Warning – This post is lacking in photos. We must have been having too much fun to take that many!

We made it to our last Thai island after a slight delay at the Koh Tao pier. It was absolute chaos there as everyone was moving on to Koh Phangan for the full moon party. We had decided to give the party a miss, as we hadn’t heard many good things from the dozens of people we had asked about it. They said it was fun and an experience, but not the best night of there life. We had the best night at the fire show a few nights before and had our fill of neon paint, so didn’t feel like we were missing out.

One we arrived in Koh Samui we had a minibus transfer of about 40 minutes to the area we were staying, Lamaii. Koh Samui is the third largest island in Thailand after Phuket and Koh Chang, so picking where to stay is important as you don’t want to move around too much. We had 3 rooms all next to each other at this hotel, which was really good fun. That night we walked down to a local Thai restaurant, which was delicious yet again. We all sat down on our balconies and talked about tour options for a trip we wanted to take in 2 days time to Ang Thong National Park, but it all got a bit confusing and we decided to make a decision in the morning.

The next day, Leigh and I booked the Ang Thong tour for us, Simon and Jamie. Loveday and Joe had decided to spend their last full day relaxing at the beach, so it was going to be just the four of us. The rest of the day was spent at the hotel pool, chatting, relaxing and just being on holiday. Excellent. We had a lovely breakfast at the cafe up the road and later on explored the local beach for an hour or so.

In the evening we went to the night market, which was an experience for our guests. I think we’re a little immune to them now as they all have the same items for sale. We had street food for dinner and enjoyed some beers at an outdoor bar. The atmosphere was great and we knew why. The locals were preparing for Songkran. More on that later.

Up at 6 am the next day, Leigh, Jamie, Simon and I headed downstairs to get picked up for our Ang Thong National Park trip. There were so many different tour operators offering pretty much the same trip. The prices were different for each one, the reviews varied considerably and it was an absolute minefield picking a tour. Ultimately we decided that if we were all together we would make our on fun and we had a really lovely day. Once we made it to the pier, we joined the boat which did have around 45-50 people on board. We knew this was going to be the case so it didn’t really bother us. It took about 90 minutes to sail out to the National Park, but the sun was shining, the sea was calm and our guides were pretty funny, if not slightly eccentric. We had a very light breakfast of croissants and bananas on board, which was nice, but small.

Our first activity of the day was kayaking. There were so many people kayaking in this small bay that it was a little worrying to start with. Simon and I learnt to stay in front of everyone, stay with the guide and then we got to see everything clearly, hear the information she was giving out and stay away from the crowds. It was a simple case of making it work for us, which we did. We kayaked through a cave, under some overhangs and even saw a little reef shark briefly in the shallows. We must have kayaked for about 40 minutes in the end and that was enough in the boiling sun.

We got out of the kayak onto a stunning beach and hiked up to the emerald lake, also known as Talay Nai. This lake is actually marine and there is a tunnel that connects it to the ocean. Unfortunately, the tunnel isn’t big enough to dive through, but it is small enough for many fish to move back and forth. We cooled off at the top and enjoyed the view for a while.

After the lagoon we went back onto the boat and enjoyed a very tasty lunch of Masaman curry and rice. After lunch we transferred to a longtail boat at Wua Ta Lap island. We snorkelled for a while around the reef, but the visibility was pretty terrible in places. I would say, not even 3m. Leigh was very lucky as she saw a blue spotted ray. Jamie spotted a large trevelly as well. Simon and I only saw parrotfish and other reef fish. We spent the rest of our time on the island relaxing and chatting. It was a really lovely day and a great introduction to the Ang Thong National Park.

