M After being on the road for four and a half months, staying mainly in dorms and fighting sicknesses, we decided to treat ourselves to 10 days at a resort on the island of Koh Phangan, Thailand. After finding our first choice was full we decided to stay at Sunset Cove resort. We found a cheap flight through AirAsia from Bangkok to Surat Tani which is on the mainland. When we got off at the small airport just after 4pm, we started looking at our transport options. We knew we would have to get to the pier then take a ferry across to the island. We asked at information and they said we missed the last bus to the pier, and would have to take a taxi, not a problem. But outside the airport the taxi drivers wanted to charge us $50 just to get to the pier! For the same distance in Bangkok from our hostel to the airport we paid only $10.We found another couple also going to the same island and decided to split the cost of the taxi. But no, we could not do that. The taxi drivers said if there were more people they would charge us per person $25 each, on top of this Jes attempted to barter but soon we realized we were being scammed, so we walked away. We decided to take the bus into Surat Tani town, which cost about $3 a head, we figured once there we would find a way to get to the island before nightfall.
The other couple we had met, who were from Israel, joined us. One of the men who worked at the airport was on the bus and was very upset at us because we did not take a taxi, saying that we were unreasonable, then muttering under his breath a word that luckily the Israeli knew that meant we were stubborn/messy. It is quite an insult I guess.
J Our new Israeli friend attempted to talk some reason into this guy, telling him we were on budgets, and more-so that we felt we were being ripped off. Sadly this Thai guy had decided long ago that all Tourists were rich, and that we were being stupid not paying what the Taxi wanted. He kept repeating that we were now left with only one option for getting to the island which was to take the 11pm overnight boat, arriving at 6am. Once at the pier (Ban Don) we saw the boat, which was a cargo vessel, and immediately started looking for another option. We had heard of speed boats which left at several times during the day, but it became apparent that the pier we had been let off at was only used by this big, slow, overnight barge.
M When we noticed no other boats, and no tourists offices, we started worrying we would have to take the cargo boat. It had beds on it, so we would have somewhere to sleep, but I worried about how rough a ride it was going to be. Some of the other tourists immediately signed up to take the slow boat for 300 Baht ($10) a person.
With our packs on we went looking for an internet cafe to contact our hotel. We informed them we would not be able to make it that night. The guy there told us not to take the cargo boat as it was not comfy, but worse the weather called for a storm and it would be a very rough ride. So we went off in search of a hotel, our Israeli friends had stayed with us for some time but eventually got sick of waiting and left to sign-up for the cargo boat.
One of the locals pointed us in the direction of a nice looking hotel. As we approached we decided we would pay between $20-$30 CDN but no more. We were extremely happy when they told us we could get a room with AC and TV for $13. Not only that, but there was a bus that could pick us up in the morning and take us to the pier. A combo bus and ferry ticket would cost us $10 each. We were quite happy with the way everything worked out. We went to the street market for dinner and hung out with our Israeli friends, a guy from Turkey, and a local Thai named Chai. We headed back to our hotel at about midnight to get some sleep after what felt like a very long day.
The next morning we were up bright and early to catch the bus that left at 7:30am. It was about an hour drive to the port. Then on the boat we splurged and paid $1 each to sit in the VIP area which had AC, comfortable chairs, and movies playing for the 2 1/2 hour ferry ride. When we arrived at Koh Phangan we were greeted/bombarded with people asking us where we were staying and trying to get us to come to their bungalows. We were shocked as we had found on-line that many places were full. Obviously not all, even though it was a week away from the famous full moon party. We called our resort and they came to the pier and picked us up. The resort was small, quiet, and beautiful. The pool was situated in a way that it looked like you were swimming in the ocean when inside it. We relaxed that day, unpacked, and swam in the pool. We had dinner at the resorts restaurant and lay by the beach reading books from their library. Once the sun went down there was an amazing symphony of bugs, birds and geckos that rose up all around us! We marveled at this every night at dusk, after starting up the sound would slowly quiet and turn into background noise.
The resort had quite an extensive DVD library as well as books, and our rooms have DVD players, so we decided to relax in our room and take in a movie. Returning to our bungalow, I opened the door, turned on the light, and then I saw it: he biggest SPIDER I had ever seen crawling rapidly across the floor. I screamed and ran out of the cabin telling Jes to kill it. Unfortunately the creature was fast and ran under the floor board before Jes could get it, he did have two swings with a sandal first though. I spent quite a long time sitting on the bed staring at where Jes said it went, but eventually realized that I could not sit there all night. We never saw it again, but I really started to question if I could take being in a place with such awful bugs.
