Koh Tao

4th December

After a somewhat restless night the coach stopped at Chumphon. Here we checked in to the ferry and waited for a few hours. It wasn't actually that bad, we found a few deck chairs and sat watching the sun come up! When we eventually boarded the boat we rushed to the top deck and got a seat at the very front of the boat! After almost six weeks away from beautiful Ballyholme it was really nice to smell the sea again!

The ferry took just over an hour and when we arrived we were met by a hotel worker who had our name on a sign – I felt like I was in a movie! After quickly buying a £20 snorkel we hopped on the back of the hotel pick up truck and make the 4.5km journey to Mantalay Hotel. A pick up truck might seem like an odd choice for collecting guest but they needed it – at point the road was non existent, an ordinary car or van could never have made it!

We had arrived early but they checked us into our room anyway and I was so pleasantly surprised! It's so nice to have a decent room, plus the doors are slide and the shower looks like a microphone! For 3 nights the room is £70, we added in breakfast which took it up to £100 but even so, there is no way you could get a hotel like this, a room like this and a location like this in Europe for that price! It takes us thirty seconds to walk from our room to the hotel pool and the private beach!

With all the travelling we were pretty hungry so we had an early lunch which was pretty excellent and then we headed to the beach! There are a few other hotels sharing the beach but when we arrived there were only two other people sunbathing! As the day progressed there were still no more than ten people! The beach could have been cleaner, there was the odd plastic bottle and I did spot a few flip flops but there was nothing major and unlike Ballyholme beach, the water is safe to swim in! Rory and I had a good snorkel around the cove and I have never seen so many cool fish! We'd snorkelled in Croatia but here the fish are amazing colours! They're fluorescent blues, yellows, greens and oranges. Some were longer than my entire arm and some are smaller than a finger. I even saw a fish with long white teeth that it was using to eat off the coral!

When we had satisfied our need to swim and get sunburnt we came back to the room and relaxed. Our T.V actually works so we half watched Kingdom of Heaven but it was pretty boring so we headed back to the hotel restaurant and got dinner. Rory went for some chicken concoction and I opted for the chicken with cashew nut, apparently it's a big deal over here! Both were really nice and as we're guests in the hotel we didn't have to pay. Well, we will at some point but for now they're just adding it to our bill. I feel like the Queen, I don't have to carry money but I have a feeling that come check out, all those cheeky snacks might come back and bit me in my sunburn bum!