Koh Tao, tropical island in the sun!

The diving trip we did in Chumphon was about the only thing we did do of any note in our three full days there as I ended up feeling a bit ‘under the weather’ with ‘tummy problems’. We’d already planned to have a rest day on Monday to let our bodies recover from diving (I know I get problems at altitude, where air pressures of less than ‘atmospheric 1 bar’ are present, so why shouldn’t I have problems going under water where high pressures over 1 bar are present? Our 20m depth exposed us to pressures 2 bar over atmospheric, a total of 3bar. It’s a much greater increase than altitude is a decrease!), I was feeling a bit ‘off’, but it turned into stomach cramps, headaches and just feeling ‘ill’. Don’t think it was anything to do with diving as ‘the bends’ is bubbles of nitrogen building up in blood vessels, mainly collecting at joints, so making it difficult to bend joints, hence its name. I certainly didn’t have any of that, so put it down to a bit of a bug I’d picked up.

It meant that Monday was late getting up, breakfast at a bar along the sea front at about 10:00am, back to our air-con room to get out of the heat, read, catch up on emails and check out hotels, guesthouses and transport options for our next stage, an evening drink with Werner, who rode out on his motorbike to meet us in the local bar (he was hoping we’d agree to go out diving again on Tuesday as he had three people who wanted to go out snorkelling, but the dive company wouldn’t go out unless we agreed to go diving as well as it’s not worth it with just three snorkelers. We said ‘no’ and he was obviously disappointed, but didn’t hold it against us. I thought it was a bit ‘off’ of him to put the responsibility of a trip for three snorkelers on us, but still), something to eat and home.

Tuesday evening at 'The Curry Shack'

Tuesday, with me feeling a bit worse was another late breakfast and back to read and more emails, this time downstairs in reception with no air con, but a better view than the walls of our room, followed by a meal at a different restaurant. This one was right on the seafront and was called ‘Jasmin, the Curry Shack’, obviously not a typical Thai restaurant, it had a bar with some tables and chairs and a pool table under roof, but no walls. Through the other side was a terrace right next to the beach with views out to the Gulf of Thailand and the islands we dived by on the horizon. It was only about 6:00pm and the bar had about 4 European people sitting on bar stools drinking beer. The language was English, which is fairly typical where different nationalities meet as it seems to be the common language, but the accents were definitely British, possibly American and a couple of Aussies. We ordered a beer and took it to an outside table on the terrace next to the beach to look at the menu. They had sausage and mash with onion gravy on the menu, one of my favourite meals, but would it be real or just what Thai people think it should be? Jackie wanted a Thai red curry, but I decided to stick with sausage and mash as good home cooking would be good on a dicky tummy! If it was just Thai sausage and mash I’d decided I’d mix some chillis into it from Jackie’s plate! When the Thai owner came over I asked if they were real potato’s, properly mashed creamed and the sausages were real pork. She said ‘yes’, so I ordered but expected to be disappointed. However, when it came I have to say it was fabulous, it was a 9 out of 10, losing 1 point as I felt the mash had been previously made, frozen and reheated, but it barely detracted from what was a great meal. Jackie’s Thai red curry was also very good and different from a typical Thai version. The Thai lady’s husband was a British chap who looked, to me, the image of Eric Morecambe and Jackie correctly placed him as coming from Walsall, which amazed him as he hasn’t lived there for 40 years (it was because he sounded just like Ken Tranter she said afterwards). He is a chef and, in the UK made Indian curries in restaurants. He buys local ingredients and makes his own sausages, trading his curries to locals in exchange for the produce he wants, so it’s testament to how good he is that the locals prefer his curries to their own. One of the other British guys at the bar was also tucking into sausage and mash, telling me he always has it and how much he loves it. What a great place it was, just a pity it was our last night there.

On Wednesday I was still feeling a bit ‘off’, but a bit better, so we carried on with our trip. Werner picked us up at 11:00am and dropped us off in Chumphon centre by the bus that was to take us to the port, in order to catch the high speed catamaran to Koh Tao island, one of a group of three islands in the Gulf, the largest best known (and by all accounts now largely spoilt by overdevelopment) Koh Samui. Koh Tao is supposed to be much less developed and the major place in the area for diving and snorkelling due to its abundance of coral reefs close to shore so, although we don’t intend diving again, we decided to give it a go.

On the catamaran ready to leave Chumphon

The catamaran scoots across the 30km or so ocean in less than 2 hours, so we stopped indoors as we decided the speed would make it very windy (as well as the fierce sun beating down), so we arrived in no time into what seems to be a real tropical island. It’s not quite a paradise as the main town where we are staying is quite busy, but the rest of the island looks quite rural, it’s mountainous, all covered in forest, the beach is white sand, fringed with coconut palms with little thatched bungalows set haphazardly amongst rocks and trees. The sea has virtually no waves, is beautifully warm, but still nice to get into to get away from the searing sun, it’s shallow for a long way out, until it gets to a rocky reef and there are lots of small boats in the bay offering snorkelling trips, boat rides round the islands or water taxis to the main port along the bay (‘main port’ being a relative term!).