Most people on the island, like most of Thailand, ride scooters, and nobody wears helmets. It is not uncommon to see 3 or 4 people on one scooter, particularly an adult with a few kids. They are fairly cheap to rent, so we got one for the week. Jes loved driving it. I, on the other hand, clung onto him for dear life. Many of the roads have sand on them, and many curves. Jes had started to come down with a cold again, so that afternoon he sat in the shade reading, while I went for a swim. Then after lunch he said he was feeling so weak that he had to lay down. I took advantage of this time to get myself a 1hour Thai massage for 200 Baht ($6.5) and a pedicure for
150 Baht ($5). When I got back Jes still did not look good. We rested on the beach for a while, but he was burning up. I walked down to the pharmacy and bought a thermometer.
The pharmacist said if he was over 37°C to give him Tylenol. If he is 38°C or more though, he should see a doctor. When I got back I checked him and he was 39°C! As much as he did not want to go to the hospital, we decided we should as there are parts of Thailand that have Malaria, although we had not entered them yet it's a disease you don't want to mess with. We took the scooter to the hospital and was greeted by 2 nurses in traditional uniforms. They spoke almost no English, but got the point across that there was no doctor available, and that we could come back in 2 days. We explained we wanted Jes tested for Malaria, and if he has it then he could be dead in 2 days. She then pointed to another place on our map and said we could see a doctor there. We drove into Thong Sala and found a sign that said English speaking doctor.
When we entered and explained the situation the nurse took his temperature which was now at 39.7°C. The doctor thought Jes may have dengue fever, and tested him for that, Malaria and a few other things. The one doctor's office included the receptionists, who were also the pharmacists, and nurses, which took blood samples to do tests on. After 15 min of waiting we were given results. All the tests came back negative. The doctor figured he just had a bad cold, with a bit of sun-stroke perhaps. So the next day we took it easy.
After a good sleep in, we used the internet for a bit. We read the book we had borrowed and relaxed in the shade. Later Jes decided he was feeling up for going exploring some of the island on our scooter. We saw a sign for a waterfall and followed it. Once at the hiking train we decided to try it out and if it was too hard we would wait until Jes was feeling better. The trail took about 5 min and we were at a pathetic waterfall in no time. Pretty disappointed, we took a different trail back, hoping to see another waterfall, and ended up at the beginning of the hike. Oh well, more hiking another day perhaps. We then drove around a little more and headed home. After dinner it was another movie and an early night to bed.
150 Baht ($5). When I got back Jes still did not look good. We rested on the beach for a while, but he was burning up. I walked down to the pharmacy and bought a thermometer.The pharmacist said if he was over 37°C to give him Tylenol. If he is 38°C or more though, he should see a doctor. When I got back I checked him and he was 39°C! As much as he did not want to go to the hospital, we decided we should as there are parts of Thailand that have Malaria, although we had not entered them yet it's a disease you don't want to mess with. We took the scooter to the hospital and was greeted by 2 nurses in traditional uniforms. They spoke almost no English, but got the point across that there was no doctor available, and that we could come back in 2 days. We explained we wanted Jes tested for Malaria, and if he has it then he could be dead in 2 days. She then pointed to another place on our map and said we could see a doctor there. We drove into Thong Sala and found a sign that said English speaking doctor.
When we entered and explained the situation the nurse took his temperature which was now at 39.7°C. The doctor thought Jes may have dengue fever, and tested him for that, Malaria and a few other things. The one doctor's office included the receptionists, who were also the pharmacists, and nurses, which took blood samples to do tests on. After 15 min of waiting we were given results. All the tests came back negative. The doctor figured he just had a bad cold, with a bit of sun-stroke perhaps. So the next day we took it easy.
After a good sleep in, we used the internet for a bit. We read the book we had borrowed and relaxed in the shade. Later Jes decided he was feeling up for going exploring some of the island on our scooter. We saw a sign for a waterfall and followed it. Once at the hiking train we decided to try it out and if it was too hard we would wait until Jes was feeling better. The trail took about 5 min and we were at a pathetic waterfall in no time. Pretty disappointed, we took a different trail back, hoping to see another waterfall, and ended up at the beginning of the hike. Oh well, more hiking another day perhaps. We then drove around a little more and headed home. After dinner it was another movie and an early night to bed.Day three on the island. We got up at 8am to claim the best beach chairs by leaving a few things on them. Then after breakfast we went off in search of adventure.
J We had noticed a sign beside our beach advertising for Haad Yao divers, one of the many scuba diving companies on the island. We had been snorkeling before, in Mexico, and saw scuba divers below us having fun, breathing underwater, the nerve. We had also tried scuba equipment on in the pool at our hotel, almost 5 years ago. We decided to look into it, as everything else was quite a deal in Thailand. After an early morning breakfast, we went off to the nearby office beside our beach, and grabbed a brochure. We decided it would be fun to try the 'Discover Scuba' program, which offered one beach dive and two open water dives from a boat. So we headed over to Haad Yao beach to sign up.
The gentlemen we spoke with said we could start the next day, and encouraged us to take a look at the PADI Open Water Diver certification as it educated us much more and allowed us to dive anywhere in the world. We were hesitant but he said that we could take the day 1 course, which included a beach dive, and if we wanted to continue we could put the cost toward our full certification, which would be another 3 days. Michelle was very worried, as the thought of breathing underwater was a bit overwhelming for her. Plus, we realized we would be committing the next 4 days to classroom instruction and dives, and not relaxing at our highly coveted beach chairs. After a small discussion we decided we would just try day 1, and decided later.