That evening was our last on Koh Samui. We joined back up with Loveday and Joe and took a taxi over to Chaweng to have dinner at Hard Rock cafe. Being the night before Songkran, let’s just say it was getting a bit wet on the streets. Our taxi was a songkran which was completely open on the back. We all got shot with super soakers and on the way to the restaurant a few people got water chucked over them. Songkran is the Thai new year celebration and is seen as a time of change. Water is used in the festival as a sign of fertility, cleansing, prosperity and to help bring the rains in the coming wet season. Younger Thai people see it as a chance to have fun, get out their super soakers and have a load of fun. We weren’t expecting the night before Songkran started to be a danger zone though so weren’t quite ready for the soaking. We had a lovely meal at Hard Rock and was getting sad to say goodbye to everyone the next day.

Loveday and Joe left really early the next morning, Leigh and Jamie had a couple of hours to have breakfast with us before they had to head off to the airport. My hearing had completely gone in my left ear this morning, which was annoying, but we still had a nice breakfast together. Simon and I didn’t do a lot else this morning as we would get drenched if we stepped out of the hotel. We really enjoyed watching the water fight in Lamaii as we were driven to the pier for our ferry off of the island though. If we had one more night on Koh Samui, we would have gotten completely involved in the Songkran festivities, but I think the timing of us all leaving on that day meant we couldn’t really go out and get soaked.

 

 

To start with, a spoiler. We did not see a turtle whilst on turtle island. Apparently the name originates more from the shape of the island rather than an abundance of turtles. We set off very early from Ao Nang to get to Koh Tao. Our journey involved a minibus to Krabi town, then a bus to Donsak pier and then a ferry to Koh Tao, which stopped at Koh Samui, then Koh Phangan and then finally, Koh Tao. From start to finish, the journey took us about 8 hours. Not too bad really.

My first impression of Koh Tao was that it was raining firstly (luckily only a little bit) and secondly that it was far more developed than I expected. The entire pier area was full of bars, dive shops and restaurants. For those of you that don’t know, Koh Tao issues more Open Water PADI diving qualifications than any other place in the world. It’s become a bucket list tick to get your open water diving qualification here. As Koh Tao is a nursery ground for new divers, we decided Simon and I were only going to do 2 dives whilst here and Loveday and Joe were going to do 4.

We made it to our hotel, which was very flash. For the first time in a long time, we had a pool and we didn’t hesitate to go and have a play. Simon and Joe decided to be toddlers and spent a good hour jumping in, high fiving as they jumped in, karate kicking balls and playing piggy in the middle. It was exactly what we all needed after that long journey. After a shower and a change, we walked down to the main pier area as it was time to finally meet up with Jamie and Leigh! Jamie and Leigh had been in Thailand for a few days by this point and had explored Bangkok and Kanchanaburi, where they spent some time at an elephant sanctuary. It was so great to be reunited with this guys and soon the months that we had been away vanished just like when Loveday and Joe showed up.

As a group we found some tasty Thai food for dinner and then walked along Sairee beach (the main backpacker area) to the Lotus bar. Visiting a fire show had been top of my list for a long time and we are so glad we saved it for when everyone was together. It had been Leigh’s birthday the day before so we celebrated, drank buckets of Thai whisky and peach iced tea, drank Chang, danced a lot, got painted with neon paint, limboed under fire, skipped with a fire skipping rope and just had a huge amount of fun. It’s funny really, because when Simon and I first watched videos of fire shows about a year ago, we said we would NEVER limbo or skip with fire. Funny how things change. It was completely safe though, I think.

We made it back at about 1am after having to walk a very long way to find a taxi. We had quite a few dogs walking with us and decided to call each of them rabies. It made the walk home pretty funny! The dogs are so friendly here and I’m sure hardly any of them have rabies. I think they were walking us home, acting as escorts, to ensure we were deposited safely at the taxi rank.

The next day was a relax kind of day. Simon and I were feeling pretty fresh actually, but some people were feeling the affects from the night before. No comment there. We headed down to the South part of the island, after a very much needed fry up, and laid on the beach at Chalok Baan Kaok bay. It was our first really good weather day in a long time, so lying on a beach and taking the occasional swim was exactly what we all needed.

