From UV & whiskey . . . to BCD & whiskey!

Ok I know its been a LONG time since Iv actually been organised enough to write a blog but Im starting it up again now & will try to catch up as soon as I can! I left off just before the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan in February, so I'll go from there.
The FULL MOON PARTY!! Wow it was awesome: so so so many people that you could hardly move, despite the beach being huge! Crazy music, whiskey buckets, dancing, yelling and rain dominated the night, as did UV paint! Everyone went a bit mental with it and slathered on all the colours so it looked really cool, but was even better after it started raining and all the colours ran together, making everyone look like a mass of pulsing tye-dye! It was a great party and the next day the island was uncharacteristically quiet The day after the recovery Tom, Jane & I left the island and said goodbye to Alex, Mike, Chris & Stuart (friends of Tom's from home) - here will say thanks to those guys for making the time there brilliant!
So we were off to Koh Tao, an island just north of Koh Phangan. Originally the idea was to stay there for just 4 days, do our introductory diving courses and then leave - that didnt quite happen! Well actually it did, but we stayed for 2 weeks more after that! It was an amazing island and none of us could quite bear to tear ourselves away (especially not Tom, who ended up spending nearly 2 entire months there!).
Right, diving. I really did love it and everything, but I cant say I took to it as naturally as most of the others! Jane and I enrolled on an Open Water Divers Training Course with Phoenix Divers, and we really couldnt have picked a better place! The instructors were legends, great fun and about as laid back as its possible to be. We started with all the typical lesson type things and spent a few hours being told all the different ways it is possible to die underwater (haha comforting!) & then it was into the sea! Now I will admit that I was a total wuss and a bit of a dumbass, the one thing they tell you to NEVER do is shoot to the surface if you're more than a couple of metres down (theres are apparently multitudes of terrible things that can happen!), so what did I do? Of course I freaked out and shot straight up waay too many times! To be honest Im amazed I passed, considering this and the fact that I couldnt name a single piece of the equipment. Despite the immense fear I was trying to overcome I actually did love it when I was properly under the water and could see all the life down there - so many different types of fishes in all the colours and all the sizes! Its such a weird feeling being under the sea like that - its kind of like what I think it would be like to be on the moon - you're almost weightless and you're enveloped in this totally alien world that normally you could never survive in. Very cool
Koh Tao is another place where, if you're not an early-rising diver, you live for the night! The best place to be was Lotus Bar, an awesome place on the beach where everybody congregates for cocktails and rubbish music until about 2am - when every night the DJ plays 'Miss American Pie', tells the party he 'loves us long time(!)' and calls out to us to go to the after-party down the road. Actually everything was down the road - the best bit of the island was Sairee Beach and if you went there, no matter how long you were on the island, you'd never bother to venture anywhere else! The after parties were always right outside our place in one or other of the bars, and were always pretty great; after these most people would disperse around the island, either to bed, the 7/11 shop, or the beach to heckle the divers as they left for the boats!
We made some fantastic friends on this island and without them the place just wouldnt have been the same! Firstly Keith & Ed, who I met on maybe the second day & spent almost the whole of the rest of the time there with! Then there were the instructors and divers from Phoenix, the brilliant staff at AC who were some of the friendliest people ever (especially Chat & Om :D), many many people whose names Ive forgotten (really should have written this blog earlier!) and of course the Koh Tao Cowboys! These were Tom and a bunch of English and Canadian guys with a penchant for straw hats, chicken schnitzels and getting naked in bars
Basically Koh Tao was BRILLIANT - I cant describe how fun the time there was (sorry thats rubbish for you if youve bothered to read this!), as it was just so random!
OOH nearly forgot . . . the cooking course! 3 of us went & learnt how to cook Paenang Curry, Pad Thai, Green Curry and real Spring Rolls from one of the local women at her house - she was absolutely lovely & it was really fun & not nearly as complicated as you'd expect! If any of you are lucky I'll cook you a Thai feast when I get home