We’ve got a very nice air con room in a guesthouse that also has a dormitory style hostel at the back, which is less than 5 minutes walk to the beach and 2 minutes into a town packed with more restaurants of every nationality (Denise – my sister – if you’re reading this you can eat a full English breakfast every day, steak and chips, Sunday roast and any other English dish you could want), plenty of roadside hawker stalls, Thai massage parlours (I think that’s all they are!) and a huge number of dive companies. The mode of transport, other than open backed pick up trucks operating as taxis, is by motorbike or motor scooter. The mountainous terrain makes bicycles un-popular, although we’ve heard of horror stories of people being charged ridiculous amounts for scratches when returning motorbikes, so we’re not going to do it. The results are streets massively crowded with motorbikes weaving in and out of people, other bikes, taxi pick up trucks and dive company vehicles – it chaos!

Our little bit of paradise on the beach

Today (Thursday) I’m feeling virtually back to normal (thank you for asking), so after a walk round to find a breakfast restaurant, we spent the day on the beach. Unusual for us, but it’s such an idyllic place and we found free of charge bamboo sun beds with pillows so you could sit up, beneath a parasol so we could keep out of the sun and right next to a restaurant/bar. We sat there and had a pineapple smoothie, a little dip in the sea, then chicken fried rice for lunch and reflected that at the prices we are paying here we could stay here forever and live within the income we are getting from the rental of our two houses back home in Alvechurch. 

Jackie goes in for a dip

I can see why I married you darlin!

Not bad for a little tropical island in the sun that’s very close to paradise! I’ve not written this to make anyone envious, but to point out that this really is within reach of anyone who has a modest income, so start planning your holiday, it’s fabulous, just as long as you can stand the heat, but there’s air conditioned rooms nearby and a nice warm sea to swim/dive/snorkel in or just to splash about in a boat or kayak (cheap flight to Bangkok, take the overnight sleeper train to Chumphon and high speed catamaran to Koh Tao bought as a package and book into a luxurious hotel/guesthouse, ours which is very presentable is £22 per night for us both, spend a maximum £20 a day for really good food for two and you’re on course for a fabulous and inexpensive holiday). We even understand there’s some rock climbing here, but a) we sent our gear home and b) it’s too hot for that!

Life's tough, but someone's got to do it!

On to Chumphon or Chumporn depending on where you look!

Werner and Jackie, waiting for the boat

So you’d think the minibus would be easy….. and mostly it was, though we did take the easy/expensive option of booking three seats, one for the luggage, which still made it cheaper than the train. A/C was working, always a good start, and so was the radio which I turned down as soon as the drivers back was turned!

We left Prachuap on time with the correct number of people per seat, but that didn’t last long! He stopped and started, picking up and dropping off people all over the place, hence why the 198km journey was scheduled at 3 ½ hours, even though he was scarily doing 120km/hr a lot of the time! 

Their view out to sea from the dive centre

I hated the fact that in the tiny minibus, the whole paid for seat was now full of our, and everyone elses luggage, but people would have to stand, or crouch anyway in the small gaps between seats, I just felt guilty, not that any of them said anything, though I did feel better when the posh lady in the front moved to the folded down middle seat so granny could have the good front seat, she hadn’t done that for anyone else! Some of them seemed to pay, some didn’t, they all seemed to just shout ‘let us off here’ typical Thai mayhem, but all good natured and absolutely fine. We assumed we’d get to the terminal and get off with everyone else, and that was I think, what we’d told Werner, but the driver seemed to think we’d be better off going to the ‘Fame’ bar, where they obviously speak a bit of English and organise trips etc, so out we got! 

Paddling out to the inflatable that transports us to the main boat

Fortunately it wasn’t far and Werner, appeared moments later. He’s German, from the former GDR, probably about 65, lived here since last century! Taught himself Thai, which seemed to involve teaching himself English as all the best language books were not in German…. Really nice guy, very helpful, though not sure how good his English actually is, or whether he just carries on speaking regardless as he wants to make his point!

Returning to collect more people

However, he was there waiting, he took us the 14km to his house had a quick coffee while we looked at the dive gear, and tried on fins, he then dropped us at the guesthouse and arranged to meet us later for a beer to confirm our dive date. (Since then he appeared at breakfast on the dive day to take us to the boat and then collected us early evening to take us to the ATM (we had already paid him but that left us a little short!) quick look at the Sunday market, then back for another beer!

Having originally suggested Monday would be a better day for us as it would be quieter as the weekending Thais (this really is mainly a Thai resort) would have all gone away, it turned out to be too quiet – no other divers!

