So, struggling with sore throat and ear. I cancelled yesterdays dive, only to miss out on Jen seeing a whaleshark!

Gutted, we arranged the speedboat to go back to the dive site to see if it was still about. With camera in hand we searched but to no avail… needless to say, I was not a happy bunny.

Today, we returned to the dive site, where I took some nice clips, but what really gets me wound up is the following examples…

Sadly, I see this most days. Either they have not had good training, or they have ignored it… either way I am not amused. Excuse the profanity at the end…

Guess what, Si still woke around 7am and was typing away at the PC when I woke.

We both showered and got dressed and headed into town.  We decided this time to catch a taxi back one of the huge shopping malls as we had a couple of chores.

Alan & Heidi had a couple of faulty dive computers which needed taking back to a shop but unfortunately the few dive shops we tried didnt know of any Oceanic dealers/distributors.

Then next, was to look at camera’s with underwater housings for Nathan  ..we checked out a few and mailed him the makes & models.  Funnily enough, there’s not a massive saving at all, only a hundred pounds or so compared to UK prices.

Our penultimate chore was to find a motorbike shop as Si needed spares for his new bike.  We’d tried about half a dozen shops before stumbling on one that could supply the parts, which they’d then ship onto Koh Tao.  

By this time we were thirsty and very hungry so we decided to attempt to find the Vegi restaurant that we’d been to a few years ago.  We knew it was on the edge of Chinatown and not far from the market, so we strolled down a couple of streets and lo and behold we found it!

Nothing had changed, looked as drab as ever.  On sitting down, the old lady came over with the same ole, photo album style menu and we ordered.  Yet again, we ordered far too much.

Vegetable spring rolls, Beef (fake) strips in black bean sauce, BBQ’d chicken (fake) with vegetables and lastly, fried rice.

As we had hardly eaten since yesterday, we started to feel full after the spring rolls and made a pathetic dent in the rest of the food.  So instead of wasting it, we got it takeaway.

Feeling full and satisfied, we headed off to the Chinatownn market to see what bargains we could find.

Si bought a couple of Tshirts and cap and I bought some shorts and a vest top. You really have to be in the mood for bartering and Si did a much better job than I did surprisingly…

Full, shopped out and tired, we headed back to the hotel for a bath & bed.

We are off on our Visa run today and by 8.20, both of us were showered, packed and ready to go.
Simon had strapped the suitcase to the back of the bike and we each had a rucksack.  Its the first time that we’ve travelled so light 😀   ..just a mere 8 kgs

Our first stop was Lederhosen bike shop to drop off the bike and collect Si’s passport, then we walked down the street to ‘Cafe Del Sol’ for a much needed breakfast.

At the pier we checked in and sat around for a while before the lomprayah arrived.
The jouney only took 2 1/2 hrs to Koh Samui and we were met at the other end by an lovely air-conditioned coach which took us straight to the airport.

Our flight wasnt until 5.15, so I had a snooze and Simon read his book before we could check in.
Once checked in, we headed to our gate and took full use of the courtesy food & drink and caught up on mails.

The flight was good, maybe a little scary coming into KL as there was a massive electric storm going on but apart from that, fine.   Past passport control we collected our lugguage (1 piece) and grabbed a taxi to our hotel, The Mandarin Oriental, a very plush hotel next to the Patronus Towers of which we have an awesome view as you will see from the pictures that we shall put up in a couple of days, cos we left the connecting lead for my camera at Koh Tao.

After unpacking and freshening up, we headed out to do some exploring and to find somewhere to eat. Not really knowing at this time what was open & what wasn’t, we caught the skytrain into China town in the hope of finding the Vegetarian restaurant that we discovered on our honeymoon.

Unfortunately we ended up walking for miles and getting slightly lost on our way back to the hotel so went to bed exhausted and hungry.  We at least had a lovely bath though and a good nights sleep..