Well guys, i'm back! To summarize:
Trip there: Was pretty good, Oman Air were courteous and comfortable, and the stewardesses liked us and plied us with red wine. Passed pretty quickly.
Koh Samui: beautiful beach but a sleazy dive of a nightlife. Was pretty fed up of it after the first 3 days, but we stayed around 6 days. Too long, and I advise anyone else to bear that in mind if you are planning on going out to party. Everyone wants something from you and usually get passive aggressive when they don't get it, and the women are 99.99% freelance hookers. The place also really, really stinks. Not somewhere i'd go back to I think.
Koh Tao: My highlight of the whole holiday, and the thing I will take through my life with me. We went diving at Ban's Diving Resort, and once we had completed our Open Water divers we loved it so much that we stayed and completed the Advanced Open Water Diver course. Highlight was diving with a green turtle, and did a night dive which was a bit nerve-wracking. However, I can now dive up to 30-40m at any time, anywhere in the world! Instructor was also hilarious, though often unintentionally so... just a complete character and undiluted sexist filth in his attitudes towards women, which provided much amusement. I recommend this island and a diving course to everyone. However, it did suffer from the usual Island species of Thai, who seem to have about 3 braincells and appalling manners with any form of customer service.
Kanchanaburi:: Quaint little place and we spent 2 days there, which felt enough. People much friendlier than anywhere else we went and seemed genuinely curious and warm-hearted towards foreigners. Barring the local nightclub, where we ended up having to leave before we inadvertantly ****ed off a few huge military guys who couldn't speak English and kept asking the girls we were with what our problem was. Again, good experience, but I wouldn't hurry back.
Bangkok: Very big, very dirty, fair bit to do if you like sightseeing and shopping. I did half a days sightseeing and spent the rest of the week clubbing... again, decent fun, great to see and experience, but much more expensive than the rest of Thailand and I probably wouldn't go back there in a hurry.
Trip back: Was a bit of a nightmare... had a 9 hour stopover in Muskat, Oman, which is as you can imagine a pretty boring airport to spend any amount of time in, being in Arabland. On the second flight I had an entire row of 4 seats to myself though, could stretch out like first class.
Overall, it was a good holiday. Do I like Thailand? Yes and No. For the most part I didn't meet many firendly people... as I said earlier almost everyone you come into contact with as a tourist wants something from you, and the amount of hassle you get in places like Koh Samui can border on the ridiculous... Thai people there on the islands generally have zero respect for you or your privacy and are very rude. But then again, I guess in the main touristy parts they come into contact with a large amount of badly behaved foreigners. Either way, I didn't enjoy the general atmosphere there in the places we stayed in the most, Koh Samui and Bangkok.
One thing worth mentioning are the stray dogs... the country is plagued with them and they are VERY aggressive, especially those with rabies which are quite frankly scary mofos. I was attacked twice and luckily didn't get bitten, but beware of any dark roads or alleyways when there are few people around, because without warning dogs can appear and go mental. If you are lucky, they are non-rabies dogs protecting their territory and are usually noticeable by the barking and posturing... if not, you have two, three or more silent mutts running after you or your scooter with the only intention of dragging you off it and savaging you. Be careful, and try and always take transport home late at night, even if it costs you a few extra quid. Better safe than in hospital for weeks.
Koh Tao was again the highlight and id love to go back and do a 6 month Dive Masters course... I may do in the future, who knows. I certainly intend on doing more diving in future.
Any reports from any other OCUK'ers who went there around the same time as I did then?
