See What Tim Is Doing: scuba diving

Sunday, 1 January 2012

Life on Koh Tao, Thailand – Week 2.5-5 or 6 or how ever long it was

The second half of my time in Thailand went much the same way as my first half, so this entry will be short and sweet. The days went much the same as the first half, train in the morning, sit by the beach all day then if didn't train in the morning, I would train in the afternoon, then at night it would be a meal somewhere (which was always epic no matter where we went) and a sneaky beer or 12. There were some different events of the second half though.

One night we went to the Swedes house up not he hills looking over Coral View armed with 5 fish and 2kgs of prawns costing about 10 pound for the lot, and our bikes and some balls for the slightly challenging ride up to their house. If I was to design a house that looked over the Thai sea, this house is exactly what I would of designed it like, open area, balconies everywhere, eternity pool, big entertaining area on the backyard,it was stunning. So we chilled with the Swedes, Gary cooked a monster feed with all our fresh seafood, we drank and watched the sun set and had a merry old time.

Becky, Ky, James, Caroline and myself also decided to do our Advanced Diving as well which was amazing! It ran over two days and we did five dives in total, and each dive we had to learn a new skill. Our first dive was a deep dive where we dove to 30m, which was incredible! Our second was a wreck dive around 26m deep. The wreck was an old warship with guns still intact! I really enjoyed the wreck diving and would love to do more of these, and possibly train to be able to dive inside the wrecks. The third dive was multi level and navigation which sounds pretty dull, but was actually rather interesting and helpful! and then the last two were my favourites, under water photography. It was a very fun two days out on the boat, diving, sitting in the sun, hanging out, could definitely get used to diving a lot!
After we did this course, we also did a few fun dives as del which was good fun, we always had amazing conditions and saw tons of marine life, but the one i am gutted about was a turtle that i swam right over not even knowing. I took a picture of an angel fish i was chasing and only later (weeks later) when I was looking over my photos I saw in the background a massive turtle just chilling on the bottom!

I kept up my boxing which was good and was really enjoying it even though it was 38+ every day. One of the guys we were hanging with a bit o the island had a fight one night, in the stadium not in the street! It was a very short fight, the other fighter came all guns blazing at Ben swinging huge haymakers, but Ben was smart and kept his distance and avoided most of the swinging arms and managed to get in close and deliver a few knees to his opponents face which ended the fight in the first round.

What else what else...I hired a bike again for another couple days at the end of my time, thought would go try and check out some more of the island before my time was up. Wasn't the most successful of adventures as most of the road i hadn't been on either lead to nowhere or they had been washed away from storms. But was still nice cruising around and got to see some more of the island.

Becky and Ky got wicked tattoos by Phu or Poo or not sure how to write it but it sounds like poo. He is a true talent! He specialises in bamboo tattoo and after seeing his work, I am going there for my next tattoo. His detail is amazing, he is super chill and friendly, he is an amazing drawer and with bamboo there's no need to stay out of the sun or saltwater. As soon as its done you can go swimming. I will be seeing Phu again sometime in the near future!

The boys also ventured on a day fish in trip, with high expectations after seeing loads of people turn up at the docks with huge fish. A day on a rickety old fishing boat, a mix of sun and storm, beers and snacks and absolutely no fish at all. We were out there for hours and between the 6 of us, there were two fish caught, and they would've been lucky to reach 20cm each. Not overly successful day but was a fun day!

Also one of the major highlights of the week was a day out at Coral View where we went snorkelling with the black tip reef sharks. Once you spotted one, you could see them easily! They were still pretty big, around 4-5ft and were not scary at all. Once you got within a few metres of them, they would swim away. Pretty surreal feeling swimming with them!

In-between all these events we did have a good few days of rancid weather where it stormed and we were confined to our rooms. Which was not ideal but didn't hurt, we got into playing poker on the balcony and was probably good for our skin to get out of the sun for a while!.

Our last major event was Halloween, and it was a good, rather messy night and a fun night to go out on. We had to rustle up some makeshift costumes from what we had, Ky and I put on our fluro singlets, I borrowed a pair of Becky's very small shorts and some arm bands made from footy socks, was interesting to say the least. Ben painted himself green and went as Hulk and Becky and Gary borrowed some banana leaves and made very good Tarzan and Jane outfits. We did the normal rounds of the bars, drinking, playing pool and saying our goodbyes to some of the people we met as we were leaving in two days time. It was a really nice, fun last night out in Kho Tao, and kind of sad knowing that our time on the island was done.

