tuk tuk tuk?

Leaving Koh Tao, I took the night bus and because the bus driver was a crazy maniac, I arrived in Bangkok around 4am, instead of 5.30am. Everytime I woke up it felt like he was swerving around the road, passsing cars, scooters, lights. Crazyness. I did manage to sleep the entire way surprisingly enough! So when I got to Khao San Road, I spent a bit hanging with a guy I met on the bus at a Mcdonalds. Eventually got a room and went back to bed for a few hours.

I spent my 'last' day in Thailand riding around on a Tuk Tuk and at the infamous MBK Mall. It's seven stories and monsterous. Anything and everything you can buy there. It's nice because on the lower levels, there are real stores; the higher you go, the cheaper it becomes, until eventually it's like a real market and you can barter all you want! I bought some more tank tops and stuff, things I'll need for when I return that I can buy 100x cheaper here than at home. The guy from the bus had 2 friends and we spent the day riding around, seeing some of Bangkok. It was fun to take the tuk tuk. Our driver just loved to pull wheelies and screech around, weaving in and out of traffic with what seemed like little regard to our lives...

He took us to a place called The GOlden Mount. It's a temple on top of a hill and you climb stairs to get to the top and when you do you can see all of Bangkok. I wrote a little message on a bell and hung it for on top for good luck. There was another thing where you shake a cup full of sticks with numbers, and whichever happens to fall out is your fortune. Mine was this:

(stick #6)
Do not panic. Do not keep changing your mind. You will eventually succeed, though it seems unfavourable at present. Good fortune is envisaged. Outstanding debts are refundable. All matters are fine in general. Patient recovering. Likely to find a nice mate who could become a good match.

Not too shabby, eh? Thank God I'll succeed. Eventually.

I'm off for dinner with the three tonight, and around 4.30am I will leave for the airport and twenty minutes after my departure, I will arrive (on B.C. time)! Gotta love the time change. See ya soon!

Ciao Thailand!

Change of plans?

...You bet.

After much deliberation, I have decided to take this diving to the next level and do a Dive Master here on Koh Tao. It's a two month course full of theory and tests and diving and planning things. The course is a lot of hard work, not just fun and games! Because it's so long, (and I would hope that after committing that time I would be able to find a job as a dive master here for the next while) I've decided to head back to Vancouver a month early to tie up some loose ends, and then head back over to begin this course and stay for a while. I know, big change!

What can I say? I guess I fell in love with this little island as well as diving and I'm ready for a bit of a change in my life plans. I'm excited to actually say it, and it's exciting to know that I've got at least another two months if not more, in this paradise!

I'll be back in Van on Feb 26th, to move my stuff back to my moms, clean up my apartment, settle some bills, and repack things I'll actually need for living instead of just traveling. I'm planning on bringing my laptop back over so I'll be able to be in touch all teh time as well as a few more shirts....I'm pretty sick of the four I've got. Who knows how long this will go, (well at least 2 months), but it's going to be great!

On another note, I just finished my rescue diver course, and what fun that was! Four days of jumping in and out of the water, providing 'cpr' and 'mouth to mouth' on my still breathing pateints and dragging them back to the boat. Or dealing with fake scenarios under water, like someone pretending they had passed out! I would have to deal with that situation and bring them to the surface at a good speed, all on my own, then once they're up, start first aid and start taking them out of their scuba gear, and then tow them back to the boat AND THEN after allll that and being so tired, actually getting them back up the boats ladder with just my own manpower. We also learned how to search for missing divers in certain patterns around the boat using compasses. Although, my favourite scenario was sitting and relaxing on the top deck for about two minutes, then having the instructor yell "Help! Someone is drowning by that buoy (a good ways from the boat), Quick kit up jump in and swim to them and back." We'd rush down, get dressed jump in and head over, make it there and back, get out of the gear, and literally as soon as we were just in our wetsuits again, he would yell, "quick! someone needs help at that buoy!" and we'd do it again... I was panting pretty good after that...let me tell you, it's hard work! I've slept pretty darn well those last 4 nights. But I've learned a lot and know how to deal with any major emergency. This dive master course will expand further on it as well.

Anyway, that is what is happening. I'm going to do one more night dive while I'm here, and then I'm most likely heading to Koh Phagnan for 2 or 3 days in the next day or two with my room mates. I'm looking forward to seeing Friends and family while I'm home, and knowing that I'm able to come back, quite soon! Koh Tao ceratinly has me trapped. And I love it.

Back again....

Leaving Koh Tao originally...

Koh Phi Phi at lowtide, a longboat stuck in the sand.

