The first trip through Laos started in the northern town of Muang Khua, then took us down the Nam Ou river to Nong Khiaw, through the capital Vientiane and ended with the Thakhek motorbike loop in central Laos. Below is an unedited selection from the Laos photo gallery that we captured during our 27 day trip through this beautiful country. We started in the north east town of Muang Khua and after much negotiating caught a boat down the Nam Ou river to Nong Khiaw. We stopped along the river bank at a small village and found these curious children playing on the river’s mud bank. Our trek in northern…
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Diving with Team Awesome – Koh Tao Diving Video
Two very cool divers, which are now very good friends have cut together this awesome video about our diving together! I assisted on their Open Water, Advanced, Nitrox, Deep and Wreck Specialty courses during my Divemaster course at Sairee Cottage and it was a fantastic experience! Some of my first dive leads were these guys! Lucky I didn’t get lost. Thank you Tobbe and Linda. All credits for the video goes to Tobbe and Linda. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqNVP_2xL3o
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PADI Recreational Sidemount Course
Our dive school, Sairee Cottage Diving, is now offering the PADI Recreational Sidemount course, and we were lucky enough to be selected as “guinea pigs” for the first course! Diving with multiple tanks is something that has interested me for a while now and when I heard of this opportunity I was naturally very excited! The course is a three and a half day course, which is as long as our Open Water course and it is this long for a reason. Diving with a Sidemount configuration brings many benefits, such as twice the amount of air, added safety, longer dives and looking cool, however it also brings a range…
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Cost of Living on Koh Tao
Accommodation Cost on Koh Tao Accommodation cost on Koh Tao will depend on what is available and what kind of luxuries you need. The cheapest per night rate you can find is about 400 baht (excluding dorms). If you are planning to stay longer, there are quite a lot of “long term” accommodation options available. They are usually charged to you on a monthly basis. The basic accommodation in the form of a bungalow starts from about 7000 baht per month which will most likely have a cold water shower and fan only. If you would like a hot water shower, air conditioning and a fridge, you would be looking…
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Barotrauma
I’d heard the stories and how serious it can be if you dive on a cold, but never quite understood the extent of it all. We’ve both been quite sick for the last few days and went to the shop primarily to hand in our mapping and EAP projects. We did however end up signing up for the afternoon dives, where both Emma and I would lead one dive each. This is good practice for us in completing our Divemaster training. They also asked me to lead a customer the next day, so of course I signed up for that! I lead the first dive with Emma, a Divemaster and…
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Deep Scenario – Divemaster Training
The weather was so poor when we did our Deep Specialty in December that we couldn’t actually get to the 40m depth. We did the two deep dives to 22m and 26m instead. Anything below 18m is considered a deep dive, so we were still able to get certified. Today, Neil took all of us DMTs on a 40m deep dive at Chumpon Pinnacles. This is an essential part of the PADI Divemaster Training. I was excited to finally experience this depth! It is pretty much the same as any other dive with a few considerations. We will be under 5 bars of pressure at 40m, meaning we will breathe…
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A Stressful Day
Today we were being assessed on our rescue skills as part of our Divemaster training. Stress levels were already elevated as rescue always brings some unexpected surprises with it. We triple checked all of our gear and each others gear to make sure we are ready for the rescue scenario we would face. Matt, our friend from university in Melbourne arrived on the island today to visit us, and just as we were wading into the water, he greeted us from the restaurant. He’ll get the front row seat to watch us struggle as we drag each other onto the beach. Once we hit the water, we were split into…
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Australian Open in Thailand
Mosquitos are a big problem anywhere in South-East Asia and unfortunately Koh Tao is no different. Dengue fever is very common on the island, so the aim of the game is not to get stung at all. This is a tough mission however as they are everywhere and use our bathroom as a breeding ground. I don’t hate many things, but mosquitoes I do hate. Usually you don’t feel them on you until it’s already too late and when you slap yourself to kill it, you also get a nice patch of your own and worse someone else’s blood on you. We were losing the fight until we armed ourselves…
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Bangkok to Koh Tao by Bus and Ferry
Despite the many confusing ideas TripAdvisor might put in your head, the cheapest way to get from Bangkok to Koh Tao is using the Lomprayah service. The ticket costs 1050baht per person and includes the bus and high speed ferry.
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Golden Triangle Northern Thailand Motorbike Loop
The rural north of Vietnam was spectacular, so we didn’t hesitate to explore the northern most region in Thailand. Our base for this loop was Chiang Rai. I recommend ST Rental for a motorbike. They have serious bikes too. I was batting eyelids at an all matte army green 250cc Honda off-road bike, but at 1000baht per day, that would leave nothing of our budget for food and other essentials. Maybe another time. Anyway, we got a Honda Wave S 125, which seemed to have lost a few cc in its many years of service. We packed one green bag plus the small dry bag and set off, dodging the…
