Scuba Jack and the Beard Man...

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Good Day one and all,

Greetings from a very hot southern Thailand (it's a face melting 36 degrees centigrade here!).

I know once again I have been lazy with my blogging but seriously, it's because of all the fun I have been having. But I havn't forgotten about all of you back home and I hope this latest entry will provide a means of procrastination from what ever you are doing whether that be work, dissertations or generally just a break from the television for the lazier of my friends.

As stated in my previous entry the intrepid explorer was about to head south on the not so intrepid backpakcer/lonely planet/banana pancake trail (for want of a better word). My first stop was to be Koh Tao, the smallest island in a three island archipeligo that also includes Koh Phangang and the larger Koh Samui. Koh Tao is world famous for its dive sites and even more world famous for the rock bottom prices of it's open water courses. Diving is something I have been wanting to try for a very long time so with notions of the idea 'when in Rome' perusing through my thoughts Koh Tao was on the itinerary. The journey from Bangkok to the island came somewhat as a welcome suprise. The 550 baht all inclusive air conditioned coach and boat to the Island came as a bit of a shock after the cramped, hot, dirty transport combinations I had endured in India... frankly the ease of transport hasn't been anywhere near as fun as the 'anything could happen' Indian transport systems.

During the journey down to Koh Tao I befriended an English girl called Carla and upon arrival in Koh Tao we decided to find some accomodation. My initial plan was to spend two nights in backpacker accomodation whilst I scouted around the dive shops trying to find a good deal. However finding accomodation if you're not a diver on Koh Tao is like trying to boil a kettle on top of Everest... damn near impossible. This therefore meant we had to take accomodation on the other side of the Island away from the action in a small hotel ran by the extrememly lively and a bit loony 'ping pong'. The cove where we were staying was incredible with some of the best snorkling I have ever encountered.

On the second day there I did in fact decide to spend my day snorkling. Being the Bloodworth I am this meant I had to swin as far away from the beach as I possibly could (we are annoying like that).

It was then that I encountered the shark.

There I was swimming along minding my own business when out of the murky depths emerged jaws himself! This may have been a bit of an exaggeration as I was later told that it was a black tipped reef shark but it did have me slightly warily and rapidly heading back to shore to share my tale with the others. That evening after the relative seclusion of our little bay mysef, Carla and two others who happened to be of the female variety as well (lucky for me!) decided to head over the other more livelier side of the Island. We met up with soem guys the other two girls knew who happened to be from St Helens. My old housemate Yank is from St Helens and amazingly one of the guys, Luke, knew him fairly well... small world.

In typical Thai drunken manner the night ended at the lady boy cabaret show. This was a sight to behold. I must admit half of the ladies/men could quite have quite easily passed as the former... the other half could not. Lucklily with a lack of self sobriety I did infact enjoy the lady show but not as much as the other fellows and a lad by the name of Westy ended up getting a bit intimate with one of the dancer. Much to the shock and hilarity of the others.

It was then time to start diving. I decided in Phoenix dive centre as they were offering a very cushy deal that included the dive qualification, accomodation and free breakfast all for around 170 pounds (they had me at free breakfast). The course starts with some very boring classroom time but it was soon time to0 don my mask, regulator and tank and get wet. The initial dive was conducted in the shallows off the beach out the front of the dive shop. The first few seconds when you submerge yourself under the water and realise you can actually breath are both weird and wonderful. This first dive was nothing compared to what was to come. Over the next few days I completed five dives all together including one about 3km out to sea. The marine life was fantastic with huge schools of baracuda, massive trigger fish, clown fish etc. I can honestly say diving is something that I'm sure will pop into my life again... I have been bitten by the bug.

One of my fellow divers was a large bearded Canadian fellow by the name of Grant. We both decided to hit the party Island of Koh Phangnan after our diving which is where the world famous full moon parties are held. Unfortunately out time there didn't coincide with one the parties and the Island was realtively quiet but that suited us fine.

We decided to stay around the same area the party is geld in Haad Rin. On the first night we hit teh beach bars and decided to have one of the infamous 'buckets'. A bucket for those of you that are ill informed is literally a bucket with a vast quantity of your favorite spritied poison, a mixer and a bottle of the '3 times stronger that we have at home' Thai red bull. Once that vile misxture hit my lips I knew that nigth was going to get interesting. Grant proceeded to put lots and lots of straws withing his beard over which got him the semi legendary status of 'beard man' over the three days we were there. I am not kidding people were coming up to him asking to have their pictures taken with him. I therefore decided to become his accomplice so we spent literally three nights on that beach drinking buckets and generally acting like drunken fools. Unfortunately this did mean we spent most of our day light hours feeling sorry for ourselves. I do not feel guilty however; after the relatively dry four and a half months I had in India this three day bender was brilliant... I am derinately not drinking for a while no though!

A lot of the three nights were a bit of a blur but I will bullet point some of the interesting things that happened:

- There were various fire activites in the beach and both my self and the beard man completed the fire jump rope (I will put up video evidence if I can)
- The beard man straw record was 26 stars and as his self proclaimed agent I decided to try and get money off people for photos with him (I didn't get a penny).
- The beard man decided to start some practical jokes and pretend to lose his contact lenses, ultimately leading to us getting lots of people looking for a non-existent lens.

These are just a few of the things that happened there are others but I have just realised a lot of my family read this blog so...


Anyway thats pretty much the jist of it myself and the beard man have travelled over the the West coast now. To be honest I am growing a wee bit tired of the lonely planet trail already in Thailand so I might try and head to a region less traveled soon.

Keep on trucking with whatever you are all doing.

Jack (still having the time of his life) xx

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Photos

Secluded Cove...
My little secluded cove on Koh Tao and location of jaws 4.

Scuba Jack...
Yours truly in full scuba gear.

The Drunken Duo...
Myself and the Beard Man with buckets...

Beard man...
Grant... straws included.