In many ways it was the perfect place to be ill. Our bungalow looked out over the green jungle of the Cardamom mountains and the shimmering blue river which had brought us to the isolated 'eco-lodge'. There was nothing but the sound of bird song and the call of the gecko to accompany the violent burbling, beltching and groaning of my aching stomach. The lady who ran the lodge was quite keen to suggest I had most likely picked up the bug before travelling from Phnom Penh - to be fair, she was probably right. But for two days there was not much I could do but drink water, sleep and ride out the storm.
It was hardly the best preparation for the 20 hour journey that followed out of eastern Cambodia, up, around and down the other side of the Gulf of Thailand. To get to the island of Koh Tao, we then had to take a bumpy catamaran that made us both quite green. But it was worth coming here. In three months of travelling around Asia, we'd only spent about a day and a bit on the beach, knowing that we'd end up by the sea for a week. Koh Tao is well known as the cheapest place around to learn to dive -drawing hundreds of other travellers too. We noticed quite quickly that we have fewer tattoos and dreadlocks than is currently the fashion - but we're not planning to change this.
And so for the last four days we have been learning how to use dive tables and calculate nitrogen levels with the help of our French dive instructor Vince (who has a slight cockney accent, thanks to watching too many episodes of the Mighty Boosh). We have seen beautiful banner, butterfly and parrot fish, groupers and even Christmas Tree worms and blue ringed angels- which were festive. By now we are officially qualified Open Water divers -which has involved lots of reading and quite a lot of time bobbing up and down on boats, avoiding sea-sickness. I'm pleased to report my stomach is fully recovered however, and was even able to enjoy a very nice celebratory meal on my birthday, thanks to the generosity of my wife...
1 comment:
hello ho ho n go go its terry here kevins dad just been looking at your blogg it seems like your having a good time, i havent had time to read your blogg but i've seen all the pictures, i used to do the same thing with my school books? can you guess why i left school with no qualifications? we are preparing for are credit crunch christmas, roast starling cooked over a candle hope you keep on loving your brill hols look forward to seeing you when you back in the uk, stay save terry n liz, ps go go reminds me of stacey off the gavin n stacey show when she smiles?
H&G - This is now Kevin. I'm posting my dad's message exactly as he wrote it, and I'll let you decipher where the full stops should be placed, and where the commas and question marks should not be positioned.
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