It all started with last week. I was out fun diving almost every day and hanging out with people from the dive school at night. I was still staying at Sunshine on the beach and still hadn't left that area of the island....and then it happened. I got on a motorbike and went up to Sairee, the larger beach, with some friends to see my very first Thai lady boy show. And it was all downhill from there.
The show was actually quite awesome. And the girls...I mean boys....were really, really good looking. They do a whole Vegas showgirl routine, throwing some Thai "culture" into it and everyone has a blast. They pull people onto the stage in the end of it all and dress them up as well. Quite embarassing for everyone watching, but all in good fun of course. My new friends and I all enjoyed and made a night out of it afterwards. It was my first big party on the island and it felt wonderful to have so many people around me.
From there, it was St. Patrick's Day. With so many tourists on the island and so many Irish, it wasn't hard to find something to do. I went out with a bunch of the people from the dive school and it rained green glitter on us throughout the night. We laughed and had such a good time. The next day I woke up, went for two dives, had the most amazing visability yet on the island, and my mind was made up. I've become a new DMT (divemaster trainee).
After my rescue course, I had been contemplating this move, but was really going back and forth on it. Becoming a divemaster requires a massive amount of skill assessments and tests, written and in the water. People take at least two months to complete it, many take much more. The DMTs usually finish with over 100 dives in their logbooks, although with all the free diving you can have, there are a lot that surpass 150. My big debacle is that I will not finish it before I have to return to the states. Starting it here and now means I absolutely have to come back asap. I don't like long term plans, as everyone knows, so of course this was a tough decision. But seeing this place and becoming part of this island has been so wonderful, it won't be difficult to return. I'm looking at plane tickets for the middle of July. I'll be here until I finish my training, and then we'll see where I go from there.
After my decision was made, I got my new Sunshine Dive School t-shirt and attending the Koh Tao Underwater Festival with everyone else. The fest was gloriously decorated with jellyfish hanging from the trees and a huge silver fish over the stage. There was food and drink everywhere. Thai bands were performing. And each of the large dive schools on the island had their own dance routines to show off to the crowd. It was great fun for everyone and I think the entire island attended. The fest lasted two nights, and I was even able to get some diving done in between.
After the festival was over, it was time to get down to business. Priorty one: a new place to live. I was paying an exorbitant price for my last place on a nightly basis, and although it was close to the school, paying that for another five weeks was just not going to fly. I went diving with a few people on Monday and they knew of an open apartment in their complex, so I went to look at it that evening. I was moved in within the hour. My new bungalow is beautiful. I have a bed, two sofas, a small kitchen (sink and refrigerator only, it's way cheaper just to eat out here) and a bathroom (cold shower only, but man, it's hot here, it really doesn't matter). I have a gorgeous tile balcony that faces out to the palm covered mountains. There's even a place to hang my hammock.
So what does this all mean? Basically, I'm not traveling in Asia right now. By the time I leave this island, I will have seen nothing but what lies under the sea around it. I talked to a friend about this last week when I was making this decision, and the main thing is that these countries will still be here when I get back. I have a home for the first time in over six months and I'm quite content to stay in it for a little while. I've made friends here and always have something to occupy my time with. Speaking of which....
Yesterday, a friend an I decided to ride over to Shark Bay to have a snorkel. I had borrowed another friend's huge fins and mask and attempted to get a look at some of these sharks close up. Apparently, I'm getting a little more ballsy as time goes on. Low and behold, I saw my first sharks yesterday...and yes, I freaked. They were small, less than a meter, black tipped reef sharks. They are non-aggressive, but the first two came so close in the very shallow water that I sucked all sorts of water through my snorkel and then proceeded to choke as it swam away from me. With the second, I forgot to put my snorkel back in and then tried to breath underwater like I was diving, which had the same result. After maintaining my bearings and telling my buddy I was swimming to shore, I saw two more of these little creatures. I was pretty shaken, but in retrospect, they were so beautiful the way they glide through the water. If nothing else, I think I'll be a little more prepared the next time I see one. And I'm definitely going to be using better equipment.
So there you have it. That's what I've been doing. Not much different than real life. It's work, taking people out diving and studying things like physics and physiology. I led my first diver alone today and got lost on the dive site, which is pretty easy to do with my bad navigation skills. But it all turned out well, just a small surface swim. In time I will get better. The friend that I was supposed to meet up with in Bangkok will be here on the island tomorrow and I'm so excited to host her in my new place. Unfortunately, my visa is running out very quickly, so tonight I actually have to leave Koh Tao. Luckily I will only be gone one day. There is a boat that will take me to a bus, to another boat, and another, and another bus to another boat that will take me to Burma and back. I will pop across the border tomorrow morning and walk back into Thailand with my visa renewed. I'll have to do this twice before leaving Thailand for good. It's a small price to pay to stay in paradise just a little bit longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment