The main pier of the island at dusk.
My SCUBA group getting briefed prior to our final dive at the East side of the island. The instructor is on the right and that is Dan and Delanie in the middle.
And that is one Grade-A American Beef Cake.
Friday, August 22, 2008
SCUBA Pics
The main pier of the island at dusk.
My SCUBA group getting briefed prior to our final dive at the East side of the island. The instructor is on the right and that is Dan and Delanie in the middle.
And that is one Grade-A American Beef Cake.
Koh Tao, Thailand
Well, today was pretty eventful. I completed my SCUBA course and now I am Open Water Certified. That means I am deemed competent by PADI to dive up to 18m on my own in open water.
Today on my last day we did two dives early in the morning. The deepest was about 20m even though our instructor can only technically take us to 18m. We got to see some pretty cool stuff some Stingray, an Octopus, an Eel, a couple of blowfish, some Christmas tree worms, a Box fish, and some other interesting aquatic specimens and coral. We also got to see a wreck on our second dive. That was less deep probably about 15m, but was just as exciting. The wreck was an old catameran and a motorbike someone drove into the water. The catermeran was pretty exciting Im not gonna lie. All the fish in the area were drawn to it so there were a bunch of small schools of fish just hanging around and were acting like they were guarding it. I got to get in the old Captains chair and act like I was driving it.
The SCUBA was fun and I am glad I did it, but I dont think Ill be taking the next level of diving classes, the Advanced Open Water Training Course, any time soon. I mean I enjoyed being in the water and seeing all the different things you cant see from the surface. And it definitely instilling in me a sense of peace while I was down in the water but still it was lacking something. The name of the game really is moving slowing and observing to conserve as much air as possible so you can stay down there the longest possible amount of time. And while I enjoyed being down there, I really just wanted to zip around and move quickly. The whole time you had to move slowly and just follow the instructor which kind of left something to be desired. I think I am a snorkel man where I can set my own pace and just dive down to the things I see that are cool. OR even a cliff diver, I think jumping from large rocks is more exciting then SCUBA diving. But still I am grateful I took the class and if the course only made me a better snorkeler then so be it.
If the opportunity presents itself for some world class diving in say Australia on the Great Barrier Reef then I may portake, which is why I am glad I got certified cheaply. But until then I think my SCUBA experiences will be on hold. Personally, I thought the best part of the dives were just riding on the boat and diving in the water. I dont get sea sick easily and have a pretty tough stomach. I find the bobbing of the boat exciting and I enjoy scuffling around the deck and watching the water go by. At some point on my trip, I am definitely going to pursue an extended stay on a boat/ship if possible. Fortunately, the ferry from Italy did not completely kill my Nautical aspirations.
I also looked at another course they have here called APNEA. Not the sleeping disorder. Its a course where they teach you how to dive unassisted down to 20 m or even 40 m in the advanced course. It seemed like a lot of fun. I would have signed up but the course starts the 25th and my visa ends the 27th. And while I think the repercussions of violating my visa would be minimal, I dont want to risk pissing off the Thai, because they are going to be my home base while Im in SE Asia.
The course starts off with them teaching you how to hold your breath for an extended period of time. They guarantee you will be able to hold your breath for at least 3 minutes by the end of the course. Think about how cool it would be to whip that out at a pool or in the ocean.
"Hold Crap, Where's Doug? He's been gone for at least 2 minutes and 59 second!"
"BAM! Im right here. No Big Deal. Its just something I picked up in Thailand."
Personally, I think that would be pretty cool.
. . . . .
But now Im off to bed. I think the fish I had for dinner. The one served with the tail and the head and eyeballs didnt agree with me. Tomorrow I leave for Ko Samoi where I will relax for 4 days and then head out of the country, south.