Koh Phi Phi, viewpoint from the top.

Back on Koh Tao! Happy to be back as well. I spent the night on a night boat, which means it's a slow boat (8hrs) that is full of sleeping mats that line the walls and you get a number and lie in your spot . Very tight, very funny. I forgo

t to take a photos. I ran into a guy called Craig who is friends with a friend back home, who origially told me to dive at Big Blue, so I spent some time getting info about the courses out of him!! I also met two British girls and an American guy while at the pier, and have moved into a bungalow with them. Thats it! It's right on the beach. Koh Tao is a nut house right now, very busy and I coldnt' get accom at Big Blue, so we're about 5 minutes walk down the beach on the beach with the sunset and our very own restaurant right out front. Its' tight...a big double and a big single, but the things we will do to save money....it's only $5.25 a night each. Certainly doable. I'm looking at purchasig an airmatress cuz there is tons of room on the floor! We'll see how this night goes...I hope none of them snore. All in all they're cool and we mesh together well. I' had forotten that now traveling alone I will have to pay double for accomidation, unless I find people to share with, so something will work out!

(This is the seafood BBQ selection that is now right outside my door!)

I started the rescue diver course today. I had to do a first aid emergency response to start with, whihc is always good to have regardless o diving or not. Ispent all afternoon "saving" people (other wise known as other divemasters who woul put ketchup all over their legs and act as though they had fallem. It's been fun so far, and tomorrow we go out and do some water rescues and learn how to save other divers who are in distress and whatnot.

Koh Tao's rocks and a dive boat.

Not sure what my plans are yet, i'll take it a day at a time. Doing the divemaster is a big desisin to make, and right now I'm happy just covering ketchup wounds with bandages and eating corn on the cob on the beach! (it's unbelievable delicious) Now, off to do my homework! Euch.

Following....

A night at the Phuket market goes like this:

Round 1: "Hey Lady! You shopper? Canada? Aussie? Come look at store! (I simply flick my eyes towards a stand of watches) You want watch? Yes, very nice for you! I give you good deal. Very nice for your wrist. Colourful. Good price for lady. You buy two, better!"

Round 2: "Hey Miss! I make good price for you! Come look at my store! I give you best deals. You want bikini? Jeans? Lacoste? Dolce and Gabana? Chanel? Pajamas? Bikini? Sarong? Tshirt? Dress? I make you best price Miss!"

Round 3: (I walk through, ignoring the calls carrying a big bottle of water) "Hey girl! You from canada eh? What you want tonight? (I ignore) Only water? You shop only water? (He then makes a joke to his friend across the way) Hey! This girl Canada only buy water, no more, just water. She only water shopper. Hey Canada! Come look in my shop!"

This was last night when we did a mini shopping spree at the Phuket market. It gets so tiring! Everywhere here people hassel for suits, taxis, food, everything.
At this market I did manage to pick up some fake lacoste tank tops for $3 each as well as a skirt for the same price and a bikini for roughly $12. Everything looks so real, as if I'm wearing a real $50 lacoste tshirt! ha. I needed some new clothes...the same four shirts were getting a tad old.

Phuket is like cancun except cooler. (not heat wise, I swear my clothes I handwashed and hung on our balcony dried in about 20 minutes flat) Big resorts everywhere, rich americans and europeans line the beaches topless and in speedos( both extremely frowned upon by me and the Thai), expensive restaurants and miles of sand. It's nice, don't get me wrong, but unless I'm staying in the 5 star Hilton on the beach and eating Barracuda every night, then I don't want it! The other night while with our Swiss friends (who we ran into again here), Nadja and Benni, we were stopped and managed (all four of us) to convince a thai guy named Rocky who was trying to sell us something that we were from the Czech Republic and that all three of us girls were dating Benni. We taught him some 'czech' words and everything. He was stunned that Benni had all three of us. It was very funny, and we were very convincing! My pseudo Czech name was Gretchen.

I have made the hard decision to head back to Koh Tao and do some more dive courses, perhaps even my dive master there. Something is calling me back strongly, and since my Chinese New Year fortune cookie that I opened at the YVR airport said, "Follow the advice of your heart," I think I should maybe listen to that little voice telling me to do it....so i am! I leave in an hour, with a 5 hour bus ride, then a 5 hour ferry terminal layover, then an 8 hour overnight ferry... Yippie! Back to the fabulous island where I don't have to wear my shoes inside any restaurants and stores and where the stars are so bright and firedancers are on the beaches at night, and cushions and mats line the sand for people to eat dinner under the moon and the green mountains and scooters and cute stores and jumbo prawns on the beach, and and and ah! ....And of course, the 'world class diving' (as advertised on the lonely planet right now!) Yes, I guess I could say that I'm extremely happy with my descision. It's time for a change and I'm about to make it. Stay tuned!