My ear was playing up a bit that evening, and Loveday was having some irritation in her eyes so we decided to stay close for dinner, again local food, which was really tasty.

On our last full day we were all splitting up. Loveday and Joe headed out to do 2 dives at a site called Sail Rock, Leigh and Jamie went to do a discover scuba diver experience at some dive sites closer to the island and Simon and I had a lie in, had some breakfast, did some blog bits, did some lifemin (life admin) and not a lot else. Loveday and Joe came back at about 2pm and we all headed down to the pool to catch some rays and go for a swim. We figured we weren’t going to get much more time to just relax and not do a lot (we did do a lot of lifemin though, but not telling you about that yet) so we aren’t even ashamed to not have done a lot. The other reason we didn’t do much was because of my stupid ear. It was feeling better, but it still wasn’t right. Initially we planned to do a days snorkelling around the island, but we decided that we would probably be disappointed and that a day of rest would be better, as it would hopefully mean I could dive the next day.

We met at a pub called Safety stop (compulsory after every dive) that evening and had another lovely meal and a catch up on the days events with everyone. It was so lovely to see each other so much after so long apart and just showed us how much we had really been missing our friends and family.

The next morning our alarm went off at 4.45am. Yes I know, horrific! The reason why isn’t so horrific though. Loveday, Joe, Simon and I were going diving! 2 early morning dives and back to land by 10.30am. I had been adamant that if we dived in Koh Tao it would be to a site called Chumphon Pinnacle. I knew the likelihood of seeing a whale shark was very slim, but this place was meant to be a good site regardless of whether you see them and there had been sightings recently. I will admit it now, I was secretly hopeful. The dive company we used was called Scuba shack and we chose it because a tout had been really really helpful on our ferry to Koh Tao a few days before. Email replies had also been quick and friendly and they could go to Chumphon on that day. We are so glad we went with them. Our dive master, Max, was brilliant and very friendly. He was happy to tailor our dive to suit us and that’s exactly what he did when the BEST THING EVER happened.

On our liveaboard in the Similan islands, Ana, our guide, taught us a trick. Cross your fingers, on both hands, lick your fingers and then touch your nipples (through your wetsuit of course). This is the internationally, all species recognised sign for please show us some big fish. Last time we did it, we saw a manta ray. We taught Max this, and within 90 seconds of starting our decent we saw him… a 4-5m whale shark. He was the most beautiful fish I had ever seen under the water. The next 45 minutes of our dive (they only gave us 180 – 200 bar of air) was spent watching Maximus (this is the name we gave him). Our guide attempted to point out barracuda, there were loads, and other interesting species, but our eyes were completely for the whale shark. It still hasn’t really sunk in that we actually saw the largest species of fish on the planet. He was huge, but by no means the largest whale shark, with the largest ever recorded being 12.2m. He loved swimming through the divers bubbles and was followed by an entourage of other fish. At times we swam straight up towards us and over our heads. Honestly, the video footage we have is unbelievable. At the beginning of the dive we were the first dive group with him and by the end there were at least 50 divers in the water. Back on the surface the atmosphere was ELECTRIC! Every head that came up from a dive was screaming ‘WOW that was amazing!’ We were all buzzing for days. I’m still buzzing now from the experience.

We had our surface interval break and got back in before it got too chaotic again. Max had asked our skipper to stay at this site for another dive rather than move on to another. See how amazing he was? This time we did actually follow the plan a bit more and saw some more of Chumphon pinnacle. As Maximus the whale shark swam passed we enjoyed him, but kept with our plan knowing we would see him again. We saw so many barracuda, including some massive great barracuda, a tiny yellow boxfish, huge shoals of fusiliers and some unbelievably massive groupers. Maximus was probably with us for about 10-15 minutes of that dive and again, he was loving the divers bubbles and came very close at times. He was loving the attention. We even joked later on that when all the divers left he probably was sad that his fan club had left.

