An Island Interlude: My arrival

Well I am back in Chaiyaphum after a fabulous holiday in the south of Thailand.  Unfortunately, 2.5 weeks of vacation cannot really be summed up in one blog post so I'm breaking it up and titling the whole series "An Island Interlude*."


I left Chaiyaphum on the 12th, took a bus to Bangkok and then the train to Chumphon.  I didn't bother booking any tickets before I left because the entire point of the trip was to remain flexible and I didn't know when I was going to be leaving.  Unfortunately this meant that by the time I got to the train station in Bangkok there were only a few seats available on the train to Chumphon and they were all in 3rd class Air Con.  I, of course saw no problem with this.  I figured I rode 3rd class No Air Con in India and I was totally fine- there is no way Thailand can be worse!  Yeah right Caroline.  The train was a sleeper (unlike the day trains I had taken in India) and third class Air Con looks a bit like this:  

Gratuitous, albeit horrible picture of me

If you're thinking "wow, those seats look comfortable!" then you are wrong.  Those seats are not comfortable and with 4 people to a berth, well, lets just say it was a long 12 hours.  It did give people the opportunity to be very creative with their sleeping arrangements though.  I saw families where they had kind of layered themselves so that a parent was sitting almost upright against the window and then a child would lay their head on the parent's lap and curl up on the seat and then another child would take the remaining space on the seat for their head while their body lay on the floor.  Other people just stretched out on the floor so that the person they were sharing a bench with could have the whole bench.  Then there were the people who just sat upright the whole night or put one leg up so that their head could rest on their knee.  I was very lucky that I got a whole bench to myself so I had a little more space.  The other part of the train was that in this situation Air Con was not wanted.  It was freezing.  I had a scarf that I wrapped myself up in and I was wearing a maxi dress so all in all I was better off than most.  The poor sisters sitting across from me hadn't prepared at all and at one point I opened my eyes to them using a wash cloth to cover part of themselves.  Anyway, it was quite the experience (but my recommendation would be to skip it if you are ever faced with the choice).  

After I got off the train I waited for an hour for the bus that would take me to the pier so that I could take the ferry to Ko Tao.  When I got off the bus, this is the view that awaited me:

Beautiful, no?

My ferry (the bigger one in the back)

First view of Ko Tao

After getting on the ferry I was approached by a man who asked if I already had a reservation on Ko Tao.  I didn't so I took the pamphlet he was offering and told him I would let him know if I would stay at the resort he was advertising.  As it turned out, he was advertising for one of the two places I was considering (based on Lonely Planet's recommendation) and since he was conveniently offering me a free taxi from the pier to the resort I took him up on the offer!  So I got on the taxi to Big Blue Diving Resort, met with one of the diving instructors who explained all my diving and accommodation options and booked myself a bed in the dorm room and a spot in the open water diving certification course.  I should also mention that with my course my accommodation was free, so that was pretty excellent.  I then had the rest of the day (I arrived in Ko Tao about 10:00 and the course didn't start until 17:00) to get settled, eat something, shower, and start feeling like I was on a beach vacation!


Picture of my room:

Dorm Room - We were pretty comfortable with each other and leaving our things out

Lockers for valuables

bathroom

my bed is the one in the bottom right corner

Fabian on the left

Frankie

That night I had dinner with two of the people also doing the open water course (OWD) and we worked on a study packet that we had for homework.  Both Frankie and Fabian were also travelling alone and it was one of the things that I loved about Ko Tao was that there were so many people staying at Big Blue who arrived alone.  It made for a very friendly and open atmosphere and definitely made the overall experience better since it was so easy to make friends!  Then, when I got back to my dorm I met two girls from Holland who were also doing the OWD.  I couldn't believe that in my very first night I already felt like I was part of a group.  Travelling alone is not a problem for me but it does come with added stress and tension and is not always easy.  Being around a group of people who I knew I was going to be with for at least 3 days (the length of the course) meant that I always had someone to eat meals with and someone to take pictures of and with and in general its just more fun!

Lieke and Kimsha (Dutch girls)

So I think that's where I'll leave off for today since school is over and its time to go home!

By the way, school is going just swimmingly.  We have a new teacher, Ray, who is from New Zealand and very nice.  She's also quite and experienced TESOL teacher so I'm pretty happy about that.  So all is well here in Chaiyaphum.