Little did we realize at that point in time, we were an hour away from a near death experience.
M Back at our hotel, after vegging for an hour at the pool, we decided to take out a two person kayak before it got too hot outside. We saw a small island not too far out and thought why not attempt to get to it. As we got closer the waves became much bigger, and even started to white cap. We were going into the waves though so I did not worry, thinking it would be smooth sailing on the way back. The island we discovered was just a bunch of rocks sticking out that looked extremely dangerous to go too close to. We first thought about going around them, but then decided we better just turn around and head home. That's when it started. As we tried to turn the kayak around we flipped it! We managed to both get back on after a few minutes, but it wasn't long before we had flipped again. Not only could we not keep from tipping, but the waves were pushing us closer and closer to the rocks.
The waves were much bigger then when we had started off, probably because we were so far out by this point. The situation was quickly getting dire as we didn't have life jackets on, and no emergency whistle to signal for help. I got back in, but when Jes tried to get in we flipped again. We decided that I would get in and row, and Jes would hang onto the back and kick. I rowed with all my strength, but we made little to no progress and the rocks were coming closer. There was a fishing boat not too far away, so we yelled for help while waving, but they either didn't see, or didn't care. So we decided that I would jump in the water as Jes was a stronger rower, and I would not cause quite as much drag as he did. This new plan worked although we were going incredibly slow and being tossed around by the waves. Once away from the rocks I decided to get in. Jes laid down to steady the kayak and I managed to get up without flipping. The problem was if Jes tried to sit up we would almost flip again. So he rowed the best he could while laying on his back, and slowly we made it close to shore where the water was calm. By the time we made it back we were both exhausted, and sun burnt as we had stayed out almost an hour longer than planned. Needless to say we took it easy the rest of the day.
J We had noticed a sign beside our beach advertising for Haad Yao divers, one of the many scuba diving companies on the island. We had been snorkeling before, in Mexico, and saw scuba divers below us having fun, breathing underwater, the nerve. We had also tried scuba equipment on in the pool at our hotel, almost 5 years ago. We decided to look into it, as everything else was quite a deal in Thailand. After an early morning breakfast, we went off to the nearby office beside our beach, and grabbed a brochure. We decided it would be fun to try the 'Discover Scuba' program, which offered one beach dive and two open water dives from a boat. So we headed over to Haad Yao beach to sign up.
The gentlemen we spoke with said we could start the next day, and encouraged us to take a look at the PADI Open Water Diver certification as it educated us much more and allowed us to dive anywhere in the world. We were hesitant but he said that we could take the day 1 course, which included a beach dive, and if we wanted to continue we could put the cost toward our full certification, which would be another 3 days. Michelle was very worried, as the thought of breathing underwater was a bit overwhelming for her. Plus, we realized we would be committing the next 4 days to classroom instruction and dives, and not relaxing at our highly coveted beach chairs. After a small discussion we decided we would just try day 1, and decided later.
Little did we realize at that point in time, we were an hour away from a near death experience.
M Back at our hotel, after vegging for an hour at the pool, we decided to take out a two person kayak before it got too hot outside. We saw a small island not too far out and thought why not attempt to get to it. As we got closer the waves became much bigger, and even started to white cap. We were going into the waves though so I did not worry, thinking it would be smooth sailing on the way back. The island we discovered was just a bunch of rocks sticking out that looked extremely dangerous to go too close to. We first thought about going around them, but then decided we better just turn around and head home. That's when it started. As we tried to turn the kayak around we flipped it! We managed to both get back on after a few minutes, but it wasn't long before we had flipped again. Not only could we not keep from tipping, but the waves were pushing us closer and closer to the rocks.
The waves were much bigger then when we had started off, probably because we were so far out by this point. The situation was quickly getting dire as we didn't have life jackets on, and no emergency whistle to signal for help. I got back in, but when Jes tried to get in we flipped again. We decided that I would get in and row, and Jes would hang onto the back and kick. I rowed with all my strength, but we made little to no progress and the rocks were coming closer. There was a fishing boat not too far away, so we yelled for help while waving, but they either didn't see, or didn't care. So we decided that I would jump in the water as Jes was a stronger rower, and I would not cause quite as much drag as he did. This new plan worked although we were going incredibly slow and being tossed around by the waves. Once away from the rocks I decided to get in. Jes laid down to steady the kayak and I managed to get up without flipping. The problem was if Jes tried to sit up we would almost flip again. So he rowed the best he could while laying on his back, and slowly we made it close to shore where the water was calm. By the time we made it back we were both exhausted, and sun burnt as we had stayed out almost an hour longer than planned. Needless to say we took it easy the rest of the day.