Today on my last day we did two dives early in the morning. The deepest was about 20m even though our instructor can only technically take us to 18m. We got to see some pretty cool stuff some Stingray, an Octopus, an Eel, a couple of blowfish, some Christmas tree worms, a Box fish, and some other interesting aquatic specimens and coral. We also got to see a wreck on our second dive. That was less deep probably about 15m, but was just as exciting. The wreck was an old catameran and a motorbike someone drove into the water. The catermeran was pretty exciting Im not gonna lie. All the fish in the area were drawn to it so there were a bunch of small schools of fish just hanging around and were acting like they were guarding it. I got to get in the old Captains chair and act like I was driving it.
The SCUBA was fun and I am glad I did it, but I dont think Ill be taking the next level of diving classes, the Advanced Open Water Training Course, any time soon. I mean I enjoyed being in the water and seeing all the different things you cant see from the surface. And it definitely instilling in me a sense of peace while I was down in the water but still it was lacking something. The name of the game really is moving slowing and observing to conserve as much air as possible so you can stay down there the longest possible amount of time. And while I enjoyed being down there, I really just wanted to zip around and move quickly. The whole time you had to move slowly and just follow the instructor which kind of left something to be desired. I think I am a snorkel man where I can set my own pace and just dive down to the things I see that are cool. OR even a cliff diver, I think jumping from large rocks is more exciting then SCUBA diving. But still I am grateful I took the class and if the course only made me a better snorkeler then so be it.
If the opportunity presents itself for some world class diving in say Australia on the Great Barrier Reef then I may portake, which is why I am glad I got certified cheaply. But until then I think my SCUBA experiences will be on hold. Personally, I thought the best part of the dives were just riding on the boat and diving in the water. I dont get sea sick easily and have a pretty tough stomach. I find the bobbing of the boat exciting and I enjoy scuffling around the deck and watching the water go by. At some point on my trip, I am definitely going to pursue an extended stay on a boat/ship if possible. Fortunately, the ferry from Italy did not completely kill my Nautical aspirations.
I also looked at another course they have here called APNEA. Not the sleeping disorder. Its a course where they teach you how to dive unassisted down to 20 m or even 40 m in the advanced course. It seemed like a lot of fun. I would have signed up but the course starts the 25th and my visa ends the 27th. And while I think the repercussions of violating my visa would be minimal, I dont want to risk pissing off the Thai, because they are going to be my home base while Im in SE Asia.
The course starts off with them teaching you how to hold your breath for an extended period of time. They guarantee you will be able to hold your breath for at least 3 minutes by the end of the course. Think about how cool it would be to whip that out at a pool or in the ocean.
"Hold Crap, Where's Doug? He's been gone for at least 2 minutes and 59 second!"
"BAM! Im right here. No Big Deal. Its just something I picked up in Thailand."
Personally, I think that would be pretty cool.
. . . . .
But now Im off to bed. I think the fish I had for dinner. The one served with the tail and the head and eyeballs didnt agree with me. Tomorrow I leave for Ko Samoi where I will relax for 4 days and then head out of the country, south.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Ko Toa, Thailand.
Ive jumped to another island on the East Coast of Thailand, Ko Toa. This will be the last new island I hit before I head into Malaysia in 6 days. I going to go back to Ko Samoi probably for a day or so then go towards the main land again.
Before I left Ko Pha-Ngan and headed here I did find the Volleyball Playing Lady Boy on the beach. He was 10 feet tall and could clear the net in a single prance. No, Its funny, I dont know why but I just assumed he would have been in Drag when I went there. But he wasnt. He was in Boy Form, except for the spandex and matching lime green sweat bands he was wearing. He was, I dont know, 5'5" and could jump very high considering we were on sand. He was very flamboyant and loved to trash talk, but still was no match for some good ole' American know-how. I rocked him every time I played him except for one game. Definitely one of the best guys out there but still was by no means a Doug Jeffery.
After doing that, I hung out with the Two Aussie cops I met one last time and then said good bye to my home for the past 9 days and headed on.
