Operation Koh Phangan/Koh Tao

Greetings from Koh Tao, from a 23 year old Kentuckian. I want to thank all those who took the time to email: Mom, Dad and Babs. Mike and Ed, I guess yours got lost in cyberspace. Grellan and Niall: a day late and a dollar short was barely acceptable.
Koh Phangan was my first stop from Bangkok, where I celebrated the big 2-3. The stomach was a bit dodgy from some bad chicken, but tanks to some Levaquin, I got over it. Foley and Burn, the two Irish lads I met up with, helped me share in a bit of craic. The next night, I caught the bus to Koh Phnagan, which is a nice island off the east coast of southern Thailand. It's very well known for its full moon celebrations, which, as the name suggests, happen every full moon. Pretty much every visitor young and old revolve their travel plans around this event, so you meet a lot of people here who you have met earlier in your travels, which can be a good or a bad thing. I booked this nice villa which is right on the beach and would be better if the ocean came in closer, but that only happens late at night when the tide is in. As for the full moon celebration, it's an all night event on the beach of Haad rin. Basically people of every nationality are present, and there are crazy fire shows, loud music and thousands of people crouding the beach. Never seen anything like it. My only wish was that the weather had been better. There was some sun in the AM, but it usually clouded over in the afternoon. All in all, it was a good place and I met good people.
Now I find myself in Koh Tao, another island about an hour ferry from Koh Phangan. Koh Tao's big attraction is its scuba diving courses. I've booked a four day course that will give me my PADI certification, which clears me to dive up to 18 metres on my own. Today was the first day, and we spent it in a room watching videos and learning about technique, breathing, signals, safety etc. All the equipment and facilites here are great, so there's no worrying about dodgy gauges or tanks or anything. Tomorrow I'l get up early and we'll go into the pool and practice being underwater with the tanks on and doing other things that will help us when we actualy go into the water the following day. The dives are supposed to be great with good visibility and nice coral and marine life, so I'm hoping for sunny days and some god times.
Hope al is well in Denver, Boston, NYC and the Ville.

Cheers,
James