We were back on shore by 10.30am and I couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend a morning. Just magical! I’m grinning from ear to ear just thinking about it. We went back to the dive shop, got celebratory team Scuba shack tshirts to remember the moment, filled in our log books and went back to the Safety Stop restaurant to watch our videos and compare photos. Leigh and Jamie joined up with us and we tried to not talk about what happened too much. We went for a look in some of the shops and then headed to the pier to get our ferry down to Koh Samui for the next 3 nights. Koh Tao, you have been amazing! I would definitely come back and I would definitely do more diving around Koh Tao. My initial worries about trainee divers being everywhere was partially true. There were a lot who didn’t know what they were doing, but I think if you go with the right dive shop, like we did, and pick your sites well, there is a lot to explore around Koh Tao. We will be back. 🙂

We arrived in Ao Nang after a very fast mini bus transfer. He said it would take 2 hours 30 minutes, we were there before 2 hours had past. On the way we saw an elephant being transferred in the back of a pickup truck. The elephant’s Mahout was in the back with him and the elephant looked in a really good condition. We were really glad that Loveday and Joe got to see an elephant up close as our driver stayed behind a while for us to get some pictures.

When we got to Ao Nang I was pretty grumpy as my ear pain had developed into a full blown ear infection. The ear drops weren’t touching it so I stayed in the room to try and recover and the others went out to get some Indian food. Thailand is a primarily Buddhist country, but in the province of Krabi we were seeing a very large Muslim presence, with Mosques, halal food and women wearing head scarves everywhere you went. It was very interesting to see this other side of Thailand.

The next morning, the ear was worse if that was possible. I had to go to the pharmacy and got some anti inflammatories and antibiotics. Loveday and Joe went for a stroll along the beach and Simon and I rested and caught up with Admin for a while. I felt by about 2pm that I could venture out and try and find some food, so we went to a local street food stall, got some food to takeaway and went and sat on Ao Nang beach to eat it. The food was really tasty and was only a little over a pound per portion. Excellent! Whilst at the beach, Loveday and Joe went for a swim, Simon and I enjoyed the impressive limestone cliffs around and then it started raining… again! In Khao Lak we had become quite familiar with an afternoon downpour, but thought we may have moved away from it. Unfortunately not. This was nothing like Khao Lak luckily and was to be the last real rain we saw during Loveday and Joe’s visit (YAY). The rest of the day was for relaxing, booking onward travel and arrange what we were doing the next day. We went out for dinner at a really yummy place and had an early night.

Before the rain:

The next morning we went down to Ao Nang beach and jumped in a longtail boat. Every since our primary research into Thailand, I had dreamed about going to a place called Railay. Railay is inaccessible by road even though it’s on the mainland, but is known for it’s monkeys, rock climbing, impressive cliffs and caves, beautiful beaches and laid back feel. Our longtail boat was 600 baht. We could have paid 400 baht if we had have waited for some other people to join us, but after 15 minutes nobody else had so we decided to pay and head off. This paid off as when we got there we were some of the only people on the beach. We were dropped off at Phra Nang beach, which was all of our favourites.

On the way to Railay

At the end of this beach was a cave, which had a shrine in it and a lot of lingams. The phallic sculpture is known as a “lingam” in Thailand. This cave is called the Phra Nang Princess cave and it is believed that leaving a wooden lingam here will create fertility and prosperity. To us, it just looked like a cave full of wooden penises. Photo time!

Joe particularly wanted to find a cave on the island. We’re not sure we ended up at the right one, but after a bit of a walk we found Diamond Cave or Pranang-nai. Our walk took us along East Railay beach which none of us were impressed by. The tide was low, which might not have helped, but there was a sewage like smell in the air and it just wasn’t that pretty. There were some mangroves on the tide line, so maybe during high tide, the beach would have left a better impression with us. At Diamond Cave we paid an entrance fee, which we were told was for the National Park. We were the only people inside the cave and enjoyed watching the bats, and looking at the stalagmites and stalactites.