Ko Toa, has been interesting. I bought the tickets here at a discount by trading in some books I read and then headed over with no accommodations planned. I just got on the boat, which they fill till they cant fill it anymore, and just came over. It seems like everyone went to Ko Pha-Ngan for the Full Moon Party and then everyone afterwards headed to Ko Toa which is half the size. So on the way over there was a rumor going around that you couldnt get a room here unless you were part of SCUBA Diving class, which is very big here. So . . . . . Doug is getting certified for his PADI Open Water Diving License. It wasnt that expensive about $270 which includes food, accommodations, and all the equipment you need for 4 days of diving, so I think I got a pretty good deal. And I think I can make up the money I'm spending in the rest of SE Asia later. My instructor is a pretty comical English guy who has been in Thailand for 3 and a half years and has done over 2,600 dives. I started with the video and book and all the rest yesterday. Today we started in the classroom again and then went out and did some exercises in a shallow area. We practiced how to clear your goggles, buddy breathe, indicate you're out of air and a whole bunch of other stuff. Then we headed down and did a 12 meter dive. It really has been awesome, Im extremely excited for tomorrow's dive too. The only draw backs have been the 18 inch lizard living in my bathroom and the fish love to eat the scabs on my leg from Motorbike accident. It's funny I have two other people in my class and guess where they use to live . . . . . in Courthouse in Arlington, Virginia. I have met maybe 10 Americans since Ive left the States and I have met two different groups of people from Arlington.
I didnt post any pictures because its hard to have a camera with all the water on the boat, but the guy I met from VA actually is a Photo editor for a San Francisco Newspaper and he is taking a ton of pictures which he has promised to email me. So they will be out there soon.
Also, i just discovered where the spell check is on the site, so hopefully that should get better.
Before I left Ko Pha-Ngan and headed here I did find the Volleyball Playing Lady Boy on the beach. He was 10 feet tall and could clear the net in a single prance. No, Its funny, I dont know why but I just assumed he would have been in Drag when I went there. But he wasnt. He was in Boy Form, except for the spandex and matching lime green sweat bands he was wearing. He was, I dont know, 5'5" and could jump very high considering we were on sand. He was very flamboyant and loved to trash talk, but still was no match for some good ole' American know-how. I rocked him every time I played him except for one game. Definitely one of the best guys out there but still was by no means a Doug Jeffery.
After doing that, I hung out with the Two Aussie cops I met one last time and then said good bye to my home for the past 9 days and headed on.
Ko Toa, has been interesting. I bought the tickets here at a discount by trading in some books I read and then headed over with no accommodations planned. I just got on the boat, which they fill till they cant fill it anymore, and just came over. It seems like everyone went to Ko Pha-Ngan for the Full Moon Party and then everyone afterwards headed to Ko Toa which is half the size. So on the way over there was a rumor going around that you couldnt get a room here unless you were part of SCUBA Diving class, which is very big here. So . . . . . Doug is getting certified for his PADI Open Water Diving License. It wasnt that expensive about $270 which includes food, accommodations, and all the equipment you need for 4 days of diving, so I think I got a pretty good deal. And I think I can make up the money I'm spending in the rest of SE Asia later. My instructor is a pretty comical English guy who has been in Thailand for 3 and a half years and has done over 2,600 dives. I started with the video and book and all the rest yesterday. Today we started in the classroom again and then went out and did some exercises in a shallow area. We practiced how to clear your goggles, buddy breathe, indicate you're out of air and a whole bunch of other stuff. Then we headed down and did a 12 meter dive. It really has been awesome, Im extremely excited for tomorrow's dive too. The only draw backs have been the 18 inch lizard living in my bathroom and the fish love to eat the scabs on my leg from Motorbike accident. It's funny I have two other people in my class and guess where they use to live . . . . . in Courthouse in Arlington, Virginia. I have met maybe 10 Americans since Ive left the States and I have met two different groups of people from Arlington.
I didnt post any pictures because its hard to have a camera with all the water on the boat, but the guy I met from VA actually is a Photo editor for a San Francisco Newspaper and he is taking a ton of pictures which he has promised to email me. So they will be out there soon.