A couple of days later, Becky, Ky and myself packed our bags and started on the journey to Kuala Lumpur. The original plan was to go to Bangkok and do some shopping and then fly from there, but due to the floods, we had to re-route our plans and head straight to KL. So ferry to Kho Samui, then a little plan to KL, a few days in KL and then board my flight back to Sydney, the home I haven't been to for over 2 and a half years!

Boxing at Island Muay Thai

The view from the kitchen at the Swedes

Garry's fish

BBQ prawns

Dinner with the Swedes

Praying Mantis on our balcony

Sunset from our balcony

Ben on our successful fishing day

Fishing

My ride

Not the safest of routes

Typical day on Kho Tao

Ky enjoying being tattooed

Me and my trainer at Island Muay Thai

Diving with school of fish!

James, Caroline, Becky and me

Diving

Little fish

Another fish

Swimming with scars at Coral View

Halloween

Ky, Becky and me on Halloween

Dvd! Our pooch!

View from the Swedes

Swedes place

Inside the Swedes place

Sunday, 20 November 2011

Life on Koh Tao, Thailand – Week 1-2.5

I had always planned to finish my trip with a month on the island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. I had been there once before and loved it as it had everything you needed, but was minus the Starbucks and chains that have taken away the Thai charm of islands like Samui. My plan was to do my Open Water diving, and then spend a month training at the Muay Thai gym on the island and get into shape after four months of abusing my body and for my return home in more then two and a half years. Did this all go to plan, well pretty much, for the first couple of weeks at least.

So I stopped in Bangkok a couple of nights to get some bits and pieces and to sort my way to Koh Tao, and I ran into Becky and Ky who I had met in China months ago, and whom I also ran into randomly in Laos. I got a message from them on facebook the night before I arrived in Bangkok saying they were going to be there tomorrow, as was I, so we ended up meeting up and spending a few days in Bangkok, chilled a bit, shopped a bit and had one boozey night that ended up in towers being drank, racing Japanese guys in underpants, tattoos and the usual things that come along with a messy night in Bangkok.

The next day I rose to get money out of my account only to find my card was expired (according to the machine and several other machines I tried) although the expirey date on my card was 03/2012. Then I tried my other card, and realized I never got sent the pin, two down one to go. Then my other card which I know worked, didn’t have any money in it, and transferring money from Australia account to UK account takes days. So after an initial panic I spoke to HSBC Australia and they kindly let me know they cancelled my card as they thought I didn’t need it, no emails or calls to ask me this of course. But to make a long story short, I sorted it out in the end, although this entitled transferring money to a friend on Koh Taos Australian account and then taking it out of his account using a his card. Easy enough but still a pain in the arse. Anyways back to the story.

Becky and Ky decided they were going to head to Koh Tao as well and do their diving, so we all booked buses and got ready to leave on an overnight bus/ferry ride to the island. The bus trip was fine, nothing exciting to report, except when we got off at the ferry terminal, Ky looked in his wallet and they had taken over $200 from it while he was asleep, and then to rub salt into the wounds, they took 5 pouches of tobacco from his big backpack that was in the luggage compartment of the bus, which was actually locked up. We arrived to Koh Tao after a few hours on the ferry, booked into our diving which started the next day and then chilled on the beach for the afternoon.

Over the next few days we did our Open Water diving course and it was amazing. We only got to go to a depth of 18 meters but it was still amazing. We dove at some pretty impressive spots, saw some amazing fish and had a good time with our group and also the other group who started the same time as us, and we all ended up becoming good mates. We learnt all the skills like using all our equipment, underwater signals, what to do if we lose our regulator or goggles, safety and general knowledge about the underwater world. Being underwater is what I can imagine walking on the moon is like, and at one stage in our course we sank to the bottom and took off our fins and started doing super slow floating flips and karate kicks that were like slow montion kicks that sent both parties flying backwards. The fun wasn’t always under the water as well, chilling on the boat between dives was always a good laugh as well, especially when running backflips off the top of the boat were tried for the first time. The night time while diving were taken pretty easy as being hungover and diving was not good for many reasons, but we made up for it once our course was finished.

