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Thailand 🇹🇭

June - July 2023
A 31-day adventure by JGM TRAVELS 2023 Read more
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  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    Day 30

    Last day in Thailand

    July 12, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 33 °C

    Last day in Thailand

    We woke up early to embrace our last day in Thailand (boooo!). We decided to head into the city to look at the markets for some potential gifts for people .
    It was sweltering hot , so we took things slowly and took loads of water with us . We spent ages walking around one of the markets but we didn't find anything that caught our eye . As we were walking towards the boat station to get back to our hotel, we found a lovely little store that had exactly what we wanted!
    When we got near our hotel , we stopped off to have our evening meal . We both had really tasty Thai curries , which we will miss in Bali ! My favourite is massaman curry and James is penang curry ( sooo good).
    Afterwards , we headed back to our hotel to sort our luggage out for our flight the next day . We had managed to wash some of our clothes with our scrubba bag ( best buy in the world) and get the rest of our clothes packed . We also spent some time just sorting out documentation for Bali.
    We were really buzzing after this , so we ended up going to bed quite late but no worries as only travelling the next day .    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    Day 29

    28. Travel day

    July 11, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 33 °C

    The ferry to Tapee Pier was leaving at 1015 this morning . We managed to leave our hotel room at 0845 to drop the moped off and get our ferry tickets , with plenty of time to spare . We sat on the beach for a while before the ferry arrived . It is sad to be leaving Koh Tao, as we have both had such an amazing time here, but at the same time we are excited to be going somewhere new !
    The ferry ride was about 2 hours long , we sat on the top deck to catch some final rays of sunshine. We almost had the whole top deck to ourselves , which was nice !
    When we arrived at Tapee Pier we had an hour long wait before catching the bus to Bangkok. We grabbed some iced coffees and found somewhere nice to sit before our bus arrived .
    Our bus journey will take around 7 hours today , we are lucky as we have been placed right at the front of the bus on top deck , so loads of leg room and scenic views all the way to Bangkok. We won't be arriving in Bangkok until around 2030 tonight, so we will quickly check into our hotel and find somewhere to eat once we are there .
    Can't believe its our last night in Thailand tomorrow, its gone too quickly!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    Day 28

    27. 8. Koh Tao

    July 10, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Last day before heading back to Bangkok! We wanted to seize the last day so woke up early and headed to a neighbouring island call Koh Nangyuan about 1 km from the main beach. It is supposedly in the top 10 most beautiful islands in the world, it's 3 small islands which are connected with a unique sand bank between them, shallow coral reefs and the clearest blue waters.
    We headed down to the beach where you can arrange a taxi boat with a local to do an around trip. After about 30 mins of changing boats and being switched around we headed off. The boats here are quite Unique as they are longboat with a car or truck engine strapped to the back and some are quite quick! Dad may find this interesting 😂.
    We landed at Nang Yuan and firstly headed up to the view point, this was a hard one as it was about 36 degree today and it was many steps to the top but the view made it worthwhile! We enjoyed the view for a while before heading down for some lunch and enjoyed a snorkle around the lagoon. Sadly many of the coral reef has died here but the water was so warm here, maybe that's why all the coral has died.
    We then had a lift home and headed up to a beach we hadn't visited yet which weirdly was the beach closest to our hotel. 😂 It was tiny but we enjoyed a chill in the shade in the rocks as it was so hot today. We headed home and packed our stuff as early start back to Bangkok tomorrow morning. We headed to a local restaurant and enjoyed some white snapper fish and chips and headed home and had a beer on the balcony! We are going to miss Thailands paradise, Bali... you have alot to live up to!! We are excited to move onto somewhere new to explore. Thailand has many islands to the west which we haven't had time to visit. We will definitely be back as this has been the best place we have ever visited.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    Day 27

    26. 7. Koh Tao Diving Pictures

    July 9, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    More Pictures of the Ship wreck and turtles
    Please click or type in on youtube JGMAdventures

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3RbMpTMfqk&fea…

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=PJSflDU2abg&fea…    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    Day 27

