Excellent datasheet Qwest! I was planning on writing one up for Koh Tao but I'll just add some info to yours.
So I spent a week on the island and was fortunate enough to link up with Qwest and InternationalSwagger, two very legit guys with very tight game, actually these guys were probably two of the most impressive players I've met from the forum so far.
I think these guys fall into the category of guys who just have to "not fuck up" and they'll pull, an example of this being the night where we got some buckets off the street on our way to Lotus when some chick opened us up "so where are you guys from", she was likely Scandinavian, tall and pretty cute but the boys pretty much dissed her and we headed to the beach. Shortly after I met the French girl Qwest pulled and she was hot, nice one Qwest. InternationalSwagger quickly disappeared and I didn't see him again that night, he was on the prowl and as Qwest mentioned, he killed it. I also saw the idiots doing push ups in the street and shortly after the four blonde English girls in the pics walked by too. Unfortunately, I had to be up early everyday and wasn't keen on doing my diving course hung over, so I had to cut the nights short and went back to my hotel early both nights, too bad, looking back I should have postponed the diving just to go out all night with those guys.
Getting to Koh Tao: I flew Royal Thai Airways from BKK to Surathani (return flight 4500 Baht), didn't pre-book anything else and easily bought the bus and ferry tickets at the airport, both for 900 Baht. You take a coach stlye bus to the pier (about 1.5 hours) then I took the Lomprayah high speed ferry (highly recommended: http://www.lomprayah.com/), it takes three hours to get there because the ferry first stops at Koh Samui then Koh Phagnan before arriving at Koh Tao. Warning: there's a guy at the BKK airport who works for another ferry company called Seatran or something, his office is literally located right next to the check in line where you pass through security and attractive Thai women will try to entice you into buying tickets from them and even tell you that Lomprayah doesn't go to Koh tao any longer, don't fall for this because its BS.
Diving: I was recommended to get my PADI certification at Koh Tao by a friend of mine who said it was very cheap and a great place to learn and it certainly was. Before heading down from BKK, Qwest got in touch through the forum and told me he was doing his at Simple Life Divers and highly recommended it so I took his advice and am glad I did.
The resort itself was nice, the rooms were great, good restaurant and only a two-minute walk to the beach. There's so many diving outfits on Koh tao (60-70 I think) that you don't even really have to pre-book, although I did, it was 9800 Bhat for the course and about the same price for four nights at the hotel. I lucked out as it was slow the day I registered and got one-on-one instruction from the dive instructor for the entire PADI course, which took me four days to do, I think you can do it in three as Qwest did.
The water is mostly shallow and may seem a bit weak for advanced divers, I hear the diving is much better at Koh Phi Phi. Still there were tons of cool tropical fish to be seen, including a few monster barracudas, didn't see any sea turtles or whale sharks but apparently they're around. The coral wasn't the best but still interesting for a first time diver like myself. There is at least one ship wreck to dive, but it was deeper than my ope-water PADI cert allowed me to dive, I'll be getting my advanced soon enough.
I really liked Koh Tao, as Qwest and IS pointed out, its small and very laid back as most people are there to go diving and not into the hardcore party scene as they are on Koh Phagnan. That being said, there are some decent bars and the parties on Sairee Beach, the area where we did our diving. This is where you'll want to stay if you want to party on Koh Tao, the other areas are too quite for that scene, although you can get around the island pretty quickly, the taxis are very expsensive. Depending on your budget, its not a wallet buster but still, the ten minute drive from Chalok to Sairee is about 400 Baht, which is what the thirty minute drive from Sukhumvit to the airport in BKK is.
Other activities/areas:
I stayed at Sairee for four nights, during my dive course but moved down to the quieter area of Chalok, about ten minutes away and stayed right on the beach at a nice hotel called Big Fish, it was cheaper at 1500 Baht than the 2400 I was spending at Simple Life. There's a few other dive shops around, restaurants and bars, but the party scene is much tamer than Sairee Beach. Big Fish is conveniently located next to two hippy stoner bars: Raggae Bar and High Life. I recommend a trip to High Life even if you aren't into smoking the pre-rolled spliffs they sell there or the mushroom shakes, its very high up on a hill (brutal walk) but the sunset over Chalok bay was the best I saw in Thailand so far.
Fishing: I'm an avid sport fisherman, I fucking love going fishing wherever and whenever I travel, if I can spend a day fishing, I will and I am glad I did in Koh Tao because it has some of the best fishing I've ever done in my life. Its obviously fishing in the sea and this can be organized by most hotels, it costs 1600 Baht for an entire day from 8:30-4:00pm, you can also do night fishing. We caught mostly snappers (about a dozen) but also hauled in a nice big marlin and a king mackeral, those fish were impressive fighters and the captain chopped me off a nice big piece of the marlin which I had BBQ'd on the beach at my hotel restaurant.
