Having a mind-bogglingly good holiday in Khao Lak at the moment, and I say that as someone who's holidayed in Thailand quite a few times.

Went on a couple of island scuba dives in the Similans today. My group descended into vast schools of fish from the surface to the eighteen metre deep summit of a large coral pinnacle. There was a ridiculous amount of action, felt like more fish than I've seen on the Great Barrier Reef, the whole ocean was teeming. We circled this beautifully decorated pinnacle (aka "Yellow Rock") down to thirty metres deep, popping up over its back ridge. I was surrounded by schools of smaller reef fish, with hunting packs of trevally and jackfish skimming around the outside in the deeper blue.

Out off the sea floor I guess, this six metre manta ray suddenly billows up, moving like a black and white pennant in the breeze, flapping gently like a magic carpet. Everyone in my group of four divers gets super excited … it's the right season to see mantas, but it's still far from a common thing.

I think I had about three minutes pure interaction with this creature, hovering over it … don't reckon I ever got closer than about 3–5 metres away, but I could see it looking at me, checking me out. I was tracking it intently during this whole period, after which I realised I'd chased myself about thirty metres from my group and drifted up 5–10 metres (which is not so good), and had to deflate my buoyancy vest like mad to go rejoin the crew.

Talk about experiences you never knew you needed …

I am so so desperate for this kind of holiday since 2020, sounds like a blast mate! I love the teasing welcome you've been getting from the locals. You're managing to pack in quite a lot from the sounds of it. Do you find fleshing out the itinerary a bit of a bane or do you take no issue or even enjoyment from that? Or perhaps your partner and friends take lead? Can't expect it from my mates, plus I am single so it weighs on my capacity to act.

I've been meaning to take a basic scuba course in a tank/pool here in the UK so I am bit more ready to go for any opportunity. Would love to be in a position to explore at 30m at least- that depth should be pretty accessible to a beginner I imagine? EDIT: looked it up and its not that easy.

Yeah this trip's just been really fun. Zero pressure and lots of nice serendipitous bits and pieces happening.

KingslandBarge Do you find fleshing out the itinerary a bit of a bane or do you take no issue or even enjoyment from that?

I've been to Thailand a few times before, but apart from the flights this was all booked or improvised since a day or two before departure. In fact I would definitely have saved a bit of cash if I'd booked less, this area is into shoulder season and everything is rather quiet.

I didn't know beforehand I'd booked these flights across Thai New Year, I actually moved the flights at short notice from last September for work and life reasons. So that's been lucky.

With notable exceptions (let's say you want to do the proper Inca Trail or go to Bhutan, then you'd better book well ahead), it seems better just to have an idea of the type of fun you wanna have and where—renting a motorcycle was very central to my thinking on this one—then go places that aren't too chocked up with tourists, and don't fret about optimising.

A friend of mine has recently been improvising his way across Central Asia and has been having a great time. Got himself invited to a Kazakh wedding, spent a week volunteering rebuilding a farmhouse in Turkey ... you've got tons of latitude travelling these days, given the way accommodation can be booked, transport located at the last minute, and so on.