Koh Phangan -> Visa Run

After leaving beautiful Railay and the fresh hairstyles we traveled to Koh Samui a large island in the Gulf of Thailand on the eastern coast. We had to make a quick trip to the islands main city to try and renew our 30 day tourist visa at the immagration office there. We had read that one could go and for 500 baht (about 15 dollars) get a 30 day extension. Boy were we wrong. We ended up having to spend 2200 baht for a 7 day extension....apparently the laws have changed.
So with our new visa we decided to head to Koh Phangan a smaller island just north of koh samui famous for its Full Moon Parties, beautiful snorkeling and cheap beachside accomidation. We rented scooters (see picture of gas station below...) and went beach hopping for the first couple days snorkeling and exploring. The reefs were all within swimming distance of the beach and were teaming with life. The water even had good visibility unlike the diving in the gulf.

Caitlin found a good price and did here PADI open water certification on the island and passed, so now I've got a certified dive buddy. In the meantime I did one dive at the so called "famous" Sail Rock, but the visibility was awful only about 1-2 meters at depth (definitely very claustrophobic...bummer) so not quite what I was expecting.

After a week enjoying the fish tank and the beaches, we got dressed up in all neon and headed to Haad Rin for the Full Moon Party, a 20,000-30,000 person party on the beach. It was pretty wild and the people watching was great. We got to see a bunch of fire dancing, fire breathing, fire jump roping...you get the idea. The jump rope was about 30 feet long and anybody could try, I considered trying it, but then realized I would probably catch my hair on fire or something and thought better of it.... Anyways quite the experience.

After the party we had to make a break for the border to get a 15 day visa extension. We heard the best way was to head to Ranong near the thai-burmese border and make a day trip to burma. The whole scene was quite strange and basically the trip consisited of getting on a boat driving half an hour to a private burmese casino on an island waiting 30 min then returning back though thai immagration....Silly, but the whole process cost much less than at the visa office and it got us a 15 day extension.

Well next up, off to Khao Lak for some diving with Caitlin in the Similan Islands!