Scuba Diving and return to Bangkok

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Escape

Being in a retreat for 11 days makes you lose touch with the outside World. Rick and I suddenly noticed that it was Sunday and realised that if we were to get to Phuket that night, we should make tracks.

Just being in the outside world again seemed very strange. We had the freedom to talk, and were making the most of that. But we also had responsibilities: no one was going to provide meals or accommodation.

The main Wat also seemed strange. The retreat centre was careful not to have pictures or statues of the Buddha. It was more philosophical than religious. Meanwhile, the main Wat had not only Buddha statues and gilded ornaments; there was a slightly disturbing, life-size statue of the Buddhadhasa. My first impressions of Thai Buddhism seemed very different from what I’d been taught in the retreat.

On the main road, we waited quite some time for a songthaew (a pick-up truck commonly used in Thailand for public transport). Billy was there, making his play for one of the female retreatants.

Anyway, it turned out to be a long journey for a relatively short distance. We inadvertently got on a bus that took the “scenic” route through a National Park with amazing limestone formations and then down the part of the Thai coast most affected by the 26th December 2004 Tsunami. It was quite eerie to see the brand new buildings and empty countryside and imagine these great waves sweeping everything between the shore and the hills, including the road we were driving on.

The long journey gave me a chance to have a long conversation with Rick. He and his wife (both Americans) are teachers and have spent most of their working lives teaching abroad. He’s taken a year off for health reasons and decided to go to Suan Mokkh. We swapped addresses and agreed to meet up later.

To Phuket

In Phuket, I stayed at the “On On” hotel in Phuket Town. My guide book recommended not staying in the town: the beaches in Phuket are far nicer, but I just wanted somewhere central to stay. I wouldn’t particularly recommend the On On for any other travellers unless you’re on a very strict budget and don’t mind sharing two squat toilets with 20 other rooms. I was happy enough to have a soft (ish) bed even if I did later end up with bed bug bites...

I spent two hours online, catching up. I was surprised how little I’d missed. I also had my first beer in a while and it went straight to my head.

Sea Kayaking

Rick had suggested to me I might like to go Sea Kayaking. At really short notice the following day, I phoned John Grey Sea Canoe and spoke to John himself. I was picked up half an hour later and joined his “Hong by Starlight” afternoon/evening tour.

The Hongs are the islands made famous by James Bond’s “The Man with the Golden Gun”. They are absolutely beautiful limestone islands, weathered by the sea. Many of them have caves which you can enter at low tide and enter “secret” lagoons.

We visited four caves in all: one of them revisited after sundown. I didn’t actually get to paddle myself. The canoes take two tourists and a guide who does all the steering and paddling. This makes sense as you have to lie down in the boat to get through some of the caves and inexperienced paddlers may freak out or otherwise damage themselves or the caves.

For the night paddle, we made Krathong. These are slices of banana tree (which float well) decorated with folded banana leaf flowers, candles and incense sticks. We took these into the night lagoon, lit them and floated on the water. Very peaceful. Thais do this at the festival of Loy Kratong every November full moon to celebrate the end of the rainy season. It’s slightly ironic that this year the rainy season still hadn’t finished at the end of December.

The food on the boat was also excellent! A full seafood buffet and an excellent first taste of meat and fish after my retreat.

Just as interesting as the hongs, was John himself. We were lucky to have the founder taking the tour today and I had a good chat with him. He started running kayak tours in Hawaii in 1983. Later, he came to Thailand and pioneered Sea Kayaking here. He’s a social and environmental entrepreneur and set up a company, giving all the shares to locals.

Eventually, business proved good and lots of copycat operations set up. The new operations do not have the same safety standards, treat their staff badly and do damage to the hongs. Then, the company he’d set up decided to dump him (fair enough in a way - he’s not a shareholder after all); but they put up prices and dropped standards; yet still used his awards for marketing!

