Scuba

---

On my quest to find Nemo I signed up for the Scuba lessons that were offered by our hotel. Prices were pretty standard throughout the island, and it worked out to be about $300 to do a 4 day open water course.

There was theory with some American drongo video's that they had spiced up with attempts at humour such as splicing in the frame: 'fact: divers have more fun than regular people'.

There were only three of us trying to find Nemo, Me, Jessica and Constanze (off my tour). Jessica was from Amsterdam, and came as a bit of a shock for little old NZer me. She was loud crass, and extremely funny. She introduced me to the concept of "Lachen voor weinig" (includes a lot of hoicking that you can't pick up from the spelling) which is dutch for "laughing for free/nothing". She demonstrated this numerous times including making friends with a dead crab who she engaged in a show on the side of the boat, and then perched on the side of her shoulder and talked to at great length on the trip out to the boat to go on a dive. I decided that I am going to have to remember this staying because I personally think I am particularly good at this, and I will bust it out at random to explain my sometimes excessive (well, what others think is excessive) laughing.

Constanze and I met Jessica when she had been on the Island for a matter of hours, and she already knew that the Thai rum was 20 bart cheaper at the Hotel per bottle than at the petrol station. By the second night she had already lined up a party down the beach that we all went to. Which was rather a large mistake (note: you cannot expect to drink the same quantities in Thailand that you would for a 'quiet night' and expect it to stay quiet. It didn't, but I did on my dive course the next day). The one consolation was that all the people from the dive shop were at the party, so everyone was feeling seedy the next day. The party was scandalous, and pretty much exactly what I was expecting from a party on a Thai Island -everyone barefoot in sarongs, lots of weed (don't worry, I remembered the magic word Schappelle) bit of reggae, and everyone was hitting on each other. I tried taking someone on for having a huge maori tattoo and not even knowing where it came from, and after this pick up technique didn't work I headed home for an early(ier than everyone else) night. Actually Jessica had a maori tattoo on her leg as well of a fish hook, but she did actually know what it was, where it came from, and used it to fish extremely effectively.

So after getting to know everyone we all went diving together which was really fun. The number of cool fish that were there was amazing, Jasmine would have loved it. Breathing under water is pretty much what I expected it to be, but I still didn't manage to find Nemo which was extremely disappointing.

After I finished the diving course I caught a ferry to Chumpon and then got a bus for the rest of the trip (10 hours). I met a crazy Irish dude who was surprisingly easy to understand, and had a hug hideous scabby scare on his leg. The scab turned out to be the brand of an X that he had done on Koh Samui -apparently the sucking cleaner fish thought it was fantastic when he went diving (cringing yet? I stopped eating my lunch at that point). I guess to put it into perspective it is less insane than getting at tattoo in Thailand (even worse a sacred pattern that you have no idea where it came from or what it means).

I then I got to Bangkok and found my way back to my Hotel all by myself! I was so pleased I did a little victory dance and went shopping at some night markets. I bought some little pressies for other people, put my bag 3 more kgs over the limit and went to bed.

---

Photos

Alex's nemo refresher
What we're looking for.