departing Koh Tao

Well, we're still in Koh Tao, somewhat in spite of our original plans. We neglected to consider that when trying to leave Thailand for Malaysia on a Sunday that's right at the end of a Malaysia school holiday and there's one train a day and two planes a week, that maybe a bit more advance notice is required. So we got "stuck" here for another day, but I really can't complain too much, I can think of much worse places to have to spend some time.

The first pic here is the view looking out from our bungalow. I'm really glad we stayed where we did, it was the right combination of being a bit remote and chill, but not located too far away from everything else. (Some of the areas of the island are a bit of a challenge to get to, the roads being little more than a narrow strip where there happens to not be any vegetation.)

We've been continuing our quest for good food and have found some more. One of these days I should actually post some details about some of our favorite spots, in case anyone traveling in the future reads this blog, but right now I'm a bit short on time (a taxi to the pier where we catch a boat and then a train is picking us up soon), so that will have to wait until another day.

We ended up going on 6 dives over the course of 3 days. I'm starting to get much more comfortable with it and am therefore able to enjoy it even more. We also did some snorkeling on one day, which was really amazing. There's coral reefs that are very close to shore and at very shallow depths and have lots and lots of fish around them.

And we went beyond the simple Thai massage and took a full on spa treatment one night at a fairly posh place. It felt SO honeymoon.

We've had a few bumps in the road so to speak (yesterday we lost the key to the rented motorbike, and in an area that wasn't even paved, but luckily you don't need the key to push it, and most of the way back was downhill -- and then today in paranoia about losing another key I put our room key in a zippered pocket and subsequently the zipper got stuck and I had to take apart the stiching in the shorts to retrieve it), but overall things are going very well. We're also having some camera issues -- see the third picture here that shows what happens if the camera doesn't want to fully open the lens cover. If the problems continue and we can't remotely get either amazon.com or Nikon to do anything about it (I'm doubtful), we may just buy a new camera in Malaysia. I've really gotten into taking tons of pictures with the digital camera and don't want to be without it.

Speaking of Malaysia, that's where we're off to next. Taking the overnight train down to Penang, and after that a bus (probably, not sure yet) to the Cameron Highlands. The main things to do there seem to be to hike and eat, which suits us well. And the weather ought to be a bit cooler there, more like San Francisco weather than the heat of the tropics.

I'll try to write more later and maybe post a few more pics (esp. if the camera cooperates), but now I've got to go.