Matt arrived safely on the 1st of February around midnight in Bangkok airport.  We had a 6:30am flight to catch to Ko Samui so we slept in the airport for a few hours until we could check in for our flight.  (or, more accurately, we found a muslim prayer room with comfy pillows in the airport and slept in a corner of the room .. tucked away.. facing mecca.) 

  We arrived in ko phagnan the day of the full moon party and as expected had a really difficult time finding accomodation.    It took about 4 hrs, but we finally found a luxurious double room just steps from the beach and settled there for a few days.  We headed out to the full moon party that night, which was wild, but slightly over rated.  We stayed on the island then headed to Koh Tao two days later, which is the island I find myself in the arms of today

  Koh Tao has been beautiful.  Matt and I did a 4 day scuba diving open water certification course.  After watching a few hours of video instruction and 3 hrs of classroom studies and tests, we loaded on the scuba gear and headed into the waters, at chest deep level, and just sat under the water for a half hour doing all sorts of safety exercises.  After that we did some snorkeling and diving.  The corel, sea cucumbers, rocks, angel fish, brain corel we saw were all stunning.  The next day we went 9 meters deep, and the last day 18 meters deep.  Admittedly, I got little sleep and caught myself wondering, at 4 am lying in bed, why on earth I was venturing 18 meters under water and worried about the bends and lung explosion and all these fun things we had studied in class.  But alas, the fear added to the fun and I am now the proud holder of a lifelong open water diving certification from PADI.   I even have a DVD of the higlights of our last two dives on DVD, which I will be showing constantly to u all when I get back.

  Matt and I are now going our seperate ways, as he's heading to the beautiful beaches of Krabi, which I have already visited.  With Matt leaving tonight I rented an absolutely beautiful bungalow overlooking the sea on the southeast quiet corner of Koh Tao.  I'll probably spent 4 or 5 days here, finishing up some reading and journals and deciding where to head to next ..

ciao, john