    26. 7. Koh Tao Diving

    July 9, 2023 ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    Early rise today at 0630 , ready to be at the boat for 0730 . The weather was vile today , heavy rain and quite windy , the sea looked very choppy !
    The dive went ahead and our first dive stop was Chumphon Pinnacle. We jumped in one by one and swam to the buoy ahead . The descend this time went very smoothly and we were all safely at the right depth - no more than 18 metres .
    The marine life was just mesmerising this far down , much bigger fish down here! Our instructor managed to find an eel hiding beneath some coral too , which was really cool. James found his old friend the trigger fish , but they seemed on good terms this time !
    After about half and hour in the water , we surfaced for our surface interval , the next dive was a while away , so we had to get on the boat again. We noticed that the waves were really quite big now at the surface, the boat next to us was really rocking . We all managed to get to the boat safely eventually , but I got taken out by a wave as I was getting on the boat the first time , ending up ages away from the ladder again! Not going to lie it was quite scary , but all was well in the end .
    We headed to the next dive site called Hin Pee Wee . The amazing thing about this site is that there is an American ww2 ship there, that was deliberately sunk 15 years ago.
    Again an uneventful descent down , the shipwreck was just amazing. We were allowed to swim over the the top of the ship but not allowed to explore any further. On the way there , our instructor found a grouper fish by a rock - they're horrible looking things , with little spikes in places and weird teeth. They are harmless though apparently.
    We reached about 18 m depth again (James reached 20 ! ) and the dive lasted for about 30 mins before we ascended. When we ascended we were given a challenge to kiss about 10 mtrs deep! We managed it despite a Google clash haha! Getting into the boat this time was much easier too, thankfully!
    Once we arrived back at the scuba school , we had some photos of our group together, followed by lunch and beers to celebrate our certification !
    After a lift back to the hotel , we headed out again to have have a bit of an explore . Shark Bay was first on our list, it was a lovely little beach and James even saw some leatherback turtles whilst snorkeling, he was enormous, most probably 5-6ft long. There was a nice little cafe which did good coffee too which is a rarity on the beach in Thailand!
    Afterwards we headed to Sairee beach , we had a nice stroll and found a lovely restaurant to eat at , the food was amazing- especially the tiger King prawn!
    There was a long street of little shops behind the beach which lead to the centre which we enjoyed afterwards before heading back to our room.
    Last full day at Koh Tao tomorrow so want to have a day of last minute exploring , maybe taking a boat to Nang Yuan Island.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    2
    Day 26

    25. 6. Koh Tao Diving

    July 8, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    Today was our first ocean dive! We got collected and taken to the dive centre where we had our exam, we both passed the theory side, which was a relief 😂. We had about 2 hours of theory before we headed around the island on a big boat to a dive spot where me and Grace had snorkled a day or so before, called Aow Luek. We got all our gear sorted and prepared and did our buddy checks on eachother before we put on our flippers and jumped in. Wow this is wierd breathing in the ocean, felt so different to the pool yesterday. Once we had relaxed we finally got into it. No doubt it was a wierd sensation being underwater and breathing, everything seems to slow down and your main focus is equalising your ears and controlling your breath. We now had to put in place everything we learnt yesterday but at 9 mtrs deep first. Safe to say it feels wierd being so deep and not having mask on and then again finding your regulator incase it's knocked out. Hope we don't have to do that again😐. We then had a dive around the area and saw an erray of wildlife, including a stingray and moray Eel. Really cool being so deep and feeling like one of the marine life swimming about! After 51 minutes we came back up as we needed to stop for our surface interval. We had some drinks and got reset for dive 2.

    We headed across the bay to a different dive spot, we were now heading down to 12mtrs. We set off and as soon as we got back in the water Grace started having issues with equalising her ears underwater. Grace stayed calm and managed to finally get them sorted before heading deeper luckily. We headed deep and practised a few more exercises, but no more taking mask off phew! We swam around and got more time to explore this dive and there is different reef fish at 12 mtrs and it was cool looking around in the deep blue, yet still feeling really weird.

    We passed everything today so 2 more dives down to 18 mtrs tomorrow and we will be fully fledged Scuba Divers which is wierd to say😂.

    I had fun jumping off the boat a few times whilst waiting for other dives to finish and then we headed back around the island to get dropped off home, we were knackered when we were dropped off and early start tomorrow for our final 2 dives. We are off to a WW2 American shipwreck tomorrow which will be awesome, best chance of seeing a whale shark as well! Normally Go Pros aren't allowed in training sessions but he is letting me take mine tomorrow so hopefully will have some awesome footage to share tomorrow.

    Pizza take away and early night!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    Day 25

    24. 5. Koh Tao Diving

    July 7, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    So Today was the day- we were collected and taken to the dive centre where we met fellow students and got our gear sized up. We headed to their training pool and had about 2-3hrs of theory based on what we had learnt the night before at home. Me and Grace were the only two to start yesterday so we are in our tutors good books already 😂.

    We learnt about all the emergencies which can happen and how to deal with them. We had a break and headed to the pool. We got geared up and got used to breathing underwater which is a wierd but great sensation. We practised loosing our mouthpiece and if our googles came off or steam up. We had alot of time practicing this as googles off is hard to empty when you are 3 mtrs deep but the techniques shown did work. We practiced bouyoncy control as this is very important so you float along rather than get pulled up or down. This is hard to master so hopefully will be easier tomorrow in the sea as its easier to control in salt water. We stopped after a couple of hours in the pool and had some lunch.

    Me and Grace were given extra 60 pages of theory to do tonight so we ended after lunch and all headed back to our hotels to complete the workbook, luckily we started yesterday as the others have 100 pages and 6 tests to pass. Tomorrow will be our first ocean dive and we are heading back to Mango Bay shallow part to first practice all our safety procedures and then we are heading deeper into the outside coral reefs which will be awesome! So excited!

