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Published: October 20th 2006
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Sunrise Dive and more Sharks!
Last day in Koh Tao was absolutely fantastic. Such a great day. My best day yet by far.
Did a sunrise dive (5am start) out to Chumpon Pinnacles - which is where all the
reef sharks hang out. This site goes down to 30m and there are also heaps of other fish about, hence the sharks. The best bit was though that we were the only dive boat out there, so the sharks hadn't had the chance to get all shy yet. As we got to the site, the sunrise was all very pretty and we could actually a shark up on the surface. After we jumped in -
james bond style which is always very fun somersaulting into the water - we got to go straight down (as I'd already gotten my advanced licence, didn't need to do more skills) and the sharks came within metres from us! Very awesome! It's great diving around that deep as you tend to go quite slowly as to conserve air and it's all very relaxing.
This was in comparison to my dive the previous day. My dive buddy was this Irish guy. I couldn't understand
a word he said. We were doing a navigation dive and I thought I'd be alright as there's no way we'd be engaging in verbal communication underwater. He was the worst compass navigator I've ever encountered (well that I know of). Somehow we managed to swim around at 9m the whole time when what we wanted to see was at 16m. The worst thing is that he kept swimming in front of me just out of reach and every kick of his was 2 of mine. So there I am, trying to keep up with him and get his attention as from what I could tell we weren't getting any deeper (and he had the compass) burning through my air as I was working bloody hard to stay with him. Very stressful. Very nice guy but I'd never get him to direct again.
Bangkok again...
Koh Tao to Chiang Mai wasn't too bad actually!
Stopover at Bangkok. Decided to go catch a flick n shop, so caught one of the river boats down the river and then the sky train to the main shopping district (ie dept store) area. Was quite fun being on a train again,
reminded me of home (and Cityrail - except these were efficient). Quite nice being more the local than the
farang (foreigner).
Pretty cool though! Was looking out the windows watching some guys play golf wandering how big the course was... the train kept and going and then I realised the
golf course was the middle of their
race course! How cool is that!? All very pretty... Apparently gambling is illegal in Thailand (as is HK) so I've never actually thought about the practical considerations which are involved in placing a bet at the racecourse.
No movie as they all started too late, so shopping..... Was soooo good... I miss designer label department shopping with airconditioning. (Not to sound like a real princess or pony). Unfortunately I had to control myself what with this being the beginning of the trip. But thankfully brought a pair of new shoes for cheap. Walking around in thongs is killing me.
Chiang Mai - Day 1
Went for a wander around town today with this guy from San Fran in the States. Met this monk in one of the Wats (temples) today who was telling us how they all do a
Chiang Mai Thai Cooking School
With the television Thai chef equiv of Jamie Oliver... 4 year bachelor's degree and how he is now doing a 2 year Masters in Philosophy and something else that slips my mind.
And
Thai massage.... the whole time I was like ow, pain, ow. They focus on pressure points and deep tissue massage. But it was so good. I can't believe how much my back cracked (Zoran, this was much better than you trying to dangle me to crack my back). It is apparently likened to passive yoga.
The weirdest thing was seeing this sign in town which says
Prison Supply Store:
with a sign directly underneath saying
Thai Massage 150B
. Needless to say, me and company were not to keen on that idea!
Whiskey, Dancing and Cooking!!!
Pretty cool first evening. Felt more authentic than farang. Went out for dinner to place with lots of Thais. Looked like Korean BBQ until they put down a whole bunch of plates (things which were completely indistinguishable but looked like intestines and liver). Tried most at least a bite. We cooked the hell out of everything as we were both paranoid about getting sick. Even though I ate some mangy meal on the sleeper train the evening before. I was just starving.
But then bar hopping back to our guest house - we were exhausted, we ended up stumbling across some local bar. Went in where everyone, literally everyone, stared at us and we had some lady boy be our waitress. We ended up joining a bunch of locals. Nicest bunch of people I've met. Introduced us to the local drink - Thai whiskey - moonshine. Whatever you'd like to call it. Thai girls and guys can drink. They then decided we needed to go dancing, so they took us out to their local club. Very cool. We pulled up and there were just rows and rows of motorbikes with all these cool looking Thai girls and boys sitting on them, ponying it up. Ended up drinking to 3am in the morning when they booted us out and the lovely locals even dropped us off back at our guesthouse. How incredibly hospitable!
Today I did a Thai cooking course. Quite good but I feel a bit stuffed now. I haven't eaten that much in one day let alone one meal since I've started travelling.
Will be heading off to Laos soon to do some hiking. Quite stoked. Feel like I'm running out of time (already!). Think the unexpected trip down south to go diving did that.
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