Finally! I'm on dry land. The few hours I spent travelling last night and this morning were perhaps the worst of my life. I can't remember what it was like coming out the birth canal, but I don't imagine it was much worse than what I went through this morning.

It was pouring rain like you wouldn't believe last night. I remember thinking, "At least the bus ride is over." And I was glad....until I saw the vehicle we had to get into next. It was like one of those military transport trucks, built to hold 10 troops. We somehow packed 25 people in there...felt like I was escaping the mainland or something.

After 15 minutes or so in the truck, we finally arrived...somewhere. It was the pier, if you could call a wooden plank sticking off the sidewalk a pier. I didn't know where we were or where were going, and I didn't care. At that point, I just didn't to be there. Man, 3 hours more left on the ferry ride. Wait a second...what do I know about 3 hour tours? Something bad is going to happen.

How right I was. Once on the ferry, the engine started throbbing, making the entire boat bounce about like an enormous Mexican jumping bean. I spent the rest of the ferry ride throwing up in the disgusting toilet they had in the stern. What made it worse was the each time the ferry hit a big wave, the toilet spit up its contents back at me. I wasn't looking too pleasant when Abok found me two hours later.

We decided to go to Si Ree (pronounced sigh ray) because it reputedly had the best beach in all of Ko Tao. I was not disappointed. The place was beautiful. We walked up and down a stretch of dirt road with our packs on until we finally found a place that had a nice beach view and a decent price. 250 baht a day for your own place that had a fan and private bathroom. Not bad at all. I stayed in the right cabin, Abok in the left one.

At night, we would each sit on our own porch and yell across at each other like a couple of bitter old men. Our German neighbours in the next cabin must have hated us.

For some reason, they call these things bungalows rather than cabins, though I suppose they are bungalows too. It's just that I think of something bigger when I hear bungalow. As you can see, it's just one room and a bed. Beneath the bungalow was a space where a bunch of roosters decided to camp out to escape the sun.

I learned, contrary to popular belief, that roosters don't crow only at dawn. They crow whenever the hell they want to - which is all day, everyday. I made decision at that point to eat as much chicken as I could on this trip.

After we threw our shit down, we walked out to the beach and rented motor scooters. I fell in front of a large truck almost immediately and damaged the bike. See, in Thailand, certain luxuries that we are accustomed to don't exist. Things like automatic shifting, helmets and speed laws. Couple this with instructions given in Thai and the fact that they drive on the left here and you've got yourself a great recipe for death or serious injury.

The bikes cost 150 baht a day to rent, and gas was only 20 baht a litre (4 litres to capacity), but damages on the bike cost me a shit load. I ended up dishing out over 400 baht for scratches and dents. Damn dirt roads.

Ok, now I've been to beaches before, but the ones here are totally different. It was like I was in another universe. Check these things out. They're little piles of wet sand that look like they just came out of a Playdough spaghetti maker. Abok tells me that they were made by little sand crabs. I thought they looked like piles of poo.

All my gawking must have gotten on Abok's nerves because when I looked up, he was 50 metres ahead of me, looking at the sea. Here's what he saw:

After exploring the beach and grabbing some nice mango shakes, we went for a ride. After doing some more damage to the bike and braving Abok's ridicule, we ended up on the peak of a really steep hill. We dismounted and went down the hill. It looked like a quarry coming out of the water. There was this one huge ass rock in particular that looked impossible to climb. We found a way up eventually.

So why the hell would I be stupid enough to climb a big rock with nothing below but other pointy rocks? For the pictures, of course.

Once atop the monolith, I realized that it may not be as easy to get down as it was to get up. I couldn't find the crevice that I had used for grip on the way up.

For a moment, I was scared that I'd have to spend the rest of my days perched on the top of this rock, becoming one of those freak stories you find in the Lonely Planet, but eventually I found the crevice again. Then I convinced Abok to go up, in hopes that he would get stranded, but he didn't.

The sun was setting and we didn't want to ride in the dark, especially since it was our first day on the island and didn't know our way around yet.

I was still having some stomach problems at that point. As we were climbing over the rocks back to the bikes, I felt an incredible urge to use the facilities, however there were none around.

I'm not proud of what happened next, especially since I had to leave a pair of underwear behind and a couple of rocks are worse off now - but you do what you gotta do in these situations.

That night, after dinner, I decided to get a massage (not that kind). Thailand is famous for its massage technique and it's cheap as hell here. 200 baht an hour, which is approximately the wage they pay at McDonald's in Canada.

This was the masseuse. She was a little girl, but she hurt me like a big man (am I supposed to be bruised the next day?) Felt like the Kama Sutra, as performed by frikkin' Tito Ortiz. I'm smiling in the picture, but only because I was afraid of her.

I was the only one in there, as it was close to closing time and all the other masseuses were sitting around watching. They were laughing at me because I was turning red and squirming. Being touched in places where only a person with MD after their name should be touching me, was not something to which I was accustomed.

The next day, we explored the island some more. I was still sore from the massage last night, so I couldn't keep up with Abok. This place was just full of little nooks and crannies that you could spend hours wandering. If it wasn't 40 degrees out everyday, I think I might have explored a bit more instead of hanging out at restaurants eating myself into a stooper.

The restaurants here are incredible, right on the beach. There are palms to give you shade and the food is cheap as hell. Why can't life be like this at home? Below are two pictures of us sitting at one of the eating establishments in Ko Tao.

This is me in Mango Bay with my diving instructor, Joseph (he's not freakishly tall, in case you're wondering. He's just standing on some life jackets). There's something about scuba diving that draws fanatics to Mango Bay in droves. It's reputedly the best dive site in all of Thailand, second only to the Philippines' Baracay in beauty. To be totally honest, I'm not sure what makes for a good dive site. More rocks? Better fish?

I met people from all around the world on that trip. It's incredible the lengths that people would go to, just to go scuba diving.

It was fun, but there was no way I'd want to do this on a constant basis. The filtered air that comes out of the tanks is incredibly dry, and after about 20 minutes I was dying for another mango shake. Of course, there was still another 40 minutes to go. It crossed my mind that I was surrounded by water, and that all it would take was a quick sip, but I heard that salt water is a laxative.

I won't go into the specifics of what I did because I did exactly what you would expect I did on a dive. I was under water and I looked at stuff. No big deal.

Ao Leuk, another great beach on Ko Tao. It's as nice as Si Ree. I almost died coming down to this place. I asked about this place yesterday and was told that I'd need a 4x4 to get here. The lady at the travel agency wasn't kidding. The slope down to this place was like a 30 degree angle and the road was about as treacherous as it could get and still be considered a road. What's more, trucks and other bikes come barrelling at you from both directions. I knew from beginning that I'd have to pay more damages on the bike.

Abok is out taking a dip while we wait for our drinks to come. I'm taking the time to enjoy the fact that I'm not falling onto pointy rocks and the predominance of young, bikini-clad German girls in this restaurant.

It's not hard to adjust to life in Thailand.

The view here is superb (I'm running out of adjectives). Blue water, green trees, white sand. A warm breeze on my back and a cold mango shake in my hand.

I've noticed that everywhere Abok and I go on this island, we are the only Asians, outside of the Thais. Where are all the Japanese people? I see them at the airport and the piers, but then *poof* they just disappear.

I was walking about on the sand yesterday night, after dinner. Staring out at the dark sea and above at a night sky, full of stars in unfamiliar arrangements. You know you're far from home when you don't recognize the sky.

We're off to Ko Pha Ngan soon to check out the famous Full Moon party.

I'm sad to leave Ko Tao.