I took a taxi to Saree Beach, the main beach, to look for a nicer place. Turns out all the nice places are full. I found an OK place, but they don't take advance reservations, so I'd have to check out of my place and look again tomorrow. Not worth the hassle. After that I layed in a hammock by the beach for awhile. Saree also isn't much of a beach, and it was also nearly deserted. Koh Tau is an island for diving, not beach-laying. Then I went to a couple dive shops and asked if they had a -7 mask. The best I found was -4. Tomorrow I'll go to Mae Haad and look. If they don't have anything I'll just have to make do.

I haven't been eating any Thai food since the Western food is so good here. A place down the beach from my bungalow has a BBQ every night. You can pick out your own steak, fish, porkchop, or satay and they'll cook it up for you. After my delicious dinner I watched Hanibal at one of the restaurants. All the places (except mine) show pirated Hollywood movies on VCD, which means the sound and picture quality is awful. Some of the movies are still playing in cinemas, and have little heads at the bottom of the screen. After the movie I walked up the beach looking for action, but the whole place was dead. I wonder if this is normal, or if people are staying away? I could have tried to find a taxi to Saree again to see what's going on there, but that's a pain in the ass, so I went to bed instead. I'm thinking of staying here through New Years to get some more diving and snorkeling in, then heading elsewhere for some R & R on a beach, probably either neighboring Ko Pha Ngan or Ko Samui. Whatever the case, my visa expires on the 18th of January, which is OK, since I want to be in KL on the 17th for Thaipusam.