Also, i just discovered where the spell check is on the site, so hopefully that should get better.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Ko Pha-Ngan, Thailand
Booyyaa! Doug is 7 + 9 is 16, times 2 is 32, minus 8 is 24! Not many people know this but in another life I was the 1995 Pennwood Middle School Challenge 24 Champion. Steve Smith eat your heart out. I dont know how to say this, but . . . . . Im kinda big deal. After making it through regionals, I later went on to states at the Ben Franklin Institute where they started to give problems that didnt have solutions. The people who ran the thing were sick people. I mean we were just kids. But I digress.
The Full Moon Party was awesome. It's funny right as I was coming to post this I bumped in one of the Canadians guys I left with. We left at 10:30 pm on the 16th for the party and this guy came back at 6 pm the next day. He was out partying for nearly 24 hours. haha. . . All he said to me was the after party was strong . . . I am going to go crash in my hammock. He is now nocturnal.
The party takes place on a beach maybe 500 m across that has its back to a bunch of bars and hotels. And everyone goes there just to get ridiculous. Everyone is wearing crazy hats and glasses and paints there body in neon paint. It was really a huge rave with 30,000 people. I left with about a group of 8 French Canadians and French people. They were a good group. Europeans love trance music. I dont know why but they do. I can handle my own when it comes to hip hop but I have no idea how to dance to trance music. Everyone to me looks like they are Zombies pawing at the air or just extremely stoned. They probably were for all I know. I danced with them for a bit but you can really only flail your arms around and bob your head for so long without vomitting. I hung out with them for a bit and then saw two Aussies who are police back home. The one guy had been there before. There was a huge sign maybe 3 or 4 stories tall in the middle of the beach with "Full Moon Party" burning on scaffolding. The one guy Nick wanted to climb the thing once it burned out and try to shake the thing over. I had no plans so we did. Im still covered in Black stuff from it. To get to the thing though you had to wade through the water for maybe 20 feet. Bad idea. Every guy there pees in the water as the night goes on.
After hanging out with the Aussies, I just wandered around for a bit and bumped into some Dannish people I had played volleyball with earlier. We hung out for a while and had some buckets. What's a bucket you ask. It's a bucket filled with liquor and coke and costs $6. Those things can sneak up on ya. We ended up hanging out for a while. At one point I ended up going to the bathroom and never could find them when I returned. I ended up roaming around for a while and then stumbled home at about 6am. This is the abridged version of course and there are some holes Im stilling trying to fill in but all in all it was a good time.
I ended up playing volleyball for maybe 4 and a half hours on my birthday. It was perfect. When I got to the beach noone was playing but there were some people just lying next to the court. So I found a ball and took a nap with my head on the ball in the middle of the court. It was my way of challenging the whole beach and forcing whoever wanted to play to play with me. It worked out well. I met a bunch of people. A Korean guy invited me to play with him and some other good people in a couple of days. He told me, and I swear this is true, the best person that plays on the beach is a Lady Boy. No Joke. He may have been lying but he said she/he can jump his/her own height. haha I dont think I am going to leave the island till I have played this Lady Boy.
. . . . .
A couple of days ago, I took my motorbike to the East part of the island just to see it for a night. On the up and down the steep hills I ended up falling off my bike. . . . . twice. One for each leg. The roads were all paved leading up to the point where I fell then it became dirt. I scratched up my leg pretty well. Im fine but it definitely hurt. I had to use the ocean to clean it out. And then because I only had my day pack with me, Listerine was the only thing I had to clean out the wound. Salt and Alcohol dont mix well with cuts. I ended up having to pay someone to take my bike back in a truck because it kept staling whenever I would try to climb the huge hill the next day to leave.
I returned the bike as soon as I got back and havent been on one since, nor will I again anytime soon. I consider myself lucky though because you pass people almost every ten minutes when you go into town who are all bandaged up from the very same thing. As I was being trucked out of the beach, we saw a girl fall in nearly the same spot. The guy driving me said he has to take people to the hospital almost every week because they fall at this one bend in the road. Thailand is a crazy place.
Good times. I fjust started Jack Keroauc's On the Road again and I think Ill stay on this island till I finish it.
Later, I have a volleyball playing she-male to find.