J I had lost a pair of sunglasses in our little kayak adventure, so after a dip in the pool we dried off and took the scooter to a local convenience store. I found a pair that suited me quite well, and I realized it was my forth pair of sunglasses so far on the trip. I had broke one pair, and lost two, hopefully these new ones would last. I celebrated not drowning earlier by buying a bottle of Thai rum, and having learnt a lesson in Germany, got the smallest one. We headed into town on our little scooter (with had an elephant sticker on the back) to find a place to eat lunch. Then we played around at an internet cafe for almost three hours, uploading pictures, writing about our time in Jordan, and comparing Scuba companies. I decided that Haad Yao had fair prices, although it certainly wasn't cheap anywhere to take the Open Water course. I did read on several sites that the diving at Koh Phangan and Koh Tao was incredible, so perhaps it was a good time to take scuba. I knew Michelle was still nervous though so we put off any decision until the end of day 1 of the course. After doing some window shopping and touring the town we headed back to our hotel to relax and ensure we hit the sack early.
Day four on the island, day one of Scuba, everything went well. After an introductory video and a short lesson in our beach front classroom, we got suited up for our first attempt at playing fish. Despite poor visibility during our beach dive we enjoyed the corals we saw, and the feeling of breathing while underwater. Our instructor Woody was funny, and explained things slowly, making sure we understood concepts, as well that we were comfortable with what we would be doing. Our class was only four people, and even though it was that small Woody had a side-kick named Colin, we assisted and made sure we didn't get too lost (as I said, poor vis that first day).
Once we were back on land we had to make the decision about continuing or ending there. We took a short walk, and after much discussion (read arguing), we decided to go for it and signed up for the full Open Water Diver PADI course. We liked our instructors, we liked the two ladies who were taking the course as well, and despite the cost we figured where else in the world better to learn.
Day two of Scuba. Did you know that SCUBA stands for? It's Self-Contained-Underwater-Breathing-Apparatus.
The theory portion of the class was quite interesting, a little bit of physics, a little bit of scare tactics, and we learned the golden rule (actually we learned that on day one) which is; 'Never Stop Breathing'. This being important whether you are descending, ascending, or just staying neutrally buoyant in the water (hovering). Staying neutral was something we didn't have much ability to do even after day two.
We didn't see any coral or fishes on day two but we did work on skills, such as getting water out of our masks (while underwater), taking off our masks and then swimming without a mask. The most exciting moment was having our instructor kill our air supply and once we ran out of air making the hand signals and using his alternative air source. It was a little scary for some of our group, but it was necessary. Talking with some people who were just taking the Scuba Diver course, they were shocked we would practise such a manoeuvre, but when asked how they would respond underwater if it happened to them, they realized the important of practising for such situations.
Day three of scuba, our first open water dives. We took a boat out to the famed Sail Rock, which is between Koh Phangan and Koh Tao. The ride out was rocky and we barely made it with our breakfasts intact, apparently Thai boats are infamous for being rocky on the sea. One at Sail Rock, we geared up and jumped in. Strangely we felt a little less sea-sick once in the water. lol
We descended with the help of a rope line connected to a float and once down things were good, but getting down was slow and painful for me. I had gotten over a cold that I had about a month earlier, but still felt like my sinuses were not back to 100%, and as I descended I had a lot of trouble attempting to equalize my sinus cavities. I ended up with a bruised nose from all the squeezing, and (as I later found out) even bled a bit from my nose. Our instructor didn't bother letting me know until after the dive, and apparently it happens now and then, no biggie.
His advice was simply "don't squeeze your nose so damn hard". lol
We were both a little scared of being down so far, we were at 12 meters, which meant no sticking our heads out of the water like we could on the beach dives. We had the buddy system going, and Mich and I were together. So for ease of finding our buddy (and assurance) we held hands.
On our second dive, and right near the end as we approached the rope line, I found myself rapidly ascending. I thought it had something to do with bubbles from below (other scuba divers breathing too much) but looking back I may have been holding my breath for some reason. I was only down 4-5 metres, and the air trickled out of my sinuses as I surfaced, so unlike the decsent it was painless. The sudden unplanned ascent really worried me however as I knew subsequent dives would be deeper and I had to be able to control the rate of ascent. Part of the problem was finding our how many weights I needed on my BCD to keep me down, something we changed for the next day.
Despite Mich feeling sick going out and coming back from Sail Rock, I was the first of our little group to blow chunks, (you try drinking a litre of sea water and keeping it down). The waves on the surface were terrible, but it didn't have much impact on visibility, which was good at 5-8 m. So despite nerves, a little lack of buoyancy control, and drinking salt water, we really enjoyed ourselves. We saw some interesting fish as well as corals. The girls of our group were so excited at the fish we saw and discussed them for most of the ride home, but I (being a man) was more concerned with my air consumption, dive performance, and techniques. Looking back, I should have just chilled and realized it was only my first day of open water diving, I would get better with practise.
