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Published: March 23rd 2007
Compared to Mauritius coming to Kata beach and the nearby beaches was almost like coming home. Restaurants with Scandinavian food everywhere and newspapers from Norway only one day old. Ja baade VG og Dagbladet! Nina is saving money to buy the newspaper from Saturday when they have an additional magazine included in the paper.
We are staying a bit outside the tourist area in the hills, before and during our course it will not be too much wandering on Koh Phuket as we should focus on our studies. There will be time to do this later. We have a room in the longhouse, it is simple, but we added a water boiler, mugs, bowls and some spoons to be able to eat and drink a bit in the room. We got spoiled in Mauritius with a large fully furnished apartment with a kitchen and all. Here it is bedroom, bathroom and a front room with no so much furniture. During our course however it has the benefit that everything is on-site: classroom, pool, dive centre, but there is definitively a good opportunity to get some good deals by shopping around... especially coming into low season.
The way to
get around here in Thailand is by scooter as it is very cheap, but it is also very dangerous we are told.
Everyday we hear scary stories and people tell us to be careful. We have a few rules: 1. Don’t drive if it is raining 2. Don’t drive in the dark 3. Take it easy and pretend they all want to kill you (That was a tip from the expat Chris, the owner of
Kata Big Rock). Still we have not experienced the chaos of Port Louis, Mauritius and the stories were just as scary.
We have started to study for our Instructor course. There are hundreds of pages to read and hundreds of quiz questions to answer in preparation for the course, but we have a nice classroom and a nice pool we can use to practice our skills. We are in high spirits and think this will be good fun. We are doing the course with
IDC-Phuket and Bjorn Täckman that is associated with
www.diveasia.com Fresh milk - we are enjoying our cereals very much with some fresh milk or โคนม as they call it here.
We will not be as much online as we don’t have an internet
Not all gas stations are western size
You can even buy gasoline in booze bottles in the streets. connection from the bedroom. There is connectivity up around the main buildings though, as well as various hotspots around town. We also got Thai mobile numbers: Joachim:+66862809052 and Nina: +66862809081. Remember the time is GMT+700 and that is +11 hours for Joachim's Canadians!!
Thai lesson one:
Male: ขอบคุณ ครับ - Pronounced: khaawp khoon khrap
Female: ขอบคุณ ค่ะ - Pronounced: khaawp khoon kha
Translation: "Thank you"
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tj mastermind
non-member comment
nice choice
Kata is nice. I miss Phuket. ;D enjoy my friends.. tj