Unda Da Sea

by Anna

Although sad to see our friends go, we were excited to head off to Koh Tao for some scuba diving with my brother and Sheryl!

Arriving on Koh Tao

After navigating through the crazily crowded ferry station, we headed to Sairee Beach where Scuba Junction is located to check in, get our gear fitted and settle at our new bungalows. We were a little horrified when we finally saw Sairee Beach…I guess we’d been spoiled by Thong Nai Pan Yai’s protected cove, white sand and serenity. Sairee Beach was long, narrow and crowded. There wasn’t a whole lot of “beach” and sadly, there was trash in the water. We soon realized that this beach was for diving and partying. In spite of this, it was still a beautiful setting and we made the most of it over the next few days. The most fun part about Sairee was the “yellow brick road” – a long narrow road that stretched alongside the beach, lined with shops, restaurants, bars, resorts, massage spots, etc. It was a lively happening road to stroll down at night, and we had a great time watching all the action and enjoying the restaurants.


Sairee Beach	Johnny and Peter pondering the meaning of life

Lunch time!

During the mornings and early afternoons we spent our time in a much quieter underwater world. Although a couple of our dive spots were a little crowded with other dive boats, we still had an amazing time swimming amongst the coral with the fish. On day one, we were paired with a bit of a Danish dive nazi, but on day two, we had the cutest little Swiss dive master named Vera, who was super fun and easy going. It was really exciting for Johnny and I to put our PADI skills to the test on our first ‘Fun Dives,’ and it couldn’t have been better getting to dive alongside my brother and Sheryl.


The advanced divers	The novice divers

Peter also was able to get some awesome video footage of us on the dive:

Leaning back after the dive at Shark Island

Besides diving, the other highlight of Sairee Beach was the BBQ! I don’t know if we had just worked up an appetite from diving or if the setting along the beach with the sunset influenced our taste buds, OR if the fact that we haven’t really had much BBQ in 8 months, but this was one of the best BBQs I’ve ever had! And the best part was that two giant skewers, salad and a baked potato cost 100 baht, or roughly $3.00. After watching some pretty athletic ladyboys dominate a volleyball game on the beach and taking in a beautiful sunset, we ate a whole lot of BBQ. It was so good, and we felt that it could only get better topped off with a peanut butter banana crepe from a street cart on the yellow brick road. As if this weren’t indulgent enough, Peter and Sheryl also decided that a foot massage was in order. A pretty perfect day if you ask me. In fact, it was so great, that we basically repeated it the next day: scuba – lunch – beach – volleyball – sunset – BBQ. Before we knew it, our time on Koh Tao had come to an end, and we were packing up our bags to make a return visit to Koh Phangan!