Our last day of diving, day four of Scuba, started like the day before. Early start, jump on a boat, and head to our dive destination. We went to two nice spots right off Koh Tao island. Both our dives were done without the assistance of a rope line. We had much better conditions on the surface so we did some skills before descending; we removed most of our gear (BCD with tank), and then the weight belt, and of course put them back on.
Descending once again was a problem, it took me 2-3 minutes to get down, but Michelle performed like a champ. Once down (at 18m) I was very comfortable with positioning in the water, and practised using breathing to control movement. I was having a great time but unfortunately I had a leaky mask problem which ended up bugging me all day.
As I used air faster then our instructor and the three ladies, they planned to let me breath from their alt air-source once I used up most of mine. So after 30 minutes or so I was given Colin's a.a.s. to breath from. I held onto him as we started to return to the boats area, we were just a minute from the boat when we found a sea turtle! I had just swam into view of the thing when it happened, I started ascending without realizing it, again!
I guess I was just excited and thus started breathing heavily, the next thing I knew Colin was instructing me to empty the air from my BCD, I did but it had little effect. He tried to keep me down but after a few seconds gave up and together we ascended. The rest of the group followed-suite a minute later and we headed back to the boat for lunch. Despite there being two other Scuba groups and a large group of snorkelers nearby, noone else (other then our group) saw the Turtle that day!
On the boat we relaxed, I attempted to fix my mask, and we got fresh tanks ready for our second dive. The boat took us to another bay which was more shallow but had plenty of beautiful coral. Colin who was working toward his Dive Master certification had to exchange everything while underwater (luckily he kept his wet suite on), and then on the surface perform a rescue (staged). It was fun entertainment to watch as we ate lunch. We waited an hour for digesting before we got back in the water for our last dive.
The last dive was great, I had little problems descending and we saw all sorts of fish and coral, as well as a blue spotted sting-ray that stayed along the bottom. I discovered a porcupine fish hiding amid a bunch of coral, and Woody had brought an underwater camera to take pics. It was by far our best dive, our confidence level was high, and we were moving through the water like pros. Again after about 30 minutes I was at 1/4 tank of air and this time Woody gave me his alt air source.
Michelle did great following along without holding hands, she really started to get the hang of using breathing to control where she was in the water. As I swam along beside Woody I saw a big shell just under a piece of reef. I switched to my own regulator and swam down to grab it. I found out later that I had discovered a huge (bigger then my fist) Tiger Cowrie! I wanted to be sure that there was noone at home in the shell so I immediately swam over to Woody. He made it clear I should put the thing back, and later on the boat explained that the animal inside could sting me, and that it might have been fatal (eep).
We returned home, chatting with our dive buddies all the way, the boat ride was much smoother and noone got sick. Our discoveries that day (the turtle and sting-ray) meant we were legend on the boat (for the day). Later that night back on Haad Yao beach we celebrated graduating the course. We got free t-shirts for doing so well on our tests and for not critically injuring Woody after five dives. We had some drinks and went for dinner with the Haad Yao crew. What an awesome bunch, we would surely miss them.
M Our last full day on the island we went off exploring. On the scooter we took our time and 15 minutes later we drove through Thong Sala, then after stopping at a 7-11 to give our butts a break we were off to see the biggest Yang tree on the island. Yep, it was a huge tree. Then as we were in the south of the island we thought we would go to Haad Rin, the place where the full moon party was held and apparently the most touristy part of the island. As we were just a minute away we came upon a large hill, infamous we later learned. We saw it coming and sped up, but our little scooter ground to a halt. No luck, the weight of both of us on our little pathetic bike was just too much. So we decided that I would get off and walk and Jes would drive to the top. Jes pulled over and I started walking.
Unfortunately as he turned the bike around on the hill the bike skidded on sand, and it took a nose dive. Jes managed to get away with some road rash on just the bottom of one leg, but the bike now had a good scratch on the one side of it. We were very worried of what the rental place would do, but there was nothing we could do but wait and find out. Jes attempted to drive up the steep hill again without me, but this silly hill had a curve in the road too, and after slowing down for the curve he couldn't get the bike up the hill. So I jumped on and we headed back toward Thong Sala. We decided to give up on the trip to Haad Rin and headed back to town to use the internet, we had a flight out of Surat Thani but hadn't made plans for how to go North from there.
Another issue we hadn't mentioned to this point, was that we had been contemplating staying on the island for a month before leaving to meet my sister in Japan. There were houses to rent for as little as $130/ month, and many people who come for a visit end up staying for awhile, including our diving friend Sue. At this point we had not yet decided if we wanted to stay or keep touring. After running into Sue in town (one of our dive buddies) and chatting with her for a bit we decided to get some lunch. We found a little Saturday market and enjoyed some curry (well Jes did as it was way too spicy for me), fresh fruit drinks and some meat on a stick. We discussed our choices of staying or going, and decided in the end after lengthy discussions to go ahead with our flight on Monday. One of the big factors was that we had already grabbed Chinese visa's, and wanted to use them. We also decided that Koh Phangan was not going anywhere and we could always return later if we choose to.