Koh Ngam left (Werner thinks it looks like a shoe) and the small Koh Ngam Yoi to the right

Arriving at Ngam Noi for our first dive

So we went on Sunday. Joe our dive leader spoke precious little English, and no-one asked to see any dive qualification at all. Oh well, I suppose it’s our look out if we want to kill ourselves! I asked him how long he’d been diving, 4/5 yrs I think, but he showed me his computer which had logged 311 hours, so he’s done a bit! I then showed him my log book so he knew we hadn’t dived for 6 years, and then showed him that my first dives were in 1983, probably before he was born, and certainly before most of the other clients on the boat were born! I did feel old. Over the course of the day we realised that most of them probably spoke English, so not only old, but inept as well! We were put with a group of three, who’d probably had Joe all to themselves yesterday, but there didn’t appear to be any ill will.

Lunch and our 'surface interval' between dives

Koh Ngam Yoi, our second dive site

This really is ‘lazy persons’ diving, Werner had taken the gear to the boat, the fairies had put it all together, when it came to kitting up I found myself with a personal dresser, all I had to do was get myself in and out of the water, the fairies refilled the tank during lunch and away we went again!

It didn’t take long to re-familiarise ourselves with the techniques of diving, air in to jacket, air out, subtle depth changes by big breathes in or out, slow gentle fin movements, and look cool with the hands loosely held together.  Almost the first thing we saw on descending to about 17m was a turtle, chomping on some coral, that’s it, I’m happy. 

Not one of our pictures (taken from the 'dive Chumphon' web site, but we did see these clown fish in amongst the sea anemone

Another 'dive Chumphon' picture, but we saw these Batfish as well

Pleasant dive, lots of fish, not so much coral, and did see some crown of thorns starfish, so perhaps that, in conjunction with the over fishing and over diving tells a story! Just thinking I was getting a bit chilly when we came upon the wreck of a fishing boat, not sunk that long ago with huge shoals of fish, took the mind off the temperature and suddenly we were back at the boat. Apparently it was an hour after we went in the water!

Nice lunch – rice red curry, some mushroom and tofu thing (with a lump of pork thrown in just in case you might want to be veggie, we’d had that the previous night – steamed fish, lots of thai herbs, and minced pork! Sorry Helen, veggie just doesn’t seem to be an option!) and some fishcakes. Fruit and cold drinks.

Goatfish (Dive Chumphon website)

After a not very long surface interval, off we went again to dive on a wreck of the Prab 741 a decommissioned Thai naval vessel previously known as the USS LCI (M) – 670, very interesting, here is a youtube clip of someone elses dive earlier in the year. I think our visibility was a little better, but not much http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rJufpWZa0iQ

Swam away from the wreck as it turned into Piccadilly Circus back towards some rocks, passing another turtle swimming along minding his own business, before coming across a ray of some sort, easily a meter across, he was lovely. So all in all two good dives, all in £44 each – ok lunch wasn’t as spectacular as the Barrier Reef trip, but the bank balance was a lot happier!

Pleased to see the turtles (Dive Chumphon picture)

Back to shore, tired but happy, quick trip out with Werner, who I think we may have now upset as he thought we’d like to go again, so he’d earn himself some more commission, but once was probably enough! Good dinner and a long nights sleep. Only thing I’m not happy about is despite the long cotton trousers and the socks, the evil little bitey things still bit me! Through my clothes! Perhaps it was my punishment for weakening and having 'France fries' instead of rice with my dinner, I just get a bit 'riced out'! Very hot today, so we had a leisurely breakfast before starting the task of hunting out our next place to stay!

Leaving our second dive site

My only comments are that I’ve been a very ‘silly billy’ and managed to break a second camera. Yes Bill, if you are reading this I’m very sorry to have to tell you that I’ve broken the camera you gave me! ‘Broken’ is perhaps a strong term, there is nothing visibly broken, it slipped out of my hand as I picked it up from the table in our room in Prachuap and dropped to the hard floor. It was in its padded case and made hardly a sound as it hit the floor from less than 1 metre, so I thought nothing of it, but while it switches on, the lens keeps moving in and out, it can’t focus and then it says ‘lens error’. I was pretty disappointed and annoyed with myself, two cameras, how bad is that! I’m almost afraid to buy another one lest I should do the same to that! Anyway, it means I am back to the fairly bad camera in my mobile phone so the quality of pictures have deteriorated severely, let’s hope I don’t break that!

Koh Ngam Yoi as we left for home

The Prab 741 wreck we dived on in its former life as USS LCI(M) 670, here landing troops in Italy in July 1944

The one thing that Jackie didn’t mention in her excellent report is the rain storm we had on our first afternoon here in Chumphon. Werner had just dropped us off at the Albatross Guesthouse after telling us it hardly ever rains here when the ‘heavens opened’. Fortunately we were in our room by then so could watch the deluge from safety. It lasted a couple of hours, reducing to just rain after about 20 minutes and, so far has not rained since. Immediately afterwards the humidity made it pretty miserable anywhere but in our room with ‘life support’ air conditioning (so glad we didn’t opt for the lower cost ‘fan only’ room Werner originally booked for us!). Today, as yesterday, its mostly blue sky, temperatures in at least the mid thirties if not higher and is very hot outside, so we’re waiting until late afternoon/early evening before venturing back outside.