I know it's been a while since a blog update and I know I've missed out an entire 10 days of arriving in Thailand and ThaIntro, but there was too much going on to keep up with it, I'll try to backtrack in the future, but for now, you'll just have to read about Koh Tao and my advanced dve course...

26/05/13

Koh Tao? More like Koh Wow! I want to live here. Spend the rest of my days on this tiny stretch of beach. There is such a chilled out vibe, it's, well, it's just incredible. So, let's start the story; On the way to Koh Tao from Koh Phangnan, there was a guy coming around trying to sell us dive courses and accommodation. My reason for going to Koh Tao was to do my advanced dive course. This dive resort give you a free taxi to the resort, talk to them and then if we want to, we can book on. If not, there's nothing wrong with it and we can leave and go somewhere else. I took him up on this; Save some money and check out the resort. He quoted 8,500 THB for 2 nights accom and the advanced dive course. This was about right, other ones were 7,500 without accom and it was a very reputable dive school, giving me a Padi license as well, which is usually more expensive and is more widely known and accepted than my current SSI license. I went there and the woman behind the desk told me it's 8000 and because I'll be starting tomorrow, she'll downgrade my room but give me an extra night. I didn't know what to think of this until I went for my walk. Getting back into single travel mode, I went for my new place gander. This was when I realised I don't need a decent room. I'm in paradise. The beach faces west for the sunset, which I am currently enjoying from a bar with a few my new friends from ThaIntro. I wish I hadn't booked my onward journey in a few days. I need a couple of weeks here.

27/05/13

I started the advanced dive course today. 9:30 start at the bar. We ran through what the course will cover: Deep Dive, Wreck Dive, Night Dive, Navigational Dive and one optional extra out of: Fish ID, Peak Boyancey Control and Underwater Photography. We did the classroom stuff before breaking for lunch, I went on a mission to find some cheap grub as I'm on a very tight budget after the ThaIntro week. I found some pork friend rice for 60THB, I've had cheaper, but it tasted pretty awesome. That was at 'Moon Burger', on the beach. By the time I found it, I was soaking in sweat. Visually, this is paradise, but practically it is a little different. I'd still stay here for weeks, everywhere else would be the same. After lunch we got on the boat and went to do our first dive; The HTMS Sattakut. We swam around the ship, playing on the cannons at the front and back of the boat. Visibility was amazing too, this is one of the best dives I have been on. Our instructor is a great guy, relaxed and up for a good time, most instructors would just wait whilst we get photos on the cannon, he joined in. Sitting on the cannon himself and standing on the front of the boat 'Titanic Style'. We then swam to a different dive site only 10m away and saw an abundance of marine life, it was just awesome. At the end of that dive, we went up for our surface interval, had some coffee and debrief. The 2nd dive was more of an educational/test dive, navigating ourselves around a reef and learning ways to measure distances and navigate back to the boat. It was essential, and interesting to do.

I try to keep this blog as a video diary, saying what is in my head at the time of writing, not back-editing unless I forget to make an entry, so tonight was the pub crawl. It's 00:39, and I've just got back, quite early for a night on an island pub crawl, but I quit at the last bar, didn't stay for much longer. My budget saw me through it for the day, and thanks to ThaIntro, we got a reduced rate. Thanks to jumping in the pool at the 2nd bar, I got a free shot. Thanks to the random guy pushing me in (who I dragged with me) I got another free shot, thanks to my Juliet (I'll explain), I got half price mini golf and 200THB off board shorts or bikini at a shop. Overall, it was a f***ing good pub crawl. And compared to the last week, I rocked it. I had a good time with the people I chose to get on with and I was a central character. I also dressed up as a ladyboy. What? Yeh, at the 2nd bar, we saw a ladyboy cabaret show and at the end they asked for people to come up. By the time I upload this, you probably would have already seen the pictures and videos. So the 2nd bar we went to was the 'pool party' if you get in the pool, you get a free shot. I said I wouldn't, but by the time the 1st person jumped in, I was keen. Keen to save money, so I was in. Then they came around handing out small pieces of paper with things like 'Dirty D......', 'Screaming O.......' and 'Ben & J.....', the idea being that you had to meet people, mine was 'Romeo & J......' I went around asking girls if they were my Juliet. I found her. Apparently there were only 3 that matched up, and we were the first. Her name was Nina, and we chose minigolf. She was the one that pushed me up to drag it up at the ladyboy caboret show. At the last bar, I lost her before we could arrange a time and place for minigolf. After an hour or two of live awesome music, crashing and getting kicked off the stage during 'Wanabee - Spice Girls', we had an after party at the beach. That's where I bumped into Nina again. In 2 days, we go on a minigolf with a free beer! I left after about an hour, and now I'm back at the resort with a bottle of water. Having spent my budgeted allocation for today on food and a pub crawl. I wouldn't say it was a bad day either! It's now 00:55 and I have to get up at 10:30 tomorrow. Easy.

30/05/13

I'm sat on the Ferry to Chumphon to catch my bus up to Bangkok to get a bus or train up to Chang Mai. I leave 24 hours before Shaz and Fiona, but they arrive a couple of hours before me. The life of a budget traveller, eh?

