Island Hopping and Sea Urchin vs Curtis

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This past week has had many, many adventures, both good and painful. We safely recieved are passports back Oct 9 and that evening we took the overnight bus to Chumpon where we arrived there at 6 am and then took a boat to Koh Tao. Our first island!!!! It was soooooo cool arriving at the coast. It is absolutely beautiful here! Koh Tao is the diving island. So we shopped around to different resorts and picked one out. That day we started the PADI certification for diving. The next couple days were learning about diving in the classroom and then doing pool exercises. It was hard not to be on the beach but it is good to learn new skills. We even had homework at night. Which sucked. But we met some really nice people in our course. Our first open water dive was cool. It is just such a different expereince being underwater like that. We saw some neat coral and cool fish. We could only go to 12 meteres though on our first dive. It was definetly a very cool first experience breathing underwater for half and hour. The second dive was not good for Monica. I ended up getting, as it says in the book a very rare problem called a tooth squeeze. I guess I have a trapped air space in my tooth and I started having extreme pain going down on my second dive. I tried going down 3 times because I really didn't want to end the course this way (if i didn't do all 4 open water dives then I wouldn't get certified) but the pain was to much and I had to quit. Curtis however, did great and enjoyed all 4 dives while I waited patiently on the beach. But I will let him write about his dive....So the second dive sucked not having Monica by my side, as she was also my diving buddy. The third dive was for sure the best the one of the 4 as now I have seen the one main thnhg I wanted to see while diving. I believe everything for here on in will be inferior. Reason being, I got to dive and swim aside a WHALE SHARK, the biggest fish in the sea. It was pretty incredible, as I had asked if we were likely to see one and told that is was no longer the season. When we arrived at the dive site nice and early in the morning(waking up at 6am to be there by 7 am, before all the other boats usually arrive) the Thai captian shouted Shark! and everyone scrambled to get in the water. We spent our entire dive swimming around very close to this baby whale shark, about 3.5 meters in length. It was carzy awesome and all I could think of was not having Monica with me. I really wish she was there to share that with me. After that dive I sat on the boat alone wishing she were there. Dive 4 was cool as well as I got to see a little clown fish family (Nemo family) with some other neat fish and coral. Also on this dive we did some more excercises to finish the course. We even had a videographer filim each group fot the last 2 dive to make a video we could buy at the end. I really wanted the video since it had the whale shark in it but they wanted 2500 baht ($85 Can) for it. That was way too expensive for me for it will have to remain a memory. Our entire group was very lucky to see a whale shark on our third dive as our instructor saw her first one in August this year and this was her second one in some 2300 dives. I am 1 for 4. Anyway that night Moni and I played cards with these 2 German guys that were in our small 6 person dive group and after we hung out in the moonlight in the shallow water where I got my intimate encounter with a sea urchin. So intimate in fact that I got 2 tiny pricks under my left big toe. It felt like I steped on a sharp rock and cut my toe but when I got out of the water there was a small blue bruise and no blood. Very quickly after my toe was swelling and turning bluey. So we walked around and found someone to take us to the clininc in town where they observed me all night. During the night the bruise continued to move up my foot as well as the deep achy pain and swelling continued. The clinic recommened that they take us to the Bangkok hospital in Koh Samui. We were going to leave that morning to Koh Pangan for the full moon party. So that morning we were escorted to the boat with a nurse and and IV in my arm. The people on the boat were looking at me. So the ambulance whisked us away when we arrived at Koh Samui (there are three islands all in a row in Thailand and Koh Samui is the last of the three). The ambulance ride was crazy fast and bumpy. When we got there a doctor looked at my foot and finally told us what is was as he noticed the two pricks in the toe. He took a blood test and I have an infection in my toe from the poision. But I got antibiotics for the next 5 days. They said to keep an eye on the swelling, the color of the foot and if I get a fever becuase that means the infection is spreading and to come back. But with that we were able to leave the hospital but not before we pay...... Turns out Thailand does not accept American and Canadian travel insurance to pay bills directly because they weren't paying them in the past. So as I was laying in Emergency Monica was calling around like mad to the insurance company getting into a fight with the insurance guy at the hospital and trying to figure out the bill. Monica got frustrated with the stupidity of insurance companies again....memories of car insurance flooding into her brain. I can't belive how much time Monica spent on the phone talking to them. Anyways it was a slight bump in the road but we are back on track!!!!! We ended up needing to pay the bill ourselves and get money from our insurance when we get back. Monica made sure all procedures that were done at the hospital were covered by our plan by calling them everytime something new needed to happen. So it shouldn't be a problem getting the money back. But all in all it wasn't a terrible foreign hospital expereince as everyone was quite nice. But as I said we are back on track as we quickly left the hospital to take a boat back to Koh Pangan to make it in time for the FULL MOON PARTY!!!!!! Curtis hobbled along and we made it to our really nice place on the island. (Yes it is Monica writing again) Quickly got ready and made it in time for the resort to take a truck load of us to the party. It was fun meeting everyone here. The party was crazy, crazy awesome!!!There was some crazy stuff! Imagine a huge long beach, 5000 people from all over the world, a few different stages spread along the beach with loud techno music playing. IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!! You can buy a bucket with a can or two of pop and a mickie for 150 baht so around 5 dollars. Everyone is selling these mickie buckets. So we had a great time dancing in the sand, resting by the shore with our bucket in hand until 6 am. Again we met some really cool people. Everyone is there for a good time so everyone was nice. As with any large party there are bound to be some strange people doing strange things. But it was lots of fun and definetly an experience. So today we are being lazy, slept in and enjoying the scenary. We have a small beach hut/bungalow right on the beach facing the ocean so it is beautiful. We have a 2 more days on this island which we will take it easy and rest Curtis' foot. It seems to be getting much better so I think the meds are helping (THANK GOODNESS)! So don't worry parents!!! I will make sure to keep a close eye on it. And when we go to Koh Samui after this island we will go back to the hospital to get another blood test done to make sure the infection is all gone. But so far so good. We are both in very good spirits and we are looking forward to some rest on the beach becuse so far the trip has been go go go. The diving days were getting up early so it will be nice to have a few days of doing nothing but stay on the beach. Thanks for everyones emails it is great to hear how everyone is doing at home. Oh and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

