on the other side of the world….

Hi all…
We’re on Koh Tao now.. have been for a few days.. and we’re enjoying it a lot. Started our PADI Open water course yesterday and it’s going really well, but is pretty scary sometimes. There’s so much more to it than I thought there would be, but its pretty great. Today we had our first dive in the actual ocean – only went to about 6 meters so not too deep, but still pretty scary. The visibility was really poor because of the high tide season and many boats in the bay where we were. Hopefully tomorrow as we get further away from the island and a little deeper (12 meters) it will clear up and we’ll see more interesting fish and coral. We’ll see…

More soon, and I’ll try again to upload some photos maybe tomorrow of the next day. The card readers built into these computers won’t read my camera card so I need to remember to grab my camera cable when I come next time.

Hope all is well on the other side of the world… we’re living it up over here and are doing really well.

—-Chad & Kate

Hello all!
I’m sitting in an internet cafe near Koh Saan Road in Bangkok. We’ve got about 2 hours before we head off on an overnight bus and boat journey to Koh Tao (our island getaway off the east coast of southern Thailand). There we will be doing scuba Diving and relaxing – so excited!… but with the down time I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that we’re alive, doing very well, and having a great trip! It’s only day 3 but we’ve already done a LOT and are really loving all the places we’ve been.
We’ll try to do more involved posts later on, but I’ll give a quick overview and post a few pictures just to make ya a little jealous

We arrived without any hassles really at 2:30AM on the 8th. Got through customs in a breeze and soon were off to our hostel in a cab.. about a 45 minute trip but we arrive and were settled in to our beds by about 4AM. Got up the next day and walked around Koh Saan a bit… this area is known as the backpacking/travel HUB of Thailand. LOTS of foreigners lots of character, crazy atmosphere.. it’s fun but a bit overwhelming. It’s close to all the major touristy stuff so we walked over to the Grand Palace and spent a few hours taking in the amazing sights. Some fantastic architecture and history here – lots of fun and very humbling.

After some food Kate and I left to go visit her friend Marlie who lives just outside of Bangkok (an hour away :). Got there and had dinner with her went to a crazy Thai bar and then stayed the night in her place and came back with her in the morning after she taught her one class. Spent the day traveling around – visit the reclining Buddha, traveling on the canal water taxis and taking in the sights and sounds of Bangkok.

Today we’ve spent mainly shopping around Koh Saan road.. there are street venders and small shops everywhere so we stocked up on bags/sunglasses/clothes/etc.. all very cheap and very interesting.

Soon we’ll leave for Koh Tao – start our diving on Monday and spend a week there. More on that as it happens!

Off I go to get a quick thai shoulder massage and then we’ll head down the street to get on the Bus!

More soon!
Love you all – and can’t wait to tell you more about the our travels… It’s truly going amazingly well and we’re loving every minute!

-Chad (and Kate … but she’s in the midst of a facial massage on the side of the street soo.. more just Chad She says hi though….)

PS.. sorry the photos never finished uploading and I have to leave.. I’ll post more later… Sorry!!