It was mid afternoon at this point and we had to head back to Haad Yao to meet with Woody as he made us a CD with underwater pictures of coral and fish, so cool! First though, we had to get Jes a hair cut, we found a shop only two minutes away from our hotel, and what happened to be beside the hair cut place, another a massage studio. As Jes got his hair cut (which ended up way too short, I don't think the lady understood any English or hand gestures) I got a back massage.
After we went back to Haad Yao and met up with our dive buddies, Sue, Nicki, Colin and Woody. We hung out there chatting for a couple hours then decided to head out, we had stayed late the previous two nights and wanted some time to ourselves. We went to a restaurant that we wished we had found earlier as it was cheap and tasty, then went to the hotel to relax in our air conditioned room and enjoy yet another movie.
The next morning, our last one on Koh Phangan. We woke early to return the bike. We were nervous as we pulled up, but hoped that the lady would not notice the scratch as there were many on it before, certainly the bike had seen its share of falls. No such luck. As she walked over she immediately pointed to the new scratch on the one side. Then without even looking at her paper pointed out other scratches on the mirror and back. She told us the charges for damages, which was double the price of renting the bike for a whole week. We were not happy, but there really was nothing we could do. Jes tried to reason with her, as the damaged fender was scratched on the opposite side, and Jes showed her that it was all one piece, so the new scratch was trivial. She decided to charge us a little less, which was still way too much.
Discouraged and a little poorer we returned to our hotel for the free breakfast one last time and to pack up our things. We went to check out and were pleased when the manager/owner agreed to give us an 80% refund on our first night which we missed while staying in Surat Thani. He then found out when the boat left and drove us to the pier. When we got there we saw that the speed boat was packed so he recommended the vehicle ferry as it was leaving shortly and had a covered area. It was quite cloudy and ended up raining so we were so happy for his help.
Before we knew it we were off on the ferry heading back to Surat Thani. Once at the dock we boarded a bus that took us into town. On the bus a guy told us that his guest house was across from the bus station and that we could get a bus from there to the airport the next day, and it was slightly cheaper than the other hotel we stayed at before and planned to go to. It was raining and it sounded good, so we went with it. We soon found why it was cheaper, but it did the trick for one night. Firstly, there was no hot water. Secondly, there was no flush on the toilet, you had to pour water into the toilet to flush it. Thirdly, the water from the sink ran down a two foot long hose and onto the floor. There were no top sheets, just a fitted one, and the blanket was pretty much a big towel, but it did have a TV. Like I said, fine for one night.
We went out in the rain in search of dinner, and landed at a pizza place. After sharing a small pizza we hit the night market. Why in the world did we eat pizza? There were so many good things at the market from meats on a stick, to curry, to little desserts and fruit drinks. We left stuffed and made it back to our hotel.
Bye Bye Koh Phangan, hopefully we'll be back one day.
Day four on the island, day one of Scuba, everything went well. After an introductory video and a short lesson in our beach front classroom, we got suited up for our first attempt at playing fish. Despite poor visibility during our beach dive we enjoyed the corals we saw, and the feeling of breathing while underwater. Our instructor Woody was funny, and explained things slowly, making sure we understood concepts, as well that we were comfortable with what we would be doing. Our class was only four people, and even though it was that small Woody had a side-kick named Colin, we assisted and made sure we didn't get too lost (as I said, poor vis that first day).
Once we were back on land we had to make the decision about continuing or ending there. We took a short walk, and after much discussion (read arguing), we decided to go for it and signed up for the full Open Water Diver PADI course. We liked our instructors, we liked the two ladies who were taking the course as well, and despite the cost we figured where else in the world better to learn.
Day two of Scuba. Did you know that SCUBA stands for? It's Self-Contained-Underwater-Breathing-Apparatus.
The theory portion of the class was quite interesting, a little bit of physics, a little bit of scare tactics, and we learned the golden rule (actually we learned that on day one) which is; 'Never Stop Breathing'. This being important whether you are descending, ascending, or just staying neutrally buoyant in the water (hovering). Staying neutral was something we didn't have much ability to do even after day two.
We didn't see any coral or fishes on day two but we did work on skills, such as getting water out of our masks (while underwater), taking off our masks and then swimming without a mask. The most exciting moment was having our instructor kill our air supply and once we ran out of air making the hand signals and using his alternative air source. It was a little scary for some of our group, but it was necessary. Talking with some people who were just taking the Scuba Diver course, they were shocked we would practise such a manoeuvre, but when asked how they would respond underwater if it happened to them, they realized the important of practising for such situations.
