Experiences on Koh Tao?

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Ting Tong

Contributor
Messages
82
Reaction score
32
Location
Perth Australia
# of dives
100 - 199
Hi

I am looking to stay and dive from Koh Tao in the next couple of weeks. Just wondering if anyone can give me some suggestions, on where to stay? Dive Operators (good or bad)? Other things to do? Favourite restaurants etc?

I am also looking to possibly do my advanced open water so if anyone has any suggestions re: instructors, please chime in.

Thanks

Dave
 
Check out Koh Tao | Buddha View IDC Diving Resort | Career Development Dive Center. A buddy of mine did his IDC there a couple of months ago and is now working there as an instructor. As far as I can tell he is having a great time. Lot of inexpensive accommodation from what I gather.

---------- Post added July 30th, 2014 at 08:30 AM ----------

Send me a pm with your contact details and I would be happy to pass them along to my buddy.
 
In terms of the best place to stay, it is very subjective! It really depends where you want to be based. Chalok (at the south of the island - and where Buddha View is located) is the more quiet, relaxed of the 3 villages on the island. Sairee is the most populated and 'happening' village, with Mae Haad village (the port town) being the middle ground between the two so to speak.

It also depends on what activities and excursions you want to do and which dive school you choose - makes no sense to be at the opposite end of the island to where you need to be every day! In each village you'll find a range of accommodation options from budget to high end. And even in the busier villages, its possible to find quieter accommodation options. Each village also hosts a range of dive schools of various sizes. Bans, Crystal, Buddha view and Big Blue are the biggest dive schools on the island, and as such dive off of large boats with many divers. Smaller companies using smaller boats and with smaller group sizes may suit you better for yours advanced course and/or fun diving. Most dive centres are listed on trip advisor, reviews on the link as follows:
Ko Tao Activities - TripAdvisor

As you'll be aware from previous Koh Tao posts, it is a heavily dived island - although with over 50 dive sites to choose from, in theory the dive traffic should be spread allowing for easy exploration of dives sites. Unfortunately however, many of the medium and most of the larger sized dive centres tend to all depart at the same time - and hit up the same dive sites - resulting in too many divers on a site at any one time, reducing the quality of your dives. Your best bet is to go with a smaller operator that runs smaller charters and at offset dive times to avoid this. There are a few companies that leave very early to do this (New Way and Coral Grand for example) and some who leave later (like ourselves & Planet Scuba). For example (and just to get a bit of shameless self promotion in there!), we do 9am-1pm or 2pm-6pm trips daily, each for 2 dives and using speedboats with max pax of 9 and groups of max 4 per leader/instructor.

Food wise in Sairee I'd recommend Blue Chair restaurant (their massaman curry is amazing), Su Chilli and Fizz beach lounge. If you want to treat yourself to an upmarket meal, Barracuda restaurant is amazing. In Chalok, Ying Yangs is a solid favourite, as is Tukta (located slightly out of the village itself). Lung Pae is also amazing - situated up on the mountain overlooking chalok bay. They offer free taxi pick up & drop off service - your hotel or dive centre should be able to arrange that for you is you ask.

Hope this helps, and happy holidays :)

 
Thanks for the replies.

I will travel on Monday to Koh Toa and make sure I check both dive centres out.
 
My girlfriend and I ended up diving with Goodtime Adventures. My girlfriend was just recently qualified so I preferred to dive with a smaller company.

We had a great time diving in the week we where there. I am not sure if we were just lucky but the diving was above average to excellent, in terms of weather, visibility and marine life.

All the staff at Goodtimes were very friendly and nothing seemed to be a problem. They managed to supply smaller tanks for my girlfriend (7L? Thanks Lindsay) as she struggles out of the water with the standard tank. They were willing to listen and try as best they can to accommodate requests, ie sites that we wanted to dive. I guess because they are a smaller company it is a little easier to manage. A BIG thankyou goes to Dave, one of the instructors/DM who we dived with towards the end. I had requested that we slow the pace down, that my girlfriend was still learning the basics, and I didn't mind if we only saw half of the site. He was totally cool with that, and offered some tips to my girlfriend as we dived. Her diving improved dramatically, possibly because she was a little more relaxed, with Dave's presence and tips! Her confidence sky rocked, so much so that after our last dive with Dave she wanted to go again, in the afternoon. Thanks Dave!

I did my advanced certification while I was there. I chose, Deep, Navigation, Wreck, Night/Limited visibilty, and Perfect Bouyancy. Mark, my instructor, was excellent! He was very patient and would answer all of my related or unrelated questions. A very informative and conscientious instructor. It helps when the instructor enjoys their work and is not jaded teaching X amount of people OW day after day. Thanks Mark.

