We are well into ‘Thailand mode’ now – we are starting to forget what day it is and the pace of our agenda has slowed a lot.  We took the ferry from Koh Samui to Koh Tao a couple of days ago and have just been taking it easy since we got here.

Koh Tao is the smallest of the 3 islands in this island group, and is most well known for it’s scuba diving scene.  There are dozens of dive shops here and I suspect that the overwhelming majority of people that come here are divers or people who want to get certified.  It is not the #1 spot in Thailand for diving (that is supposedly the Similan Islands on the Andaman coast) but it is the busiest because many of the other areas will close during the low season due to the weather and to provide some time for the reefs to recover, and there are a number of dive sites here that are all fairly close together so easy for dive tours to get to.

The island also has a bit of a hippy / backpacker vibe pretty much everywhere – not like the party scene in some of the islands, but people definitely go out after their day’s activities and wander the few streets or hang out in a bar for a few drinks.

We spent the last couple of days just lounging by the pool and doing a bit of wandering around but nothing overly busy.  We did find a massage place right across the road from our hotel where the lady who I am sure is 50+ gave me one of the best Thai massages I have had, so I will certainly be going back for more before we leave here.

Just after dinner last night we were heading out to walk around and we had our first real rain so far. The sky opened up and it rained – hard rain – the road we were walking on goes down hill towards the beach and in a matter of minutes it went from perfectly dry to 2 inches of fast moving water.  Luckily we were just steps away from a covered doorway to hop into just as it started.  The rain lasted for about 15 minutes, and over the next hour or so there were a couple  more outbursts like that and then it was mostly over.  It rained some more during the night, but we were long asleep by then.

Koh Tao is not very big so we will probably do some exploring by foot today and tomorrow maybe up to a couple of the viewpoints and across to a small island just off the beach from where we are staying.