Day three of scuba, our first open water dives. We took a boat out to the famed Sail Rock, which is between Koh Phangan and Koh Tao. The ride out was rocky and we barely made it with our breakfasts intact, apparently Thai boats are infamous for being rocky on the sea. One at Sail Rock, we geared up and jumped in. Strangely we felt a little less sea-sick once in the water. lol
We descended with the help of a rope line connected to a float and once down things were good, but getting down was slow and painful for me. I had gotten over a cold that I had about a month earlier, but still felt like my sinuses were not back to 100%, and as I descended I had a lot of trouble attempting to equalize my sinus cavities. I ended up with a bruised nose from all the squeezing, and (as I later found out) even bled a bit from my nose. Our instructor didn't bother letting me know until after the dive, and apparently it happens now and then, no biggie.
His advice was simply "don't squeeze your nose so damn hard". lol
We were both a little scared of being down so far, we were at 12 meters, which meant no sticking our heads out of the water like we could on the beach dives. We had the buddy system going, and Mich and I were together. So for ease of finding our buddy (and assurance) we held hands.
On our second dive, and right near the end as we approached the rope line, I found myself rapidly ascending. I thought it had something to do with bubbles from below (other scuba divers breathing too much) but looking back I may have been holding my breath for some reason. I was only down 4-5 metres, and the air trickled out of my sinuses as I surfaced, so unlike the decsent it was painless. The sudden unplanned ascent really worried me however as I knew subsequent dives would be deeper and I had to be able to control the rate of ascent. Part of the problem was finding our how many weights I needed on my BCD to keep me down, something we changed for the next day.
Despite Mich feeling sick going out and coming back from Sail Rock, I was the first of our little group to blow chunks, (you try drinking a litre of sea water and keeping it down). The waves on the surface were terrible, but it didn't have much impact on visibility, which was good at 5-8 m. So despite nerves, a little lack of buoyancy control, and drinking salt water, we really enjoyed ourselves. We saw some interesting fish as well as corals. The girls of our group were so excited at the fish we saw and discussed them for most of the ride home, but I (being a man) was more concerned with my air consumption, dive performance, and techniques. Looking back, I should have just chilled and realized it was only my first day of open water diving, I would get better with practise.
Our last day of diving, day four of Scuba, started like the day before. Early start, jump on a boat, and head to our dive destination. We went to two nice spots right off Koh Tao island. Both our dives were done without the assistance of a rope line. We had much better conditions on the surface so we did some skills before descending; we removed most of our gear (BCD with tank), and then the weight belt, and of course put them back on.
Descending once again was a problem, it took me 2-3 minutes to get down, but Michelle performed like a champ. Once down (at 18m) I was very comfortable with positioning in the water, and practised using breathing to control movement. I was having a great time but unfortunately I had a leaky mask problem which ended up bugging me all day.
As I used air faster then our instructor and the three ladies, they planned to let me breath from their alt air-source once I used up most of mine. So after 30 minutes or so I was given Colin's a.a.s. to breath from. I held onto him as we started to return to the boats area, we were just a minute from the boat when we found a sea turtle! I had just swam into view of the thing when it happened, I started ascending without realizing it, again!
I guess I was just excited and thus started breathing heavily, the next thing I knew Colin was instructing me to empty the air from my BCD, I did but it had little effect. He tried to keep me down but after a few seconds gave up and together we ascended. The rest of the group followed-suite a minute later and we headed back to the boat for lunch. Despite there being two other Scuba groups and a large group of snorkelers nearby, noone else (other then our group) saw the Turtle that day!
On the boat we relaxed, I attempted to fix my mask, and we got fresh tanks ready for our second dive. The boat took us to another bay which was more shallow but had plenty of beautiful coral. Colin who was working toward his Dive Master certification had to exchange everything while underwater (luckily he kept his wet suite on), and then on the surface perform a rescue (staged). It was fun entertainment to watch as we ate lunch. We waited an hour for digesting before we got back in the water for our last dive.
The last dive was great, I had little problems descending and we saw all sorts of fish and coral, as well as a blue spotted sting-ray that stayed along the bottom. I discovered a porcupine fish hiding amid a bunch of coral, and Woody had brought an underwater camera to take pics. It was by far our best dive, our confidence level was high, and we were moving through the water like pros. Again after about 30 minutes I was at 1/4 tank of air and this time Woody gave me his alt air source.
Michelle did great following along without holding hands, she really started to get the hang of using breathing to control where she was in the water. As I swam along beside Woody I saw a big shell just under a piece of reef. I switched to my own regulator and swam down to grab it. I found out later that I had discovered a huge (bigger then my fist) Tiger Cowrie! I wanted to be sure that there was noone at home in the shell so I immediately swam over to Woody. He made it clear I should put the thing back, and later on the boat explained that the animal inside could sting me, and that it might have been fatal (eep).
We returned home, chatting with our dive buddies all the way, the boat ride was much smoother and noone got sick. Our discoveries that day (the turtle and sting-ray) meant we were legend on the boat (for the day). Later that night back on Haad Yao beach we celebrated graduating the course. We got free t-shirts for doing so well on our tests and for not critically injuring Woody after five dives. We had some drinks and went for dinner with the Haad Yao crew. What an awesome bunch, we would surely miss them.
