A Week in the Life...

Another weekend has come and gone, even though there are no weekdays or weekends here. Throughout my travels, I have always been able to somewhat keep track of what day of the week it is, but somehow on this island paradise, it escapes me all of the time. A Thursday will feel like Sunday, today is Tuesday and somehow seems like Saturday. I think of time as today and yesterday and the day after next. It's a beautiful thing, but scary when you realize how fast it all goes by.

I took off on my visa run last Wednesday night. Destination: Burma. A sixteen hour journey of buses and boats that took me from Koh Tao and dropped me right back off without a hitch. The night boat was amazing. I got a lift to the pier and immediately plunked myself on one of the mattresses in the dorm for a great five hours of sleep. We arrived in Chumporn and were wisked away in a minivan to the border at Ranong just two short hours away. The border was hectic and it was extremely hot inland. I checked out of Thailand and got on the smelliest boat ever to take me and thirty others across the lake to Burma.



The ride was exciting, as I was sure the longtail boat we were on was going to sink at any minute. I was accompanied by people from all over the planet with the same intent on getting back to Koh Tao. I met some truly annoying British girls that had no idea what they were doing and watched them as they freaked when they saw the sign that said "Welcome to Myanmar." "Where's Myanmar?" they asked. "Where are we going?!" It was hilarious seeing all of the people on the boat wondering what these girls are talking about and then seeing one kind gentlemen go up to them and explain that Myanmar and Burma are one in the same.



We went to immigration in Burma and I really just felt bad. It was a shoddy office with just a card table setup. The poor guy sitting there looked miserable as he stamped our passports in and out of his country thinking about how we all didn't want to be there. This is not entirely true...I have to say that I'd like to visit Burma one of these days. With their men wearing skirts and their kind looking faces. I would definitely like to travel the areas that I am allowed someday. It's just that I have more pressing matters in Koh Tao at the moment.

We arrived back on the Thai side and I was granted fourteen more days in the country. Not long enough, but I'll be going back to Burma in a week or so to do it all over again. We hopped back on the minibus and then on the catamaran across the gulf. After an hour of relaxing below deck, I surfaced and looked out to see my home in the distance. I was back in Chalook Bay and welcomed by my friend, Sam, by 3pm.

Sam came down from Bangkok earlier in the day and was ready for me when I arrived. It was a wonderful reunion and the couple of hours that she'd spent alone on the island made her realize why I'd ditched her to stay there. We went to my apartment and settled in. It sounds like she'll be staying with me for a little while as I try to persuade her to try out the diving scene.

Her first night here was a special one. There were two DMTs that just completed their training and the night was reserved for the pool party/snorkel test. Whenever anyone finishes their training, their initiation is to drink a bucket (small bucket of some sort of alcoholic concoction) out of a snorkel. Not many finish, and I'm sure I won't when it's my time, but it's all in good fun and everyone attends. We went into Sairee to the Ban's pool and had our own private party with everyone around. We finished the night at the local pub with new friends in tow and it was a wonderful introduction for Sam to the island.



The day after the party, everyone decided to relax. We all curled up in the bungalow classroom on the beach and studied and talked and told stories of the day before. We swam in the sea and found some fun floatation devices to play with. I was supposed to dive that afternoon, but everyone else bailed, so I decided to relax that afternoon as well. The next day we were all headed out on the long journey to dive at Sail Rock, off the coast of Koh Phangan.

Everyone had a picture in their mind of what the Sail Rock trip would be like. It was the last dive on the islands for two of the people at the school. It was supposed to be a gorgeous day and the water would be like glass. The visibility would be 40 meters and we would get to see the whale shark we've all been looking for. I woke up in the morning, walked out on my balcony and found the complete opposite. For the first time on the island, it had rained overnight and the storm clouds were still rolling in.

I arrived at the dive school and everyone started taking motion sickness pills...not a good sign. The sky was opening up with buckets of rain as we hopped in the back of the open pickup truck to the other side of the island. We got on the Ban's boat and looked out at the rough seas and knew we were in for it. The swells were huge and water was pouring over the front of the boat. Everyone stayed on the bottom level wrapped in all of the dry clothes that they could find as we made the two hour journey out to the rock.



We arrived and people adorned their wigs and costumes before putting on their wetsuits to get in the water. Being a 40+ meter dive sight, the tech guys were there ready to find whatever lies below the point us novices would go. The visibilty wasn't spectacular, but it was beautiful just the same. The fishes were on steriods there. I saw a grouper that's head was larger than a basketball and it's length was at least a meter and a half. The rock has a chimney swim through which was fun to explore. We swam in at eight meters and out at eighteen a couple of times, watching our bubbles rise behind us. I was in a group with four newer DMTs so navigation was a bit of an issue, especially with the current, but we made it back to the boat safely after both dives. No whale sharks or tropical sun, but all in all, it was a good last dive for the couple of people that were leaving the island.