Over the next couple of weeks, the daily routines consisted of boxing in the morning or afternoon (hangover depending) hanging at the beach, eating food and then consuming a few drinks on the balcony of the Big Yellow House, our home for the month, with the new crew of friends we had, myself, Becky and Ky, Garry from Essex, the northern couple James and Caroline, team Sweden (Sofia and Emelie), Ben and Ying and then Yann aka Sanka the Frenchman. There were some special events and messy nights of the month.

One of the first would’ve been Caroline’s birthday bash which was a good night out, a good crew of 10 or so of us, all in fluro matching ‘I love Koh Tao’ singlets. It was a good, rather messy night that entitled beers, body shots, cutting shapes on the dance floor, beachside beers and a substantial hangover the next day!

Another was our choice to do our Advanced Diving course which was worth every penny. This courses teaches you underwater navigation, deep sea diving (30meters), using computers while diving, underwater photography and loads of other stuff. We did it at Big Blue where we did our Open Water as were stoked with them and our instructor Tosh was wicked so we wanted to do our advanced certificate with him. The course consisted of 5 dives, our first dive was a deep dive to just above 30meters where we swam around a naval shipwreck which was amazing. The boat was still intact as it wasn’t sunk too long ago, and still had the anchor chains, doors and large gun on both the front and back of the boat. Was an amazing experience, but at the same time was also rather eerie.

The other dives we did were amazing as well diving down to depths of around 30meters, seeing some pretty amazing sea life, tons of fish, crabs, shrimps, eels hard and soft coral and all while learning as well. Learning to navigate our way underwater, controlling our buoyancy, using dive computers and according to mine and Ky’s advanced diving cards, under water basket weaving. The advanced course was amazing! Definitely made me love diving even more then I already did! Being underwater and breathing like normal is a completely out of this world feeling!

Also another good day out was our first trip to another beach besides our local Sairee Beach. We hired mopeds and headed to Coral View, a beach over the other side of the island, which was stunning. The ride over there on a crappy moped was not the easiest, and I wasn’t even doubling anyone. A bumpy, rocky road and some hectic steep hills, but in the end was well worth it. An empty beach with pretty much just us there (James and Caroline, Ky and Becky, Team Sweden aka Sofia and Emelie and me and Canadian James). The water was stunning, so clear, the sand so white and the sun absolutely shining. The girls baked on the beach while the boys climbed a pretty unsafe rock to get a birdeye view of the area. A nice day out, which we have done again a few times since.

Another interesting night out was a random night out where we ended up at a Ladyboy Cabaret which as horrible as is sounds, was a really fun night. A lot fo them really do look like ladies, and man or woman, they were extremely entertaining, and at the end they got guys from the crowds, including myself, James and Ky, and take them backstage, dress them in wigs and bikinis and then take you out to dance for a song or two, which sounds weird and unenjoyable, ten or so western guys up on the stage, slightly drunk and dancing around in wigs, but it was a good laugh.

Towards the end of the first half of the time on the island, we all hired bikes again, but this time we hired them for four days, and we left the gutless mopeds out of the equation and opted for some bikes with grunt. James and Caroline, and Becky and Ky got monster quad bikes, Garry already had his bike, which was a cross between a mopeds and a trail bike so he was alright, and Ben and I got little 140 trailbikes which were amazing fun.

We took a ride out to Tanote Bay, another beach over the other side of the island with some amazing snorkeling, cleanest beaches I have seen, and a giant rock about 150m from the shore that you climb a rope up, then jump off the top into the crystal clear water that looks about 3m deep because it is so clean, but it really is close to 10! The day there was really chill, swimming, sunning, snorkeling and relaxing in the sunshine.

Then at the end of the day someone made the call to go to the viewpoint for sunset, which sounded like a great idea, which it was, just the road there was slightly challenging to say the least. Rocky, loose, bumpy but fun to hammer up on a bike, and well worth it. The view from the top was impressive! You could see the whole of Sairee Beach and right up the hill as well, and nothing was in your way to disturb your view. The hard ride up there was definitely worth it.

I think besides the normal beach days and chilling, they are the main events of the first couple of weeks that come to mind, there are probably more but all the weeks here on Koh Tao are moulding into one. But one thing is for sure, I absolutely love Koh Tao!