We made it to the big elephant – Thailand. We got here after quite a night on Chengdu Airport from where we left giant China in the north east to get to Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur in the south and eventually made it to heavenly Phuket, the final destination.
We spent a great, quite day on picture perfect Kata Beach and stayed the
night in Phuket town in a little, very cheap hotel where, judging by
the nightly sounds, rooms could be rented by the hour. We didn’t care
much since we were too tired to be bothered, and after all it somewhat
filled a cliché you expect to be filled in Phuket. But the island really
is a small paradise and worth a longer visit: a bustling weekend night
market in town, most beautiful lush jungle covering the rolling hills
and small mountains, old Portuguese architecture and great food and
drink on every corner – what’s not to love?
The next day we caught a bus to Surat Thani on the other coast of
Thailand to meet up with Peter. Easier said than done since neither his
nor our phone worked the way we expected them to. So when suddenly, when
we drove around Surat still on the coach and I looked out of the window
and saw Peter walking around aimlessly right in the exact same moment
when he looked at the street into my window and saw me sitting there– it
was meant to be and really great luck! We took the night ferry to Koh
Tao after having some good Thai food at the pier, where we slept on thin
matresses on the shaky floor in long lines that covered the whole area
of the ferry, that really was a cargo ship. The sea was really calm so
it was a quite, almost enjoyable night's sleep.
When we arrived at Koh Tao, we went
straight to the great dive operation “Crystal Dive” where Jens and I enrolled
for a class to get our PADI Open Water Diver Certificate and Peter
signed up for a refresh class and some other dives where he has seen
much more than just the Christmas Tree Wurm that still fascinated that
lunatic most.
The diving class so far has been theory in form of video watching
and review quizzes and a long time in the pool this afternoon. Breathing
in and out only through the mouth is a little creepy to me so I still
have to figure out whether I like diving or not. I will start very easy
tomorrow on our first ocean dive and then see how it goes. Jens, au
contraire, has fallen in love with this sport already. I could probably
leave him here for the next half year, than come back to pick him up and
find him a fully certified PADI Dive Instructor – from zero to hero.
But first things first: our final exam will be tomorrow and then we
still have to pass our swimming test (pretty tough one – 200 meters
swimming in the pool with no gear…) before we’ll get into the ocean
twice tomorrow afternoon and a couple of times more the day after. Hold
your thumbs – whalesharks have been spotted in the area yesterday and
today, maybe we’ll get lucky...
We spent a great, quite day on picture perfect Kata Beach and stayed the
night in Phuket town in a little, very cheap hotel where, judging by
the nightly sounds, rooms could be rented by the hour. We didn’t care
much since we were too tired to be bothered, and after all it somewhat
filled a cliché you expect to be filled in Phuket. But the island really
is a small paradise and worth a longer visit: a bustling weekend night
market in town, most beautiful lush jungle covering the rolling hills
and small mountains, old Portuguese architecture and great food and
drink on every corner – what’s not to love?
The next day we caught a bus to Surat Thani on the other coast of
Thailand to meet up with Peter. Easier said than done since neither his
nor our phone worked the way we expected them to. So when suddenly, when
we drove around Surat still on the coach and I looked out of the window
and saw Peter walking around aimlessly right in the exact same moment
when he looked at the street into my window and saw me sitting there– it
was meant to be and really great luck! We took the night ferry to Koh
Tao after having some good Thai food at the pier, where we slept on thin
matresses on the shaky floor in long lines that covered the whole area
of the ferry, that really was a cargo ship. The sea was really calm so
it was a quite, almost enjoyable night's sleep. 
When we arrived at Koh Tao, we went
straight to the great dive operation “Crystal Dive” where Jens and I enrolled
for a class to get our PADI Open Water Diver Certificate and Peter
signed up for a refresh class and some other dives where he has seen
much more than just the Christmas Tree Wurm that still fascinated that
lunatic most. 
The rest of the days we spent sitting in beach bars, enjoying great food, the feel of the sand at our toes, the ocean view and a good game of Skat. Every now and then I get all scared and run around like a madman when yet another new bug appears right next to me that happens to be, of course, even bigger than the last one – every single time. Right now, a gecko is screeming at us from outside our window. It’s the “Tukkeh”- gecko, the name is exactly the sound that it makes when screaming. One of them left its tail in front of our doorstep last night where we found it this morning – maybe a sign of affection like when cats leave stuff at your doorstep?!
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