For the final hoorah party, we all decided to play it cool as everyone had something to do the next morning. Through the brilliance of Bastian, one of the leaving instructors, we found Crazy Mama's restaurant on the rough roads out towards Tanote Bay. A group of 15 of us dropped in on her after 9pm when the restaurant was completely empty. Mama is this truly crazy, and incredible Thai woman that welcomed us all with open arms and broken english. She called in reinforcements to cook us a huge meal while we all chilled on the balcony overlooking the twinkling lights of the bay below us. We didn't eat until after 11pm, but with the excellent conversation, no one really noticed. After dinner, she brought out the props and we all had a good laugh as she dressed us in wigs and hats and gave us fake guns to play with. The pictures turned out phenominal. Check this blog in a few days, I'll post them when I've got my camera with me.







Since Crazy Mama's, I've been on a bit of a diving binge...as if it could get any worse. It's like my job now, and I couldn't have a better one. I feel bad that Sam is left alone all day, but she seems to be keeping herself occupied. We have the evenings to hang out and chit chat. I started assisting my first course, a rescue course. I get to be the victim this time, and it's not as easy as it sounds. Flailing about in the water with full gear takes up energy. And when you've already done two dives in the morning, then spend four hours in the pool trying to play panicked diver, you get tired. I did this the other day and then proceeded to take a night dive afterwards and my body was exhausted...but the events of the night dive, the freakiest one yet, woke me up pretty quick.

One of my fellow DMTs, Lars, and I are in a competition. He started his just before me and is leading me in dives by about five or six at this point. I can't let him get too far ahead, so when I was on the break between the sea and the pool the other day, I decided I'd take him on and power through the night dive with him as my buddy. Both of us are still new at navigation, but White Rock is a fairly familiar site, so we took off on our own in search of whatever we could find under the sea.



We got into the water and immediately saw that the visibility was shit; maybe one or two meters. It's bad enough being in the dark, but in the thick blackness that not even our torches could penetrate, it felt slightly suffocating. We kept our course anyway and slid off the main rock after a few minutes to find the two other pinnacles that reside at the other side of the site. We swam through the sand and kept our compass on what we thought was the correct heading. We turned off our lights for a few minutes and played with the green phosporescents around us. We swam towards the pinnacle, and just about the time I was telling Lars it shouldn't take this long, a huge barracuda flashed in front of our lights. Normally this is an awesome occurence and we both tried to show off that it was sweet with our hand signals. But then we realized that the rock wasn't where we thought it was, and we both seemed unsure of our direction. After a few minutes of searching, I thought I'd found it...we had hit some sort of land mass. We cheered through our regulators and started swimming around it before realizing that this small boulder was not the large pinnacle we were looking for...and we both gave eachother the look. I pointed on the map that we should go back, we set our direction and started swimming....with the giant barracuda still flashing across our lamps. It was cool at first, but with each kick, Lars and I started swimming closer to eachother. We were huddled together watching this one meter fish circle us and wondered what else was going to come out at us from the deep. After a couple of minutes we gave up, it was time to surface. We ascended slowly, and very close together. We stopped at five meters and held hands while the required three minutes ticked by for what felt like an eternity. We surface just 45 meters from the boat and came up hugging eachother. It was a freakish night dive that I will not soon forget. I haven't been scared of a dive in a long time, but this one took the cake. With that horrible barracuda and no sense of direction in the blackness, I will admit I was a bit terrified. Both of us are laughing about it now and it's a great story to tell. I'll be emailing him in ten years to remind him of that night that we had to face our fear...but did everything that the books and lectures have taught us. We were smart divers that evening...and everything turned out brilliantly.

Yesterday, I jumped right back in the water in the morning for the second day of assisting on the rescue. We were on the boat bright and early and I was to play the victim under the water. We got to the dive site and I attempted to be the buddy from hell. I was swimming off into oblivion and flapping my arms wildly. I pretended to start touching the coral and my diver had to calm me down each time. I had to laugh when we came back up after a short 33 minutes and I had very little air in my tank. I'd sucked it all up with all of the energy I expelled trying to play my part. I was a bit embarassed but soon got over it. We did another dive and practiced some more. It will be good for my DMT to continue playing these parts. I learned a lot in the two days I was there for it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't complete the third day. Sam and I had plans that could not be broken. After the dives and some quick shopping (I finally have my own gear!!!!) we hopped on the boat and sailed over to Koh Phangan, just a two hour journey across the gulf. The famous Thai full moon party is tonight and we're here to see what all goes down. We arrived in the afternoon yesterday with big plans to go out last night, but after we saw our luxurious new bungalow, we decided to relax a bit. We walked in to our honeymoon suite of sorts, complete with air conditioning, gorgeous ourdoor bathroom and cable tv and just couldn't leave. We had dinner and drinks at the restaurant and then came back to watch two much needed episodes of Sex and the City, with Thai subtitles of course (PK- you should've been there!!!). This morning has been spent playing on the free internet in between movies on HBO. After this we will have to escape and go see the mayhem of Haad Rin Beach. With just two nights away from Koh Tao, I need to say that I saw something more than my hotel room. Hopefully the current clouds will dissapate and the full moon will come out and we'll dance our cares away until it's time to get back on the boat tomorrow afternoon.

PS -- Due to the sheer amount of people here and the possibility of theft, I don't have my camera on me while posting this blog. Check back in a couple of days. I'll make sure the pics of the last week get posted in their correct place. :)