East Railay

We walked from Diamond Cave over to West Railay beach and on the way saw a dusky leaf monkey. Very cute. We stopped and had a drink here, then some food and just enjoyed relaxing. This beach was probably the most touristy, and the most expensive. It wasn’t as pretty as Phra Nang beach, but we did get some lovely photos of the cliffs, beach and longtail boats.

We decided to head back to Phra Nang for the rest of our time at Railay. On the way there, Loveday, Joe and Simon went up to a viewpoint. I didn’t go as I was worried about my ear. They said it was pretty disappointing for the climb they had to do up and sorry guys, but you did look a mess when you came back down. So much sweat and red mud. Also, I can’t find any photos of the viewpoint other than them coming back down.

When we got back to the beach we swam (I tried to keep my ear dry), relaxed, watched rock climbers and read. It had been a really great day and Railay had definitely been all I had expected it to be. The only thing we didn’t do here, which most people do, is rock climbing. I’m not so keen on rock climbing, abseiling yes, but not rock climbing. The whole group agreed with that so we didn’t have a go. We headed back to town, had dinner and got an early night ready for the next day’s adventure.

Another monkey

Simon and I perfecting our routine

At 8am we were picked up by Krabi Kayaks to go kayaking along the coast and through some mangroves. Collecting all of the group took ages and we were all getting a little fed up of waiting. It was then a 40 minute transfer to the pier. The group we were in had a lot of new kayakers, which is completely fine, but they weren’t listening to instructions at all. I’m not sure how many times we heard ‘STAY LEFT, LEFT, LEFT!’ The water was quite shallow in places and it was really important that they went where directed to avoid hitting these shallow sections. We did see some more monkeys on the way, this time macaque monkeys.

We visited a sandbank and saw some starfish, we kayaked through some mangroves and saw lots of naughty and cheeky monkeys, as well as mudskippers, and we took in the beautiful scenery. We had a great time, even if the kayaking was a little slow in places and a little ‘beginner’ for our expert skills. Here are some of the photos we took.

Sorry it’s blurry (super zoom)

That afternoon was our last in Ao Nang. We couldn’t believe how quickly the 4 nights had gone. We had an early 6am mini bus, bus, boat trip to Koh Tao the next morning where we would be meeting up with 2 more lovely people, Leigh and Jamie.

 

 

It will be very hard for me to talk through our experience on the MV Similan Explorer day by day. Most of the days rolled together and we entered into a daily schedule of dive, sleep, eat, repeat. The liveaboard was run by the dive company Similan Diving Safaris and promised us 18 dives in the beautiful Similan and Surin islands, as well as the World famous dive site that is Richelieu Rock. We knew the trip would be more at the budget end of liveaboards, but it didn’t feel that way for most of our trip.

After organising our kit and filling out paperwork we transferred to the boat. Khao Lak had been giving us some pretty impressive rain in the afternoons and this day did not disappoint. We had to run from our minivan to the boat and by the time we got there we were all soaked to the bone. We were shown to our 4 man room, which was teeny tiny to say the least, and as we were soaking wet when we got there, our room smelt and felt a little damp for the next 4 days despite us drying it out wherever possible. That night was all about orientation and were told how the next few days were going to pan out.

7am -first dive

11am – second dive

3pm – third dive

7pm – fourth and final dive

We had a briefing 30 minutes before our dive time and then we kitted up and waited to jump in. In between dives we often had opportunities to go ashore and explore some of the islands. We went ashore on our first day to one of the Similan islands, explored the beach and attempted to climb up to a viewpoint. Simon and Joe managed to get to the top, but Loveday and I went back after we realised we were being severely eaten alive by mosquitoes. Lets just say, a lot of us had a lot of bites after that trip. The beach was beautiful though and Simon and Joe said the viewpoint was worth it.