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Photos

Street Pad Thai w/ Spring rolls
Very cheap street food. very, very yummy!

Banana Chocolate Crepe
Here's to you Lorelei, good recommendation. Very, Very yummy!

View from room in Koh Tao
A pic from our deck at our room in Koh Tao. I love palm trees.

Dive Time
Us on our dive boat taking us to our first dive.

Lunch time
Lunch on the beach between dive class.

Koh Tao
View of the beach on Koh Tao on our resort beach section.

Wheelchair Racer
Fun time at the hospital. Notice the red club foot.

Our bungalow on Koh Phangan
Our beach front hut on Koh Phangan. pretty sweet view.

Full Moon Party
Flaming sign on the beach which after it burned out they would put up a different saying. See the bucket.

Full Moon Party
There were cool glow in the dark body paint you could put on, the panels at the bottom are all the different designs you could get but notice the palms trees and the very cool full moon.

Full Moon Party
Drinking from our bucket.

Full Moon Party
Having dinner with the people from our resort, we all came together to the beach where the party is at.

Full Moon Party
Sun is rising at the beach of the full moon party. Time to go home.

Comments

[Lor]

Craziness!!
Well that's a crazy week of events if I've ever seen one! Sounds like despite a few unfortunate events, you guys are having a wicked time. Curtis, that's amazing you saw a whale shark!!! Too bad about your foot tho. But then again, what's a trip without a few bumps in the road?? It's all about the experience! Also the full moon party sounded amazing!! keep up the excellent blogs, I can't wait to read the next one. And take care of your crazy selves...