Two Rucksacks One Boy

After the Open Water course I went straight on to the Advanced Diving course. This was a two day course that included a Deep Dive down to 30 meters, a Wreck Dive and a Night Dive. A massive advantage of the Advanced Dive course was that I was now able to take my Camera with me! The Wreck Dive and Deep Dive were incredible and we even were lucky enough to see some Bull Sharks - though no photos I'm afraid... Unfortunately though, during the Wreck Dive I sustained an ear injury - A quick visit to the island's diving clinic told me that I would be unable to dive for around a week while my angry ear repaired itself. So it was a course of Antibiotics, Anti-Inflammatories, and Decongestants (for my blocked sinuses). As diving was out of the question I took the decision to head back North - with my collection of multi-coloured pills - to a place called Kanchanaburi.... The home of the Bridge over the River Kwai.

As I would be spending a lot more time in Bangkok during my trip I decided to leave Michelle and Richard in peace and head south to the diving paradise of Ko Tao. I was heading there to take my Open Water Qualification which is basically the beginners course to SCUBA diving. Getting to Ko Tao wasn't a problem. I took the train from Bangkok to Chumphon where I stayed the night and then I took the ferry to the island the next day. The train from Bangkok - Chumphon. Walking along the pier at Chumphon to get on to the catamaran to Ko Tao. Finally arrived at Ko Tao and my room is 10 meters from the beachside bar and restaurant... Needless to say diving was incredible - The course lasted three days and included theory, and practical tests in a pool and then in the sea, below is a video that was made for us at the end of the course. Get yourself a glass of wine to drink while you watch it, it will go very well with the cheese of the video. ...

Bangkok Day 1: I arrived in Bangkok on Friday night after a 16 hour journey from London Gatwick - with a two hour stop over in Dubai. My plan was to try and stay awake for the duration of the flight in order to get used to the time difference as quickly as possible. I made full use of the inflight movies to help me in this endeavour however my plan was almost undone by some bad film choices and I woke up as we were coming in to land at Bangkok airport only to find the 'The Hunger Games' had ended with the girl getting with the wrong guy. Anyway, my accommodation in Bangkok had already been sorted out well in advance thanks to my Mum who has a couple friends working as teachers in Bangkok. Her two friends - Richard and Michelle - had kindly agreed to let me stay while I found my feet in Asia. I like to think of it as jumping in at the deep end in the knowledge that I can still touch the bottom. From Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport I took a taxi to the condom...

Ok, here is it goes! The inaugural post of my travel blog! My name is Sam Barber, In London, England I was born and raised, and in the playground I spent most of my days. I'm 25 years old, and I have taken a sabbatical from my job as a software developer to embark on an 8 month tour of Asia. The Plan: Currently the plan is to arrive in Thailand where I will spend one to two months - from there I will travel overland into Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, spending between two to four weeks in each country. Moving on, I will make my way back through Thailand and into Malaysia then onto Singapore for around Christmas time. From Singapore I will fly to Delhi, India where I will make my way overland into Nepal ready to catch a flight from Kathmandu to Colombo, Sri Lanka. This will be my final stop where I will hopefully spend a month before flying back to the infamous London weather.