Koh Phi Phi

We're at 'The Beach'! It's wonderful here on this small island. It's called Koh Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee) and it is famous for being the setting in the Leonardo movie, 'The Beach'. Also famous for getting devastated during the 2004 tsunami. There are tsunami signs everywhere, pointing to wards higher ground. Also a lot of photos showing what it looked like after it was hit. Very sad. I wish I could upload photos, but I've become paranoid about computeres deleting my photos, and eve just now I put it in and it started doing something weird, and I yanked it out again in fear!

We have been here for two days and it's great. There are no scooters or cars on the island, only bikes and everywhere you turn you hear 'ding ding'! and someone will be right about to run you down. There are shops everywhere, little restaurants, bakeries (with the best donuts I've eaten min my life) and markets. It's also expensive, and at the budget end, it's hurting. We're paying 700 baht a night for a room with one big bed, and thats about the cheapest we could find (in comparison, the night before we came here we paid 250 baht for almost the exact samd thing). It's full of high end resorts charging 2000 a night and restuarants with meals starting around 300 baht. It's been worth it though to see this place.

Yesterday we took a tour around the islands and got to see a bunch of different places, including one called Monkey Bay, where there are monkeys all around and stupid tourists feed them non stop. It was quite sad actually, some of them were really fat. I did some cliff jumping and a bunch of snorkeling and if I could load pictures I would!! We also went to the beach beach, and sadly the tide was out,b ut it was still really beautiful. If this island wasn't so expensive I could stay here for ages. Sun bathe in the morning, walk around the shops, and eat a late dinner...life would be perfect! We checked into diving here, but it was way to expensive and I'm going to save mine for when I go back to Koh Tao and do the other course I think. Today, we are heading to Phuket in search of a cheaper life, but other than our ferry ticket, we have no plans. I've got a pretty bad wetsuit/shorts tan line going on right now, the bottoms of my legs are black and the tops are white ha. I will try to post photos at the next place. We must be off!

Scuba Pics!

Still Diving...

Well, my addiction to diving has certainly begun. I love it so much, and now that I'm done the second course am a little depressed! I spent the last two days, building upon my open water diver status. Last night I finished the 'Advanced Adventurer' course. We did 5 dives in two days and got to choose which components we wanted to do. Three were required: a navigation course with compasses and maps, a natural buoyancy course where we would try to neither float nor sink, a deep 30metre dive and a night dive. For the other two, me and my buddy opted to do the photography and I'm waiting for a disk of my fish photos to come out so I can post them.

The navigation course was the hardest, its' really difficult to figure out where you're going underwater, even with hand drawn maps!! My group got lost, and our leader just let us figure it all out. We had a big underwater arguement over which way to go, turns out I was wrong. It's quite difficult to argue underwater, it involves a lot of handgestures and ahhing and ooing. The buoyancy course was fun as well. I'm very positive so I have a harder time sinking and float very easily. We had to swim through this big square thing and control ourselves so that we could do it without hitting the sides, as well as standing on our heads underwater and spinning around! Our deep dive down to 30meters was also fantastic. There's this thing that happens to some people when you go deep, it's called narcossis and basically gives you the feeling that you are very drunk or stoned. Before we went down we did a number test, pointing to numbesr then to our noses, and would retime ourselves at the bottom. Well I got down there and went nuts. I couldn't hit my nose and would poke my mask and neck and everythng but. Yvonne (instructor) gave me a funny wave saying I was 'narked' and I insited that I treied again, and still couldn't do it. She then gave me a shrunken plastic bottle to play with and it was the most bizarre feeling! It felt as though I had just had 5 tequila shots. My buddy had to drag me out of there, litterally. He grabbed my tank and pulled me upwards because I didn' want to leave! It was so crazy and everyone was jealous that I got narked but they didn't. The other great dive was the night dive. Scary sounding, I know. We went out on the ocean at sunset and watched it set and then got suited up, grabbed our torches and went down, and you can't see a damn thing. All of the fish are sleeping and only where you shine the light can you see anything. I was scared at first thetn realized that it was amazing that I was 18 metres under the ocean in the dark. The fish look dead, they just lie on the coral sleeping and a lot of the corals looked brighter and more colourful. We stopped and stood on the sand 18 metres down for a bit, and turned off the lights, and when you wave your hand in the water, all of the plankton light up and flash. It was really beautiful. I was having a great time until Benni, one of the guys in my group grabbed my ankle and I screamed thinking it was some sort of shark. My buddy Dwayne said he could fully hear my scream through the regulator and everything. I was so mad, I thought he had done it on purpose. Turns out I almost kicked him (his fault for following too closely) and he put his hand out to stop my fin, but still!! It was terrifying momentarily. As soon as I get my photos I will attempt to post.

