damn....

When I first found Koh Tao, there were no roads, no cars, no
electricity, no phones, no noise, etc. There was one small village, Bann
Mae Hadd, that had about 10-15 small 'shophouse' stores, and a walking
path along the western side of the island. There were only two boats to
the island each day; a night ferry from Chumporn, and a day ferry from
Koh Samui. There was only one old rickety pier. Along the beach every
few hundred meters there was another bungalow colony,
http://www.seatraveler.com/KohTaoOld1.jpg
right on the beach with all the bungalows made from bamboo and thatch.
The beach was absolutely clean of man-made garbage, and what floatsom
was washed up overnight was raked up by 6am. I mean the beach was CLEAN.
http://www.seatraveler.com/KohTaoOld2.jpg
During the day you might see a total of 6-10 people laying in the sun.
This for a space of a few kilometers. Remember, the entire island is
only 8 kilometers long and three wide.
The entire middle of the island was still all coconut palms. Small
walking paths, but nothing you could drive on. If you wanted some
exercise, you could hike over the top of the island to the other side,
where there were a few isolated bungalows for rent. People only came
there to dive, because the diving was so good. There was nothing else to
do except for the odd pickup vollyball game. No music at night, (no
electricity) only one bar on the island, so people spent time chatting
together in the bungalow restaurants, with lighting provided by kerosene
hurricane lamps at night, the musice provided by the surf washing up on
the beach, and diving or snorkeling by day. The island was empty.
Peaceful, (not even a cop on the island) quiet, with very good diving.
The most expensive beachfront bungalow with bath cost about $3 USD. But
then, you couldn't find a bungalow more than 50 meters from the beach
anyway. Further in than that was nothing but coconut palms. An 'A-Frame'
on the beach, with 3-4 mattresses cost 50 cents. Picture in your mind,
the movie "The Beach."  After all, Koh Tao is the only small island from
which you can reach Koh Phangan by little outboard motorboat.... (The
movie was actually shot on the other side of Thailand, around Koh Phi
Phi) THAT'S what it was like back then.

Today.... there are three full sized villages, plenty of paved roads,
lots of cement buildings, several of the 'resorts' have swimming pools,
there are three franchised 7-Elevens, and a car rental agency. And about
10 times a day you can see this:
http://www.seatraveler.com/KohTaoCrowds.jpg
Bamboo has given way to cinder block and cement. Not only are there
plenty of bars in each village, the girls from Patpong have come to earn
their keep, and the crime rate is soaring. Plenty of cops now. They need
them to ticket the speeders. (Remember, this island is only 8K x 3K) The
illegal fishing has reduced the fish density to almost nil, the reefs
are covered with broken nets from their drag lines,
http://www.seatraveler.com/net.jpg  Best have a good sharp knife if you
plane to do any swim-throughs...

While the economy of the island is increasing, which is a good thing for
the locals, so are all the ills of civilization. Many of my long time
friends there wish we hadn't 'discovered' Koh Tao. Time to stick to
diving in Sangalaki....  http://www.seatraveler.com/images/ISLAND1.jpg
http://www.seatraveler.com/Tripsang.htm

Steve Kramer
"PhotoEnvisions" Photography
Chiang Mai, Thailand
http://www.photoenvisions.com

I'll expand that a bit:

Tahiti is very pretty topside, to be sure.  Plenty of things to see
and do.  It's similar to Hawaii, except French and a tad less
developed.  Like Hawaii, it's lacking in certain fish species and soft
corals because of its remoteness.  Like Hawaii, there are sky-high
prices, great sashimi, and Mormons.  Unlike Hawaii, all the beaches
are topless.

Rangiroa has some impressive currents and potentially more white-tips
than you'll see anywhere else including Cocos, but there's not much
else other than big animal stuff to impress a diver.

In Indonesia, there are still plenty of sites to see big animals.  I
saw quite a few sharks during my Bali-Komodo run, was buzzed by a
manta at two different sites, and experienced a great school of
bumphead parrotfish off Lombok.  We were even supposed to do a mola
mola dive off Bali but that fell through.  The difference is that you
also get a huge species diversity, including some bizarre creatures
found nowhere else on the planet, because all the worlds' fishies
originated from that area back somewhere in the early chapters of
Genesis.  Also you get soft corals in colors that even God couldn't
have designed - they must have been put there by aliens.  It's quite
unbelievable.

That said, the downsides are malaria, political insecurity, and
personally I don't like Indonesian food as much as Thai or French-
Polynesian, but there are some world-class resorts and liveaboards
there, it's really not that unsafe, and malaria is 99% preventable if
you plan ahead and stick to your plan.  And I did get a bit addicted
to waking up to mie goreng (fried noodles) with an egg and a helping
dollop of sambal every morning.  My next visit there, I'll try
Wakatobi or one of the North Sulawesi liveaboards, or maybe a
liveaboard to Raja Ampat.  It's all good.

I don't know of any dedicated dive resorts in Tahiti, though the Kia
Ora in Rangiroa did have a nice dive shop on the premises.  Most of
the hotels and dive shops run diving the European way, i.e. one tank
at a time.  There are at least a couple shops that do 2-tank trips,
but I believe the Tahiti Aggressor was the one and only really dive-
dedicated operation and they left a few months ago for better climes.

I wasn't that impressed with Thailand and I did do the preferred
trip:  a liveaboard up to the Burma Banks, and including sites along
the way in the Andaman Sea.  We missed diving much of the Similans
because of the tsunami, but with all the boats that dive there, I
can't believe they're still in such great shape.  On that trip,
besides the tsunami, we also experienced a post-dynamite night dive
that was the most depressing dive I've ever done.  Again, like Tahiti,
there are great land-based attractions (though worlds apart from
Tahiti), but the diving is just something you do while you're there,
not a real reason to go there.

If you're up for experiencing a new and interesting part of the world
and doing a few dives along the way, then Tahiti or Thailand are both
great destinations worth traveling to.  But if you're mainly
interested in a mind-blowing dive trip, I'd strongly suggest Indonesia.