    We have a new friend called Milky, an adorable dog of the scuba centre, he runs around the neighbourhood like he owns it. He has his own Instagram and we made it onto his page with our funny photos. We love you Milky (sorry Maggie, we miss you lots! And no Milky isn't as cool as you)

    We are about to head for some food to have an early night ready for tomorrow. So stoked to be expanding ourselves not in an academic or work setting learning new skills whilst travelling and exploring more of the beautiful marine life here at Koh Tao!

    Ps. Unfortunately we didn't take any personal pictures.. We are so involved in what we were doing it didn't even cross our minds. We will take some tomorrow I can assure you!    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    2
    Day 24

    23. 4. Koh Tao

    July 6, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Today we headed to Aow Luek Beach, as we had heard about the sharks and amazing coral reef they have running both sides of the beach. We took the moped and stopped for some lunch at the funky coconut tree restaurant. We headed off and immediately were greeted by 2 reef sharks swimming around the bay, this was super exciting and we watched them for abit. We carried on and snorkled the best part of a kilometer down the coast. The whole bed was covered in new growth coral and glistening with wildlife which is great to see as coral reefs have been damaged by the seas rising temperatures. The hottest day ever globally was on 4th July and this will probably be broken again before the end of the year. Sadly the delicate wildlife are first to suffer from our actions with global warming and we are all guilty of contributing, we are well aware our footprint is huge flying all this way to travel, it's always a catch 22 unless we all decide to live in caves 😂.

    After another great day snorkeling we decided...
    As Koh Tao has such amazing marine life our trip of Thailand has actually changed and we are no longer heading to the Phi Phi islands, but staying in Koh Tao and completing a training program in Scuba Diving, we are doing a 3 day course with home study. If we pass we are certified then to scuba dive anywhere in the world for life which is pretty exciting and daunting all in one.
    We were keen to start our scuba diving e learning as alot of the course is study at home. Once at the hotel , we sorted out all our washing and made a start . The module we are learning is almost 100 pages long ! We thought we should tackle as much as possible , so we ordered some pizzas to our hotel whilst we were reading through everything .
    We managed to get to bed for a reasonable time , ready for our first day of scuba diving tomorrow !    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    Day 23

    22. 3. Koh Tao

    July 5, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Today we headed to a well known beach called Mango Bay . We read that the coral reef is on either side and the sandy seafloor gives the water that turquoise glow. We also read that accessibility is difficult due to the road quality and gradient !
    We stocked up on water and made our way there . The first part of the dirt road wasn't too bad , James did very well to pick good paths through the track ! We arrived at a junction and saw that the track got much steeper and bumpier , so we decided to ditch the moped and go on foot . The gradient was so steep , even we were slipping down on our feet . We matched other people on mopeds go down and they were skidding everywhere !
    At the end of the track was a little path leading down through the jungle toward the beach . We took a gamble and just took it . After a long, steep walk down the hill we made it - passing through yet another abandoned resort on the way.
    We left our belongings in the shade and headed for the sea , we were in the water for hours again , stopping in between for a quick break . The snorkeling was just brilliant here , we saw so many fish of different colours and sizes: barracudas , parot fish , angel fish were just a few of them . At one stage we stopped to clean our goggles and James felt something hit into him quite hard , we looked down and saw it was an huge angry trigger fish 2 foot from us ! James called him a little bastard and we swam off slowly , luckily with no more attacks! (as later we learnt they can actually cause a huge amount of harm, taking chunks or fingers off, to top it off they are poisonous so that complicates bites).
    After all the excitement we chilled on the beach until it had started to cool down a bit before braving the steep and long walk back.
    We got sorted back at the hotel and headed out for a Thai curry just down the road.    Read more

  • JGM TRAVELS 2023Thailand 🇹🇭
    2
    Day 22

    21. 2. Koh Tao

    July 4, 2023 in Thailand ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Freedom Beach.

    We went to bed really late last night looking at scuba dive sites online ! We are seriously considering booking the open water course to get certificated but it's very expensive !
    We woke up later the following morning and headed out to freedom Beach on the moped. Freedom beach is a very popular beach due to its white sands and shading by the thian trees, its also a great spot for snorkeling due to its shallow coral reef.
    We stopped off for some food at the little cafe before finding a place on the beach to leave our gear whilst we snorkelled.
    The sea was the warmest we have experienced yet- must have been high 30s in some patches ! We spent ages in the sea admiring shoals of colourful fish , baby barracuda and much more . Some of the fish we saw today were huge , it was amazing to be so close to them !
    We had to be quite careful when we swam back to the beach as the coral was so spikey and shallow . We only sat on the beach for about 45 minutes before going back in the sea due to the heat! We stayed in for as long as we could and waited till sunset before we left the beach .
    We stopped off at loads of shops on the way home , trying to find one that was open due to power cuts around the area. We eventually found one and headed back to our hotel room . We are going to look at ongoing bookings tonight and order some food to our hotel room-Koh Tao you are amazing so far!!    Read more

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