We decided to not go ashore the next day at Donald Duck Bay (the rock looks like Donald Duck). We all chilled out, napped and read instead, which was becoming necessary after 4 dives a day.

We did go ashore for the last surface interval trip, which was to a sea gypsie village. At Morgan Village, hundreds of Moken people live a semi nomadic hunter gatherer lifestyle. Moken people live in islands around Thailand and Myanmar, but their way of life is under threat. There have been many attempts to assimilate them into Thai and Burmese culture, but most of these fail. I was interested to hear that the Moken people do not officially have a nationality. They life off of the land and the ocean, but are also struggling with health issues due to an exposure to sugary and fatty treats from tourists. The Moken people gained media attention in 2004 when the tsunami hit this area. As they are so familiar with the sea they knew that the tsunami was coming and managed to preserve most of their lives by going inland. Compared to the loss of life elsewhere, they hardly lost any at all. It was really interesting to see this village and as we walked around we could see how happy everyone was. We were introduced to the village drunk who showed us pictures of the Moken people from books and Simon got a chance to play some football with some of the local kids.

Let’s get back to the main point of our trip, the diving! Simon, Joe and Loveday all completed the full 18 dives. Unfortunately, I only completed 17 due to an ear problem that developed into a full blown ear infection (7 days later, I’m still struggling with it). Some of the the dive sites we visited were: Anita’s reef, Koh Bon, Richelieu Rock, Koh Tachai, Boonsung Wreck, Premchai Wreck, Elephant Head Rock and many more. Our two dives at Koh Bon were the favourites for all 4 of us. We were lucky enough to see the same manta ray on both of these dives. It was a very magical experience and I don’t think I will ever forget the electricity we all felt when we first got in the water on this dive. It felt like something big was in the water, and it was! The first time we saw the manta ray, she zoomed past us from about 15 metres away and the second time we were doing our safety stop at 5m and saw her from below us for about 3 minutes. I can’t think of a better way to spend a safety stop. She was breathtaking. The photographer on board got some pretty close up photos of her. I’m not trying to trick anyone. We did NOT get that close, but it’s great to have some clear photos of her.

Other highlights included Richelieu Rock. Ranked in the top 10 for dive sites in the world, it did not disappoint. We were lucky enough to dive here 3 times and we finally got to see one of my favourites. A seahorse!!!! It was AMAZING!! I love seahorses and I had never been able to see one in the wild so this was a treat. Richelieu rock was named by Jacques-Yves Cousteau after the colour of Cardinal Richelieus red/purple robes. The whole horseshoe shaped reef is covered in purple soft, hard and fan corals, as well as purple anemones. It was like there was an interior designer for the reef. Unfortunately, the colour didn’t come out very clearly on the professional photos.

So, what else did we see? Pipefish, ghost pipefish, 2 x white tip reef shark, 2 x turtles on the surface, 3 x baby cuttlefish, mantis shrimp, blue spotted rays, endless clownfish, cleaner shrimp, moray eels, tuna, trevallies, barracuda, octopus, trumpetfish, cornetfish, jellyfish, crown of thornes starfish, other starfish, fish and lots more fish. We saw pretty much everything and it was amazing. What did we not see? A whale shark! Even though we were there during whale shark season, the chances of seeing one is still very very slim and we were told they were hanging out more near Myanmar this year for some reason. We weren’t surprised we didn’t see one. I guess it just gives us an excuse to do some more diving. I’ll add a selection of photos below to sum up the trip. Professional photo credit goes to Rich Carey who did a great job of capturing our trip. Try not to laugh when you compare our go pro photos to his.

We experienced some very beautiful sunsets whilst on board.

I would definitely recommend this liveaboard to anyone who loves diving. We’ve been told it’s one of the last remaining untouched areas of Thailand to dive, and I think they’re right. There is a lot of destruction of the coral, due to the tsunami, but some of the sights are just breathtaking.