The Full Moon Party was awesome. It's funny right as I was coming to post this I bumped in one of the Canadians guys I left with. We left at 10:30 pm on the 16th for the party and this guy came back at 6 pm the next day. He was out partying for nearly 24 hours. haha. . . All he said to me was the after party was strong . . . I am going to go crash in my hammock. He is now nocturnal.
The party takes place on a beach maybe 500 m across that has its back to a bunch of bars and hotels. And everyone goes there just to get ridiculous. Everyone is wearing crazy hats and glasses and paints there body in neon paint. It was really a huge rave with 30,000 people. I left with about a group of 8 French Canadians and French people. They were a good group. Europeans love trance music. I dont know why but they do. I can handle my own when it comes to hip hop but I have no idea how to dance to trance music. Everyone to me looks like they are Zombies pawing at the air or just extremely stoned. They probably were for all I know. I danced with them for a bit but you can really only flail your arms around and bob your head for so long without vomitting. I hung out with them for a bit and then saw two Aussies who are police back home. The one guy had been there before. There was a huge sign maybe 3 or 4 stories tall in the middle of the beach with "Full Moon Party" burning on scaffolding. The one guy Nick wanted to climb the thing once it burned out and try to shake the thing over. I had no plans so we did. Im still covered in Black stuff from it. To get to the thing though you had to wade through the water for maybe 20 feet. Bad idea. Every guy there pees in the water as the night goes on.
After hanging out with the Aussies, I just wandered around for a bit and bumped into some Dannish people I had played volleyball with earlier. We hung out for a while and had some buckets. What's a bucket you ask. It's a bucket filled with liquor and coke and costs $6. Those things can sneak up on ya. We ended up hanging out for a while. At one point I ended up going to the bathroom and never could find them when I returned. I ended up roaming around for a while and then stumbled home at about 6am. This is the abridged version of course and there are some holes Im stilling trying to fill in but all in all it was a good time.
I ended up playing volleyball for maybe 4 and a half hours on my birthday. It was perfect. When I got to the beach noone was playing but there were some people just lying next to the court. So I found a ball and took a nap with my head on the ball in the middle of the court. It was my way of challenging the whole beach and forcing whoever wanted to play to play with me. It worked out well. I met a bunch of people. A Korean guy invited me to play with him and some other good people in a couple of days. He told me, and I swear this is true, the best person that plays on the beach is a Lady Boy. No Joke. He may have been lying but he said she/he can jump his/her own height. haha I dont think I am going to leave the island till I have played this Lady Boy.
. . . . .
A couple of days ago, I took my motorbike to the East part of the island just to see it for a night. On the up and down the steep hills I ended up falling off my bike. . . . . twice. One for each leg. The roads were all paved leading up to the point where I fell then it became dirt. I scratched up my leg pretty well. Im fine but it definitely hurt. I had to use the ocean to clean it out. And then because I only had my day pack with me, Listerine was the only thing I had to clean out the wound. Salt and Alcohol dont mix well with cuts. I ended up having to pay someone to take my bike back in a truck because it kept staling whenever I would try to climb the huge hill the next day to leave.
I returned the bike as soon as I got back and havent been on one since, nor will I again anytime soon. I consider myself lucky though because you pass people almost every ten minutes when you go into town who are all bandaged up from the very same thing. As I was being trucked out of the beach, we saw a girl fall in nearly the same spot. The guy driving me said he has to take people to the hospital almost every week because they fall at this one bend in the road. Thailand is a crazy place.
Good times. I fjust started Jack Keroauc's On the Road again and I think Ill stay on this island till I finish it.
Later, I have a volleyball playing she-male to find.
Pictures of Ko Pha-Ngan and Ko Samoi
Above is my Bungalow in Ko Samoi.
This is the quality of the road I fell on, except where I fell I was going down a hill that was at about a 45 degree angle.
This is where I spent the night after my fall. It was a nice beach where you could jump off the rocks in the background. It was very quiet. It was weird but nearly everyone there was German.
The view from my place on the Eastern part of the island. The picture above this one shows what the place looks like from the beach. It was actually really nice considering I only paid 350 Baht, $14.
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