SCUBA STEVE

Hello all, been a crazy couple of days since my last post. Been a lot of travel but have finally found time to write. From Phi Phi we went to Krabi which wasn't all that entertaining. Purely just a transit stop. But the next stop was Koh Samui which was a very beautiful island and we stayed at a beach side resort which was a little grimey. Luckily for us there neighbors were a brand new resort and bar with all of the necessities. The part of the beach we stayed at seemed like Cancun. Very packed with food and gift shops with some excellent night clubs thrown in. Pretty casual next day, just hung out on the beach the weather had been crummy for the last couple of days, so a little sun was a welcome sight. I unfortunatly forgot to put sunscreen on my legs which I regretted that evening. My lobster legs had me bed ridden for the night, but just relaxing did my body wonders and I was ready for our next adventure, Koh Toh.
       Koh Toh has been incredible. It is a island paradise surrounded by white, palm tree beaches where one can come watch the sunset with a Chang after a long day of scuba. By the way, I am getting scuba certified here! One of the most incredible experiences of my life was being 12m under water today swimming around a huge coral reef. So many colourfull fish that names have all passed me were dodging in and out of the rocks and coming to eat Derek's burned shoulder skin which was hilarious for us, but not so much for him. Tomorrow is our last day of scuba where we are going for a 630am 18m dive. I can't wait! I am seriously considering doing the advanced course which would allow me to scuba without an instructor up to 30m. The jury is still out on that one. Also last night Kara finally succeeded in "dragging" us to a lady boy show (what a pun!). We were hesitant but happy we went in the end. It was hilarious non nude burlesque (sp?) show to classic songs like abba and Tina Turner. Everyone had a great time and some unfortunate Aussie guys got dragged up on stage for the "lady boy" experience. I finally figured out why there were so many lady boys here. Apparantly the women here control all of the buisnesses, and own all the property. The men have all the physical labour, or labour intensive jobs. Many of them don't enjoy this aspect of being male so for the low low price of 10000 baht ($300) they can have a sex change and apparantly get into the burlesque/prostitution industry. Don't know how that is better than what they were doing...who knows. We have 5 more days untill Vietnam, and the way things are going I think we are going to spend them on Koh Toh. Now I must return to my sand bag chair on the beach. Untill next time.

Graeme