Ko Tao, Thailand
Day 1
We're all taking the 12:30pm ferry from Koh Phangan to Ko Tao. Ko Tao is a tiny little island that is a diving and snorkeling mecca. I bought ferry tickets for Trista and Florian, who I met in Pai but they were staying at a different hostel than I was for Full Moon. I waited for them at the ferry port and it was extremely easy to find Trista because we both have data on our phones. However, Florian didn't come over with her because he had to return his motorbike first. He ended up going to the wrong port and gave us all a mini heart attack by showing up about 2 minutes before we loaded onto the ferry. Once the ferry finally got to Ko Tao we all reconvened and made our way to our hostel. Florian was traveling to Ko Tao with a crew from his previous hostel, which I joined onto. There was Laura (Austria), Carlos (USA), and Lars (Netherlands). And then we recruited Berry (Netherlands) and we all headed out to dinner and made a plan to do a snorkel tour the next day. It should also be noted that we were a group of six and there was two Austrians, two Americans and two Dutchies and I think that that coincidence is very cool.
Day 2
We got up early and headed off to our snorkeling tour. There we met our two other friends, Trista and Patrick (UK). The boat was really cool and brought us around to a bunch of beaches and good snorkeling spots. We went to Nangyuang which is three little islands connected by a sandbar. I somehow cracked my GoPro lens but I still used it (and eventually got it replaced). But since the screen was broken I didn't really get that many pictures. But the snorkeling was AMAZING. Definitely the best snorkeling I've ever done. There were so many colorful fish and they weren't necessarily scared of you. We saw so much.
The worst part of the day was at the last snorkel spot. This is where you could spot sharks and a turtle and I spotted neither. But some lucky others saw both.
Day 3
Today we had a very late start to the day and I caught up on random things like writing and uploading pictures. That afternoon we hopped on our motorbikes and headed off back to shark bay, in search of snorkeling with sharks and turtles again. Once again, everyone else saw them and I did not. I'm still bitter.
After snorkeling we all decided to continue to travel with each other and we booked transportation to Khao Sok, a national park, for the morning. We all went to bed semi-early because we catch a taxi to the ferry at 5:30am.