My deep dive I dived to 28m (or there abouts, I don't have my log book with me) and as an added bonus saw a turtle. Navigation, I led the dive, with Mark and we didn't get lost, always a bonus! :D. Wreck, we dived the HTMS Sattakut. I must admit I was more impressed than I had expected to be. I have dived some very non descript "wrecks" before as an OW diver and didn't think to much of it, but the HTMS Sattakut opened my eyes to how exiting wreck diving could be. My night dive, I'll admit I was a little apprehensive, we descended on a site that I had dived previously, "Twins", just as the sun went down. Within five minutes of darkness, I was grinning from ear to ear for the duration of the dive. Quite magical! Bouyancy, I managed to trim a little weight off, not alot, I don't think I was seriously overweighted anyway. All in all a great experience.

Finally if you like or care to try authentic Thai food, you may be disappointed with the offerings from the local restaurants. The Thai food that we ate in the local restaurants was, I found, westernised and not a true representation of how great Thai food can be. However if you walk from Goodtimes, (beach road) to the main road and turn left, walk 100m down the hill you will come across a 7/11. Around the 7/11 is all manner of street food and an impromptu outdoor Thai restaurant where you can get the real stuff at a 1/3 the price.

A short video of some of what we saw on the last day, apologies if it makes anyone sea sick, still learning! :D

[video=vimeo;106348884]https://vimeo.com/106348884[/video]
 
Last edited:
I'm sure a lot has changed since I was there in 2001. One of my favorite dives was Chumphon Pinnacle. We went deep there but the folks who stayed up closer to the surface saw a whale shark and a manta ray.
 
My girlfriend and I ended up diving with Goodtime Adventures. My girlfriend was just recently qualified so I preferred to dive with a smaller company.

We had a great time diving in the week we where there. I am not sure if we were just lucky but the diving was above average to excellent, in terms of weather, visibility and marine life.

All the staff at Goodtimes were very friendly and nothing seemed to be a problem. They managed to supply smaller tanks for my girlfriend (7L? Thanks Lindsay) as she struggles out of the water with the standard tank. They were willing to listen and try as best they can to accommodate requests, ie sites that we wanted to dive. I guess because they are a smaller company it is a little easier to manage. A BIG thankyou goes to Dave, one of the instructors/DM who we dived with towards the end. I had requested that we slow the pace down, that my girlfriend was still learning the basics, and I didn't mind if we only saw half of the site. He was totally cool with that, and offered some tips to my girlfriend as we dived. Her diving improved dramatically, possibly because she was a little more relaxed, with Dave's presence and tips! Her confidence sky rocked, so much so that after our last dive with Dave she wanted to go again, in the afternoon. Thanks Dave!

I did my advanced certification while I was there. I chose, Deep, Navigation, Wreck, Night/Limited visibilty, and Perfect Bouyancy. Mark, my instructor, was excellent! He was very patient and would answer all of my related or unrelated questions. A very informative and conscientious instructor. It helps when the instructor enjoys their work and is not jaded teaching X amount of people OW day after day. Thanks Mark.

My deep dive I dived to 28m (or there abouts, I don't have my log book with me) and as an added bonus saw a turtle. Navigation, I led the dive, with Mark and we didn't get lost, always a bonus! :D. Wreck, we dived the HTMS Sattakut. I must admit I was more impressed than I had expected to be. I have dived some very non descript "wrecks" before as an OW diver and didn't think to much of it, but the HTMS Sattakut opened my eyes to how exiting wreck diving could be. My night dive, I'll admit I was a little apprehensive, we descended on a site that I had dived previously, "Twins", just as the sun went down. Within five minutes of darkness, I was grinning from ear to ear for the duration of the dive. Quite magical! Bouyancy, I managed to trim a little weight off, not alot, I don't think I was seriously overweighted anyway. All in all a great experience.

Finally if you like or care to try authentic Thai food, you may be disappointed with the offerings from the local restaurants. The Thai food that we ate in the local restaurants was, I found, westernised and not a true representation of how great Thai food can be. However if you walk from Goodtimes, (beach road) to the main road and turn left, walk 100m down the hill you will come across a 7/11. Around the 7/11 is all manner of street food and an impromptu outdoor Thai restaurant where you can get the real stuff at a 1/3 the price.

A short video of some of what we saw on the last day, apologies if it makes anyone sea sick, still learning! :D

[video=vimeo;106348884]https://vimeo.com/106348884[/video]

Wow, thanks for such a great write up. Well done on your course, we really enjoyed having you guys around. I'll make sure your comments get passed on to all of the staff members you mentioned, they'll be super happy to know you had such a great time with them. We hope to see you again in the future. All the best and happy diving until then. Best regards the whole crew here :)
 
I'm sure a lot has changed since I was there in 2001. One of my favorite dives was Chumphon Pinnacle. We went deep there but the folks who stayed up closer to the surface saw a whale shark and a manta ray.

I hear you drbill. Unfortunately (or fortunately if I think about it) my girlfriend has just started diving, and I am a novice as well. I have heard that Chumpon Pinnacle is a great dive and it is definitely on our "to do list". Just working on a little more experience and we will be there, manta's or not. Gives us an excuse to visit Koh Tao again. :eyebrow:
 

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