The last leg to home was easy and boring. There was no queues at the airport and I managed to get free seat next to me on the flight, making it easy to sleep half of the way. And damn it's cold here..
Uh, seems like I miscalculated something a bit. The flight was an hour late and the border queue to Qatar was very long, so I finally arrived to my hotel at 01:30. The wakeup will be at 05:00 as boarding to Helsinki is at 07:15.. Won't be a long sleep.
I managed to sleep most of the way from Bangkok to Doha though, so that's not really a huge problem. Now shower feels almost more important than sleep, and just laying on bed for some hours doesn't sound that bad either.
Bangkok Airport, Miracle first class lounge. Finally no Chinese people all around.. Damn, I'm so fed up with their inability to queue or behave. :p
During the way I just walked around the city a bit, had some breakfast and that's it. Now waiting for the flight to Doha, again on an A380.
The bus finally arrived to Bangkok an hour late, after one of the worst bus trips ever.. It was very hot and sweaty in the bus, not to mention the relatively uncomfortable seat. Anyway, it took us to Bangkok and the rest was easy, grabbing a taxi to the hotel and checking in. We booked a hotel next to the airport railway, so departing Bangkok will be easy.
The day yesterday was spent by walking around the markets, shopping some souvenirs and having ridiculous amounts of meat for dinner in a Korean BBQ place. Bangkok is still as dirty and hot as it has always been, but it still has some interesting places to see..
Now in the morning Iryna already left to airport as she had an earlier flight, and I still have the day to spend in Bangkok before departing towards Doha later in the afternoon. I somehow managed to book a very bad overnight layover in Doha, arriving there at 23 and departing at 08 in the morning. Well, booked some kind of hotel near the airport, at least I can get some 4-5 hours of sleep between the long flights.
All good things come to an end, and so did this visit to Koh Tao. We departed in the afternoon from the island by a speedboat, and continued towards Bangkok by bus. The bus journey is going to take some seven hours, still three hours left.. And it's hot in the bus. Not one of the most comfortable journeys I have made.
As my shoulder was still hurting during the night I decided to show it to a doctor in the morning. The doctor confirmed the same that I was thinking of, it's just muscles and ligaments overstretched and nothing really broken. Should heal by itself, and I got some muscle relaxing medications.
Taking an X-ray image of the shoulder was an interesting story. They tried to take one using their own machine twice, both times failing due to not enough resolution or something. Then they sent me to an another clinic to take the picture, on the backseat of nurse's scooter without a helmet. The picture was finally taken and I even survived the slightly scary "ambulance" ride...
As we still did not want to leave the island, but our excellent resort (Koh Tao Seaview Resort) had no more available rooms we moved to an another hotel, conveniently next to the ferry pier and booked ferry and bus tickets for tomorrow afternoon towards Bangkok. As we had to part with our previous scooter I tried to replace that with a proper dirt motorbike, but had to change it back to a scooter after a minute of driving, due to Iryna complaining it was really uncomfortable on the back seat. :)
Other than that the day wasn't so different from the previous ones. Beach visits by scooter, once again massage (we got addicted and it's cheap and does good to my shoulder, which is already almost healed) and some food. It's the last evening on the island now, so enjoying a drink or two in the beach bar of our new hotel. :)
Iryna had some work to do today, so the day was quite slow. I wasn't exactly feel like running around either, as I had a small accident yesterday when snorkling. The stairs to water were very slippery so my feet slipped and I did a nice backwards flip to the water, twisting my shoulder muscles. It seems to be recovering without a doctor visit though, probably just the muscles got stretched a bit. Iryna didn't even realize that it was an accident, she was thinking I was just doing some stupid acrobatic flips and thought I'm an idiot doing that without checking if there are stones or something in the water.. :p
So, we just spent the morning around at the hotel and in a lunch restauraunt, had an another massage and ate way too much. That's it for the day.. As we don't feel any urge to go to hot and dirty Bangkok we will be staying a day more on the island. Actually we were already supposed to leave from here today, but haven't really felt like doing that..
Today the water had cleared up due to better weather, and the visibility at Chumphon Pinnacle divesite was lovely. Did a dive there, another on an another divesite, not seeing anything really special though. Just a lot of beautiful fish.
After the dives we decided to try thai massage to cure some hurting necks, enjoyed an hour of that, did some snorkling and so was one more day on the island spent. Not much photos today, I forgot to carry camera with me..
Two days on the island have passed. Yesterday was a rainy and stormy day, with heavy rain showers and strong wind continuing all night. Between the storms we had a chance to rent a scooter from our hotel and start exploring the island, although at some point getting stuck for an hour on a beach waiting for a horribly strong rain shower to end.
Roads on the island are steep and curvy, providing a lot of challenge (not sure if in a fun way) to drive around. Especially as the scooter is not exactly overpowered for two people to climb up the very steep hills, neither are the brakes to descend them. Wish I had a proper motorbike.. Well, most of the time the scooter works just fine, and it's necessary to get around on the island as distances are still not so short outside the "downtown" area.
Today morning I went to dive with the Finnish dive company here, Koh Tao Divers. The rains had messed up the water quite badly, so visibility was just a few meters and there was not too much anything special to see. Let's see if tomorrow is better for diving, as the weather today has been fine and the water is starting to get clear again.
Otherwise the second day was spent just as the first one, driving around the island on a small scooter, laying on a beach for a while and so on..
The evening was not so easy after all. I had nicely planned and selected a hotel close to the speedboat pier, far from the city center. The thing I didn't take into account was how to get there. When the bus arrived around 23 there was not a single taxi in the rainy city, and nobody spoke any understandable language. Neither did the hotel pick up phone. Finally we canceled the reservation and booked a new hotel in the downtown, and they even had a free transport to the ferry pier..
Some hours of sleep, an early wake up and to the ferry harbor we went and sailed through rough seas to Koh Tao island. The boat was even an hour late of schedule due to sea conditions. After the shaky trip we found our accommodation, a nice resort, settled in and had some breakfast. Next, it's time to go visit the Finnish operated dive center here and plan some dives. :)
By the way, since the last time I was to Koh Tao the island has definitely become busier. A lot busier. There's a horrible mess of all kind of businesses and tourists on the main beach.. Fortunately here in the middle of the island it's still quiet and nice.