Muay Thai: There's two gyms to train at, one in Sairee area (the best) and a shitty little one in Cholok. I don't train at either because I was too busy fishing and diving but did manage to catch a fight night on Sunday at the one in Sairee. It wasn't that good really, I've seen much better and I'm still raking my brains as to whether I felt comfortable watching two, ten year old Thai boys beating the shit out of each other, the locals sure did enjoy it though!
Nangyuan Island: Go here for a day or a few hours, trust me. Basically its a really nice resort only accessible by boat taxi, which you can take, round trip from Sairee Beach for 200 Bhat. Its the nicest beach on Koh Tao, has a dive resort and when I was there, it was full of hot women. I spent about four hours there, mostly tanning and swimming but also made the hike up to this massive rock which has a stunning view from the top. You can check it out here: http://www.nangyuan.com/
Scooter/ATV rentals: Lots of options on the island, you can rent a regular 125 CC scooter (which I did), they have off road tires as opposed to the smooth city tires you'll see on other scooters in Thailand, which is good because the roads here suck! You can also rent all sizes of dirt bikes, mostly Kawasaki (KLX 125 and 250) and also Quads and side by sides.
As Qwest mentioned, this is risky and you'll see lots of people patched up walking on crutches because of accidents, rough roads and tons of drunk foreigners buzzing around the island. Also, there's a known scam on the island where if you so much as put a scratch on one of those things they will charge you exorbitant prices when you return them. When I rented my scooter I took lots of photos before hand and had no problems when I returned it, probably because I didn't drive drunk and am experienced at riding bikes so had no problem.
Finally, I didn't do so well with the game side of things, mostly because I was very busy with the diving and fishing I only really partied hard one night and was severely cock blocked by my female Canadian friend who I brought along. I will elaborate on this later, I'm up in chaing Mai now, where the party scene isn't nearly as good but I'm doing lots of "adventure" activities here. I have lots of quality info for you guys in my upcoming Thailand datasheet.
Anyway, great report Qwest and it was a pleasure to meet up with you guys, hopefully we'll meet up again soon so I can party hard with you guys. And for all of you RVF guys who are looking for nice place to relax, dive and party, Koh Tao is an excellent option!
So I spent a week on the island and was fortunate enough to link up with Qwest and InternationalSwagger, two very legit guys with very tight game, actually these guys were probably two of the most impressive players I've met from the forum so far.
I think these guys fall into the category of guys who just have to "not fuck up" and they'll pull, an example of this being the night where we got some buckets off the street on our way to Lotus when some chick opened us up "so where are you guys from", she was likely Scandinavian, tall and pretty cute but the boys pretty much dissed her and we headed to the beach. Shortly after I met the French girl Qwest pulled and she was hot, nice one Qwest. InternationalSwagger quickly disappeared and I didn't see him again that night, he was on the prowl and as Qwest mentioned, he killed it. I also saw the idiots doing push ups in the street and shortly after the four blonde English girls in the pics walked by too. Unfortunately, I had to be up early everyday and wasn't keen on doing my diving course hung over, so I had to cut the nights short and went back to my hotel early both nights, too bad, looking back I should have postponed the diving just to go out all night with those guys.
Getting to Koh Tao: I flew Royal Thai Airways from BKK to Surathani (return flight 4500 Baht), didn't pre-book anything else and easily bought the bus and ferry tickets at the airport, both for 900 Baht. You take a coach stlye bus to the pier (about 1.5 hours) then I took the Lomprayah high speed ferry (highly recommended: http://www.lomprayah.com/), it takes three hours to get there because the ferry first stops at Koh Samui then Koh Phagnan before arriving at Koh Tao. Warning: there's a guy at the BKK airport who works for another ferry company called Seatran or something, his office is literally located right next to the check in line where you pass through security and attractive Thai women will try to entice you into buying tickets from them and even tell you that Lomprayah doesn't go to Koh tao any longer, don't fall for this because its BS.
Diving: I was recommended to get my PADI certification at Koh Tao by a friend of mine who said it was very cheap and a great place to learn and it certainly was. Before heading down from BKK, Qwest got in touch through the forum and told me he was doing his at Simple Life Divers and highly recommended it so I took his advice and am glad I did.
The resort itself was nice, the rooms were great, good restaurant and only a two-minute walk to the beach. There's so many diving outfits on Koh tao (60-70 I think) that you don't even really have to pre-book, although I did, it was 9800 Bhat for the course and about the same price for four nights at the hotel. I lucked out as it was slow the day I registered and got one-on-one instruction from the dive instructor for the entire PADI course, which took me four days to do, I think you can do it in three as Qwest did.