M Our last full day on the island we went off exploring. On the scooter we took our time and 15 minutes later we drove through Thong Sala, then after stopping at a 7-11 to give our butts a break we were off to see the biggest Yang tree on the island. Yep, it was a huge tree. Then as we were in the south of the island we thought we would go to Haad Rin, the place where the full moon party was held and apparently the most touristy part of the island. As we were just a minute away we came upon a large hill, infamous we later learned. We saw it coming and sped up, but our little scooter ground to a halt. No luck, the weight of both of us on our little pathetic bike was just too much. So we decided that I would get off and walk and Jes would drive to the top. Jes pulled over and I started walking.
Unfortunately as he turned the bike around on the hill the bike skidded on sand, and it took a nose dive. Jes managed to get away with some road rash on just the bottom of one leg, but the bike now had a good scratch on the one side of it. We were very worried of what the rental place would do, but there was nothing we could do but wait and find out. Jes attempted to drive up the steep hill again without me, but this silly hill had a curve in the road too, and after slowing down for the curve he couldn't get the bike up the hill. So I jumped on and we headed back toward Thong Sala. We decided to give up on the trip to Haad Rin and headed back to town to use the internet, we had a flight out of Surat Thani but hadn't made plans for how to go North from there.
Another issue we hadn't mentioned to this point, was that we had been contemplating staying on the island for a month before leaving to meet my sister in Japan. There were houses to rent for as little as $130/ month, and many people who come for a visit end up staying for awhile, including our diving friend Sue. At this point we had not yet decided if we wanted to stay or keep touring. After running into Sue in town (one of our dive buddies) and chatting with her for a bit we decided to get some lunch. We found a little Saturday market and enjoyed some curry (well Jes did as it was way too spicy for me), fresh fruit drinks and some meat on a stick. We discussed our choices of staying or going, and decided in the end after lengthy discussions to go ahead with our flight on Monday. One of the big factors was that we had already grabbed Chinese visa's, and wanted to use them. We also decided that Koh Phangan was not going anywhere and we could always return later if we choose to.
It was mid afternoon at this point and we had to head back to Haad Yao to meet with Woody as he made us a CD with underwater pictures of coral and fish, so cool! First though, we had to get Jes a hair cut, we found a shop only two minutes away from our hotel, and what happened to be beside the hair cut place, another a massage studio. As Jes got his hair cut (which ended up way too short, I don't think the lady understood any English or hand gestures) I got a back massage.
After we went back to Haad Yao and met up with our dive buddies, Sue, Nicki, Colin and Woody. We hung out there chatting for a couple hours then decided to head out, we had stayed late the previous two nights and wanted some time to ourselves. We went to a restaurant that we wished we had found earlier as it was cheap and tasty, then went to the hotel to relax in our air conditioned room and enjoy yet another movie.
The next morning, our last one on Koh Phangan. We woke early to return the bike. We were nervous as we pulled up, but hoped that the lady would not notice the scratch as there were many on it before, certainly the bike had seen its share of falls. No such luck. As she walked over she immediately pointed to the new scratch on the one side. Then without even looking at her paper pointed out other scratches on the mirror and back. She told us the charges for damages, which was double the price of renting the bike for a whole week. We were not happy, but there really was nothing we could do. Jes tried to reason with her, as the damaged fender was scratched on the opposite side, and Jes showed her that it was all one piece, so the new scratch was trivial. She decided to charge us a little less, which was still way too much.
Discouraged and a little poorer we returned to our hotel for the free breakfast one last time and to pack up our things. We went to check out and were pleased when the manager/owner agreed to give us an 80% refund on our first night which we missed while staying in Surat Thani. He then found out when the boat left and drove us to the pier. When we got there we saw that the speed boat was packed so he recommended the vehicle ferry as it was leaving shortly and had a covered area. It was quite cloudy and ended up raining so we were so happy for his help.
Before we knew it we were off on the ferry heading back to Surat Thani. Once at the dock we boarded a bus that took us into town. On the bus a guy told us that his guest house was across from the bus station and that we could get a bus from there to the airport the next day, and it was slightly cheaper than the other hotel we stayed at before and planned to go to. It was raining and it sounded good, so we went with it. We soon found why it was cheaper, but it did the trick for one night. Firstly, there was no hot water. Secondly, there was no flush on the toilet, you had to pour water into the toilet to flush it. Thirdly, the water from the sink ran down a two foot long hose and onto the floor. There were no top sheets, just a fitted one, and the blanket was pretty much a big towel, but it did have a TV. Like I said, fine for one night.
We went out in the rain in search of dinner, and landed at a pizza place. After sharing a small pizza we hit the night market. Why in the world did we eat pizza? There were so many good things at the market from meats on a stick, to curry, to little desserts and fruit drinks. We left stuffed and made it back to our hotel.
Bye Bye Koh Phangan, hopefully we'll be back one day.
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