This prompted him to set up a new company and sue the old one. Now the old company doesn’t do as much business as the new! John is a pioneer of ecotourism (from before that term was invented) and has tried setting up similar operations in other countries. Interestingly, most of these failed when the locals he found to run them did not apply themselves after he left.

John also claims he was the only operator in Thailand to have had a tsunami plan last year and after feeling the quake and recognising it for what it was (from his experience of Hawaii), provided enough warning for people to get off a pier which was later destroyed by the wave.

Most of the others on the tour were Australian travel agents on a 3-day familiarization. I was the only one on the boat staying in a backpacker place.

After 11 days of sitting in one place, I was determined to get out and do stuff. Besides, it wasn’t sunny enough to sit on a beach.

Diving

For the next three days, I went scuba diving. The first day was to the sites south of Phuket island with one operator. Then I spent two days in the Similan islands on a live-aboard.

The diving conditions were great! The water is very clear and there is a fantastic abundance of life to see. I also dived in a shorty for the first time: it was the warmest water diving I’ve done with a temperature of around 28C. I needed only 5kg of lead.

However, I saw a number of things which worried me. I was never asked to show my PADI card; my buddy on the first day (the dive master) did not do buddy checks; I went deeper than I’m actually qualified to dive (“Open Water” should limit me to 18m, yet despite me declaring this, all the dives were deeper and they didn’t see a problem); my hired depth gauge was faulty, yet when I asked for a replacement was asked whether I actually used it; dive masters not caring when inexperienced divers inadvertently kicked up sand; dive masters not observing the group for nearly five minutes; and feeding biscuits to fish from the boat. On the live-aboard, our scuba units were assembled by the staff. This was nice, but I feel that divers will get out of the safety habits if they don’t do this themselves. The most shocking thing I saw was where a PADI instructor was teaching two novice divers in a way I know to be against PADI guidelines and definitely cutting corners. I’m used to having conversations defending PADI against accusations it’s sloppier than other diving qualifications; hearing someone tell me that it was more detailed than it needed to be was certainly novel to me! I had planned to do my Advanced Open Water qualification in Thailand. I don’t know how representative the operators I went with were, but after what I saw I decided not to. The diving conditions in Thailand were great, but I don’t think standards should be any different from what I’ve seen in the UK, Egypt and New Zealand.

However, I managed 10 dives in all and enjoyed them. I did a wreck dive to a sunken ferry, wall dives, drift dives. I sawclownfish, snappers, a giant moray eel and (on a night dive) a lobster. I did see loads of other divers even though I’ve been told business is still way down after the Great Tsunami.

The dive master on the first operator took photographs and sold me a CD. Very enterprising!

At night on the live aboard, I fell asleep, lying on the sundeck, gazing at the stars.

Heading back up North

I spent my last day in Phuket with Rick. He and his wife Cathy live at the south of the Island. They share a beautiful house with five dogs and a giant Macaw called Josefina (formerly José). They’ve lived and worked in Thailand, Jordan, New Zealand and Laos, as well as the USA. We had lunch at their favourite restaurant and then went for a Thai massage.

I took the night bus up to Bangkok. Busses in Thailand play horrible, ballady music which has a distant relation on Ecuadorian busses.

At 6am, I arrived in Bangkok and got a taxi to the New World Lodge Hotel. I banged on Claire’s door and woke her up.

Claire is a friend from London who I met while on holiday in New York (of all places) in 2004. We’d arranged to meet up at this point in my travels and are taking a two week guided tour of Laos.

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Photos

New Building work
on the coastline most badly affected by the Great Tsunami.

Towards the Hongs
The incredible scenery in this part of the world!

Towards the Hongs
The incredible scenery in this part of the world!

John Grey
aka "Caveman" or "Ling Yai" (Big Monkey)

Cut-away diagram of a Hong
For some of these, you can only see the inside by kayaking through the cave.

Stalagtites (go down)
..while stalagmites go up..

Scuba Diving
About to jump...

Scuba Diving
Splash!