The water is mostly shallow and may seem a bit weak for advanced divers, I hear the diving is much better at Koh Phi Phi. Still there were tons of cool tropical fish to be seen, including a few monster barracudas, didn't see any sea turtles or whale sharks but apparently they're around. The coral wasn't the best but still interesting for a first time diver like myself. There is at least one ship wreck to dive, but it was deeper than my ope-water PADI cert allowed me to dive, I'll be getting my advanced soon enough.
I really liked Koh Tao, as Qwest and IS pointed out, its small and very laid back as most people are there to go diving and not into the hardcore party scene as they are on Koh Phagnan. That being said, there are some decent bars and the parties on Sairee Beach, the area where we did our diving. This is where you'll want to stay if you want to party on Koh Tao, the other areas are too quite for that scene, although you can get around the island pretty quickly, the taxis are very expsensive. Depending on your budget, its not a wallet buster but still, the ten minute drive from Chalok to Sairee is about 400 Baht, which is what the thirty minute drive from Sukhumvit to the airport in BKK is.
Other activities/areas:
I stayed at Sairee for four nights, during my dive course but moved down to the quieter area of Chalok, about ten minutes away and stayed right on the beach at a nice hotel called Big Fish, it was cheaper at 1500 Baht than the 2400 I was spending at Simple Life. There's a few other dive shops around, restaurants and bars, but the party scene is much tamer than Sairee Beach. Big Fish is conveniently located next to two hippy stoner bars: Raggae Bar and High Life. I recommend a trip to High Life even if you aren't into smoking the pre-rolled spliffs they sell there or the mushroom shakes, its very high up on a hill (brutal walk) but the sunset over Chalok bay was the best I saw in Thailand so far.
Fishing: I'm an avid sport fisherman, I fucking love going fishing wherever and whenever I travel, if I can spend a day fishing, I will and I am glad I did in Koh Tao because it has some of the best fishing I've ever done in my life. Its obviously fishing in the sea and this can be organized by most hotels, it costs 1600 Baht for an entire day from 8:30-4:00pm, you can also do night fishing. We caught mostly snappers (about a dozen) but also hauled in a nice big marlin and a king mackeral, those fish were impressive fighters and the captain chopped me off a nice big piece of the marlin which I had BBQ'd on the beach at my hotel restaurant.
Muay Thai: There's two gyms to train at, one in Sairee area (the best) and a shitty little one in Cholok. I don't train at either because I was too busy fishing and diving but did manage to catch a fight night on Sunday at the one in Sairee. It wasn't that good really, I've seen much better and I'm still raking my brains as to whether I felt comfortable watching two, ten year old Thai boys beating the shit out of each other, the locals sure did enjoy it though!
Nangyuan Island: Go here for a day or a few hours, trust me. Basically its a really nice resort only accessible by boat taxi, which you can take, round trip from Sairee Beach for 200 Bhat. Its the nicest beach on Koh Tao, has a dive resort and when I was there, it was full of hot women. I spent about four hours there, mostly tanning and swimming but also made the hike up to this massive rock which has a stunning view from the top. You can check it out here: http://www.nangyuan.com/
Scooter/ATV rentals: Lots of options on the island, you can rent a regular 125 CC scooter (which I did), they have off road tires as opposed to the smooth city tires you'll see on other scooters in Thailand, which is good because the roads here suck! You can also rent all sizes of dirt bikes, mostly Kawasaki (KLX 125 and 250) and also Quads and side by sides.
As Qwest mentioned, this is risky and you'll see lots of people patched up walking on crutches because of accidents, rough roads and tons of drunk foreigners buzzing around the island. Also, there's a known scam on the island where if you so much as put a scratch on one of those things they will charge you exorbitant prices when you return them. When I rented my scooter I took lots of photos before hand and had no problems when I returned it, probably because I didn't drive drunk and am experienced at riding bikes so had no problem.
Finally, I didn't do so well with the game side of things, mostly because I was very busy with the diving and fishing I only really partied hard one night and was severely cock blocked by my female Canadian friend who I brought along. I will elaborate on this later, I'm up in chaing Mai now, where the party scene isn't nearly as good but I'm doing lots of "adventure" activities here. I have lots of quality info for you guys in my upcoming Thailand datasheet.
Anyway, great report Qwest and it was a pleasure to meet up with you guys, hopefully we'll meet up again soon so I can party hard with you guys. And for all of you RVF guys who are looking for nice place to relax, dive and party, Koh Tao is an excellent option!