Koh Talu

My husband is big on diving with over 500 dives under his belt. Since his equipment was stolen many years ago, the only chance he has had to go diving was when he was doing underwater lighting for film. Originally, we had several friends that were going to join us on Koh Phi Phi who all have their dive licences and they were all going to go diving together. I'm the only one that doesn't have a dive licence but I was happy to snorkel around them or hang at the beach while they enjoyed themselves. I just didn't have time to get it before I left. Unfortunately, at the last minute they all had to cancel so we changed our plans, booked in a different area altogether and had to scrap the diving.

I did insist to Byrd that I didn't mind if he went diving on his own but he said he was just as happy snorkelling with me and he never managed to find his dive licence before he left anyways. The water around the resort is pretty murky, you can't see anything at all, so we took a day trip out to Koh Talu which is about 2 hours south of Hua Hin. It's still not as clear as Koh Phi Phi but it was still much better then where we were staying and sounded like a fun way to spend a day. We got up at 5:15 am so we could make it out to Hau Hin via motorbike for 7am. We were a little frustrated that the tour company could not pick us up at our hotel, especially because we were on the way, but we just couldn't convince the operator, although I suspect language difficulties were to blame. As it was we had to bike 40 minutes to Hau Hin before the sun even came up, then backtrack on the bus to where we just were and go farther south. And of course, at the end of the day we would have to bike all the way back again. We probably should have booked it through the hotel or tried to get someone thai to speak to the operater but whats done is done...

We picked up a "Breakfast box" from reception that consisted of blt sandwiches and orange juice and headed into town in the wee hours of the morning. This time I got my GPS out and followed it the whole way - we didn't have time to get lost! We hopped on an air-conditioned minibus, picked up several other passengers and then made the 2 hour trek to Koh Talu. We ended up at a dock and hopped onto a speedboat that took us to the island. Its named "talu" which means "hole" (I believe) because of a large limestone hole at one end of the island. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it, I thought we would be coming back to it so didn't bother. But the island is much larger then I expected it to be.

I thought we would have time to get changed so we didn't put on our bathing suits. The boat ended up taking us straight to a diving platform so we did a little bit of towel-changing-magic instead. Our day started off a little bit rough thanks to a nasty Dutch woman who snapped at my husband after he kindly asked her if he'd accidentally taken her towel. He just realized all the towels looked the same and wanted to make sure he had the right one. But she immediately started screaming at him, saying "don't touch my stuff!" In the end he did have the right towel and we tried our best to ignore her, but really she was the only unkind person we encountered in all of Thailand. We grabbed a snorkel and mask and dove in!

We spent quite a bit of time snorkelling around this one area and then we moved to another, deeper spot where we swam around for another 30 minutes. It was nice not having to use a lifejacket. Both myself and my husband are very strong swimmers and we both like to dive down deeper into the water, having a personal floatation device around you makes that really difficult! After we had swam up an appetite we stopped for a nice buffet lunch and had the rest of the afternoon to wander around the island, be beach bunnies or generally do whatever we felt like. We read for awhile, I tried to get a tan but it was too damn hot and the sunscreen was burning my face worse then the sun was so I gave that up pretty quick... I don't know how all these leather looking tanned people do it! I can't stay in the sun very long before I overheat and get uncomfortable. It's just not in me. I did however want to get SOME colour on me before I came back to Canada just as pale as when I left!

We sat by shore, swam for a bit, managed to find a couple of masks and snorkels and then it was time to head back. We were both exhausted, sun beat and ready for bed. Unfortunately we also had to wait for everybody else to be dropped off at their hotels, one which was literally down the street from ours.... (that one really hurt) and then get dropped off last in Hua Hin where we had to make our way back to where we just were... an hour ago. The sun was already gone so we stayed and had dinner before getting our sore asses back on the bike and heading home.