enough, there's not a massive saving at all, only a hundred pounds or so compared to UK prices.

Our penultimate chore was to find a motorbike shop as Si needed spares for his new bike.  We'd tried about half a dozen shops before stumbling on one that could supply the parts, which they'd then ship onto Koh Tao.  

By this time we were thirsty and very hungry so we decided to attempt to find the Vegi restaurant that we'd been to a few years ago.  We knew it was on the edge of Chinatown and not far from the market, so we strolled down a couple of streets and lo and behold we found it!

Nothing had changed, looked as drab as ever.  On sitting down, the old lady came over with the same ole, photo album style menu and we ordered.  Yet again, we ordered far too much.

Vegetable spring rolls, Beef (fake) strips in black bean sauce, BBQ'd chicken (fake) with vegetables and lastly, fried rice.

As we had hardly eaten since yesterday, we started to feel full after the spring rolls and made a pathetic dent in the rest of the food.  So instead of wasting it, we got it takeaway.

Feeling full and satisfied, we headed off to the Chinatownn market to see what bargains we could find.

Si bought a couple of Tshirts and cap and I bought some shorts and a vest top. You really have to be in the mood for bartering and Si did a much better job than I did surprisingly...

Full, shopped out and tired, we headed back to the hotel for a bath & bed.