Rescue Diving

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Dearest Loved Ones,

I'm a little behind on my blogging, and for that I apologise - who would have thought there would be more to travelling than internet Cafes?

Anyways, this blog is yet another sans-picture feature, my apologies. After my adventures with a quad bike, I felt it time to relax a little and kick back with some Diving! As such I checked out of my paradise beach hut and transported myself up north to the party town of Sairee on Koh Tao.

Sairee beach is the most developed area of the island, home to all the bars/clubs, but more importantly, all the dive schools. For those of you who don't know, I'm rather fond of my diving. I spent the first afternoon marching back and forth with my 20 tonne bag, trying to decipher the best deal for diving. I narrowed it down to two options and after a good half hour of mulling, I made my decision.

Luckily I don't take any decision without first imbibing some fruit. After searching out a suitable street vendor, I broke into a full on pigeon english conversation about my life (she was more than interested?). Anyways, the point being that I mentioned the dive school I had chosen - no name mentioned here - "No No" she said, "Bad Bad". I obviously enquired as to the reason for such a hastened objection, after a little gentle persuasion she agreed to let me in on a little secret - That dive school had lost a diver in the last week (read dead diver)!!!!!!!

Thus, I opted the other choice - "Scuba Junction". Given the outrageous cheap-ness of diving out here, I decided to enroll myself in the PADI Rescue Diver. For all you non-marinners, that's the highest recreational level (insert applause here). It basically trains me to rescue divers (clue is in the title). But on a serious note, it's really useful - I'm now trained in oxygen administration, CPR, helicopter instruction, rescuing a diver from below 30m, surface rescue breathing... and MORE! WOW!

My instructor for the course was also hilarious! Best diver I've met, a pleasure to be around and a great party-er too! On one dive (I wasn't diving with him, but he was in the water), suddenly someone pulled my mask off, I got it back on, cleared it and there was a gun in my face.... he had brought a BB gun with him. Some wrestling insued after he refused to give it to me and kept shooting me!

So I clocked up a few dives on the island and also soaked up some night life. I met some really cool people and highly recommend Koh Tao to anyone, and in particular Scuba Junction - some great people (I actually met a lot of the other dive people, none as cool as Scuba Junction, and no I'm not being paid to say this!).

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After almost two weeks on Koh Tao, I finally headed back up to Bangkok to meet my invalid of a friend. The boat was fine, but my coach broke down 😞 Never mind, every cloud - I saw about 6 movies! I got back to BKK and stayed the night in the hospital with Rob. Thankfully Rob had made a pretty good recovery in the couple of weeks I'd been gone and was able to check out the next day!

So I spent my second day in BKK booking trains and organising stuff. With that out of the way I caught the metro and headed the centre / down-town. There is one main road which has no less than 6 shopping malls on it. In true Asia style, serious wealth is seperated from serious poverty but no less than a block. I went to Siam Paragon - the harrods of BKK - complete with all my usual haunts: Cartier, Hermes, Gucci, Dior etc. etc. Walk out of Siam Paragon, turn left, go past one building and enter MBK shopping centre where you can buy abolutely anything, so long as it can be faked / pirated. Brilliant.

I resisted the temptation to shop and got bored of browsing rather quickly. Fortunately I came across a live music show in a square. I have no idea what was going on but the crowds were heaving and all the little girls were going absolutely mad for these boybands! I think I may have stolen a free glimpse of Boyzone / take that BKK style!!!

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Anywho.... That's me! I'm now off to a Thai Boxing championship fight. So its over and out from Chiang Mai.

Next up: Temples and Gardens in the mountains of Chiang Mai province!

loving

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