So what of my last 2 days? Well; I got up feeling ever so slightly like I had been drinking, but the first dive sorted that out. The first dive was our deep dive on the advanced course; 30m down. We had to do tests to see if we suffered from Nitrogen Narcosis at all, the sensation when high pressured nitrogen dissolves in your blood. Very similar to laughing gas, but for obvious reasons; more dangerous. Arnaud was first up and we were given a number from 1-10 and we had to give the number which added up to 11. Easy. He was given 5 and rightly responded 6, I was given 2 middle fingers. How is that fair?! It completely threw me off and I tried to collect myself and gave an 8 back. Our survey says: ERUR URRRRR. I did it with such conviction he had to double take and I gave a 9 in response. Some other cool things happen at that depth, the colour red is almost completely filtered out, so the tomato we took down looked a bruised yellow colour. The egg we took down stayed pretty intact when cracked, the pressure keeping the yolk together, being able to bat it around like a ping pong ball. We ascended to about 15m to prolong the dive and I tried my hand at underwater photography. Its not so much seeing what would make a decent photo that is the problem, it's lining the shot up. There's more to think about because you're floating, you have buoyancy to focus on, the camera, where the light is coming from, the currant, the rocks, coral and most importantly; trying not to scare the fish! After this first attempt, the next dive was the photography dive, so I focussed mainly on taking photos, and taking everything into consideration, I got a few decent ones. There's not much to say about that dive that the pictures won't say, but I got better at taking them. We had a 45 minute boat ride on rough sees after that, and it didn't sit well with me or Arnaud. When we got to shore, we had 30 minutes to get some food before heading off for the night dive. I did a night dive in the Whitsundays, AU. But this was very different. There were no Whales calling and I knew where we were in relation to the surface. What was cool about this dive was when we turned our torches off and swam. The plankton, when frightened, glow up in what is known as bioluminescence. We sat in one spot, torches off, waving our hands like idiots, amused by this natural light show. 2 days, 5 awesome dives, 1 advanced scuba liscence achieved. By this point though, I was shattered. Ready to go to bed, I went to meet up with Shaz, Fiona and Adam, we only had 1 drink and then went to bed. I had a quick skype with my Dad and then hit the hay.

I should have packed. I had to get up at 8:30am to check out. Check out, and store my bags in Adams room, for that night, I was going to sleep on the beach. Make the most of my hammock purchase in Bangkok and save on accommodation for the night. But, I'll get to that, the whole day was a very Castaway style day, which started with my hunt for the perfect spot for my hammock. The tide had been getting quite high over the last few nights, so first on my list was height, then cover, to prevent people seeing me, not that it really matters anyway when on an island paradise. I found a spot, far away enough from the high tide mark but it was pretty much outside someone's beach hut. I chilled there, tried my hand at weaving, ended up weaving a pair of flip flops out of palm leaves, wore them for about 5 minutes, then headed on down to meet Adam for lunch. He was doing his open water dive course, so I was keen to relive my first experiences of scuba diving. I found the perfect place just after lunch, it was higher than the high tide mark, 2 trees the perfect distance, and it was just in enough from the main sand to be hidden. That would by my home for the night, the one problem; coconuts. I found an older one on the ground and after about 20minutes of peeling off the shell, got to what you would consider 'the nut' I cracked it on the tree and started nibbling at the flesh, I can't eat a whole coconut, so I shared some with a French couple sunbathing. To be honest, I don't even like eating coconut, I just do these things for the project. 4pm came and it was time for my 'date' with Juliet. We met at the lotus bar and being early, I grabbed a beer and chatted to the barman who told me and a few others a story about a turtle, ask me about that one another time. We got a taxi to the minigolf and teed off. The first round was a tester, should I let her win, should I make it a close call, or should I actually try? I found out she was very competitive, so I'm not going to let her gloat if I went easy! 18 holes later and I'm ashamed to say I kicked her ass. We walked back to Sairee beach which wasn't too far, definitely not a 200THB taxi ride, and we parted ways. We should have done something else, extended the 'date', but Adam, Shaz and Fiona were meeting at the bar for sunset and I wanted to say goodbye. We watched the sunset, the 4 of us for the final time and we grabbed some Pad Thai before saying a brief farewell, they'll be in Chang Mai in a couple of days and hopefully we'll meet up there.

Now it was dark, I had 1 plan for the evening; Sleep on a hammock on a tropical beach. I started walking that way and when I arrived at the beach, the bar just down a bit from my spot was playing jackass on a big screen. Chairs lined the beach and nobody had drinks. I sat down and enjoyed a free showing of people getting hit in the nuts, fall over and puke. What an evening! I went to my spot and set up for the night. A night that would be a lot more uncomfortable than you would imagine. 'Sleeping in a hammock on a tropical beach' - "Luxury!" You might think. "Clammy" would be the word I would use. The temperature was obviously cooler that the day, but clammy nonetheless and when the wind came, it came strong, making me cold, but sweaty. That was the worst. I alternated my towl between pillow and blanket. The spot I had chosen wasn't as covered as I thought it would be from other people, other people who would be walking along the beach all night in varied stages of drunk. I didn't have any hassle from any of them, but it still played on my subconscious. As did the sea. I said earlier that the tide was pretty high and I did my best to go as far in as possible, I managed this, the sea came to about 5m away, but I was drifting in and out (pardon the pun) of sleep until 3am when it started to retract. I slept from 3am - 7am solid and was awoken by my dive instructor "Steve?". That was it. I was awake. I got up, packed up and had breakfast, ready for the boat at 10am. And so begins a long journey north...