We are forcing ourselves to leave tomorrow or else I would do the next course....but I am leaving some time at the end of the trip to come back and potentially do a bit more. We are heading to Krabi tomorrow and not going to the full moon party. We've heard too many bad stories around here and it really screws up our plans and cuts back on our time if we hang around this side of the country. Besides, last night we had a party and it was almost a full moon!

Like I said, I'm falling in love with this island and diving. Getting up for a morning dive and watching the sun rise from the boat as we head out to sea is the most amazing feeling. Same with the sunsets. It's unbelievable. Love it.

2000 Leagues Under the Sea!

I am now officially a PADI certified open water diver. I can dive down to 18 metres and can do a bunch of other stuff too!! I've spent the last 3 days doing scuba theory classes and intro dives in shallow water, doing tasks like removing my regulator (breathy thingy) and then finding it again and putting it back in, filling my mask with water and then poutting it back on under water, swimming with my eyes closed and no mask, learning how to breathe on my buddies regulator, learning how to come up without going too fast, and learning how to myake myself float effortlessly under the water. It's pretty exciting! Being under feels as if you are weightless and with every in breath I go up a bit higher, and then when I exhale ,I drop down a little bit. The trick is to keep yuourself very much at the same level and to always swim horizontally, trying to find a 'neutral buoyancy'. Thjis morning after doing theory for 8 or so hours over the last few days, we took a test and I only got 2 wrong (well four technically, but I copied from a swiss guy in my group. He gave me the answer willingly!) Then we hit the water for our first real dives. It was so cool! When you swim over coral it pulls all of it's pretty flowers in. We saw baracudas, clown fish, tiger fish, leopard fish, a few sting rays...there are lots of different fish and my instructor keeps teasing me about seeing a shark...I hope not. She even got out the fake cardboard shark costume. They think I'm crazy. I think it's perfectly normal to fear seeing one!

I am loving this so much, that I think we've decided to stay a bit longer and do the advanced scuba course. With that we do 5 more dives, learning how to navigate underwater and something else Ic an't remember, and do a night dive, and then can choose to do underwater photography or fish identiciation or others! I will choose photography for sure. That course is 2 days extra. Costs about $200. I figure that I'm blowing my budget like mad, but it's the cheapest and best place in Thailand to do it, and I may as well. I will have it for the rest of my life. With this course I'd be able to dive to 30metres. Really far. Also a bit scary. I keep waiting for something big to come swimming out! These little baracuda type fish that weren't baracudas came up to me, and had monsterous teeth today. They were so curious. We are not allowed at this stage to take cameras down, but as soon as I can, I will.

We had our first real taste of the thailand party the night before we started...bad idea. I was quite ill the next day after drinking a little too much. Made the theory a little harder to grasp! Live and learn I guess! I have sworn off drinking 'buckets' from now on in the trip. No more. I'll have none of it. Saw some cool firedancers though. And had some discussions with a Brit who claims Daddy Long Legs spiders are the most poisonous in the world, but they have no way to bite...We still think he was confused!

We are debating staying here and taking a boat to KoPhagnan (the island famous for 'full moon parties'), or actualyl going. We have become very attached to this place and our bungalow and don't want to leave! We have made a great group of friends too! Every night after the dive course we sit and watch the sun go down (except last night when I was in bed at 8.30 and hating my life...), hang out by the beach and at our restaurant. I have this feeling I don't want to leave.

Our resort is on the beach and for 100 baht a night each (when w'ere diving) it is very nice! We have only a fan, but it's cooler here than in bangkok so it's quite nice at night. We walk for 2 minutes or less and are at a 7-11 and street vendors and everything. A road runs through the island with shops and restaurants all along it that you can walk. Truly wonderful. It is quite touristy here and a bit pricier, but it is great. One more cool fact...the moon is the opposite way here. A cresent moon looks like it's a cup instead of being vertical, it's horizontal! And the stars are beautiful and so bright. Anyway I must head out. Tomorrow we get up at 6.30am to head off on the boat for a dive. And a guy from Sweden promised to teach me how to count cards so I can become a blackjack pro. Ha. Oh, and my sandles got stolen or maybe borrowed today. We take them off everywhere and after my class this morning, alas, they were gone. Poo. I love this place!