Loveday and Joe finally flew into Phuket about 4 hours later than planned. On their first flight a passenger came down sick and the flight was diverted from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai. Unfortunately the passenger died, which is unbelievably sad. Luckily the airline got Loveday and Joe onto the next flight from Kuala Lumpur to Phuket. We had arranged a car to collect them from the airport and then to take us all up to Khao Lak. We had 2 nights here before our liveaboard. Simon and I had made a sign for our visitors, but it turns out your not allowed them unless you are ‘official’ and we soon had some airport security and Thai army officials around us. We put the sign in the bin and they left us alone after that.  Silly really, but I guess they have more scam artists here than we do!

It was lovely to see Loveday and Joe after all this time and we spent most of the ride having a good old catch up. Loveday and Joe wanted to push through with the jetlag and after getting settled in our accommodation, where they were OBSESSED with Loveday’s name (in a nice way), we headed out for a walk. We found a bar called coconuts and enjoyed some fruit shakes at the beach. Before we knew it, it was getting late so we headed back, got changed for dinner and went to a restaurant called Spinach. Fortunately, they didn’t just sell spinach and we all had a lovely meal.

The next day we decided to take it easy as we knew that we were going to have a very busy 6 days as soon as we joined the dive boat. We had breakfast, headed to the beach and spent the day swimming and chatting. Not a bad way to spend a day. At the end of the day, we saw the weather changing. We weren’t quick enough and ended up drenched by a tropical storm that ended up lasting about 4 hours. I have to say, it was pretty impressive watching all the thunder and lightning from our balcony.

That night we took a songtaw taxi about 2km up the road. Khao Lak is the name of a 20km area so it’s hard to say exactly where you are. We were going to eat dinner and to watch Mr Moo’s Cabaret. We reserved a table in the second row at Mr Moos (we didn’t want to be picked on) and then had a leisurely dinner. The show started at 9:45pm and we enjoyed cocktails before this outside. Joe’s cocktail was a ‘pink lady’ which was served in a naked lady glass! Entrance to the show was free, and the cost of the drinks was really reasonable. The ladies looked amazing in their outfits and despite the often terrible lip syncing to Western songs we really did have a great time.

After the show we had the opportunity to take some photos with the ladies. The poses they made us do were ‘interesting’ and we got out of there pretty quickly as we felt a little uncomfortable at this stage. Despite this, it was great fun and I think we may try and watch another cabaret show before we leave Thailand. We just know that Leigh and Jamie would love it too!!

The next morning was the day we were heading onto our liveaboard for 5 nights,  but we had a little bit of time in the morning before we had to do equipment checks and paperwork. We decided to go to the Royal Thai Navy Third Fleet Turtle Nursery. The Royal Thai Navy play a very active role in turtle conservation. They often patrol beaches in the Similan and Surin islands and protect eggs laid by green and hawksbill turtles. Once the turtles are born the protection centre nurse them for 6 months before releasing them back into the wild. At this size they are large enough to defend themselves and have a much greater chance of survival.

We spent about 90 minutes walking around and looking at all the different tanks of turtles. Turtles from the age of 15 days up to 11 years call the turtle centre their home. The whole experience was heartwarming and it was great to see how much was being done to increase the population size of the green and hawksbill turtle. We even bought some cucumber and fed some of the older green turtles. Very very cute.

At the turtle sanctuary there is some information about the 2004 tsunami. We didn’t realise that Thailand was affected so badly, as we’d always heard mainly about Indonesia. In this area 3000 people were killed during the tsunami. Here is a photo of one of the Thai navy search and rescue ships.

After this we had a couple of hours just walking around Khao Lak and eating some food before our check in at the dive shop. Not surprisingly there was another massive thunderstorm and we got soaked all over again. Apparently, this is pretty unusual for this time of year, as the monsoon season isn’t meant to start until mid May.