Steve bit Ryan’s foot last night. I swear that cat needs a good ass-whooping. Ryan was all manner of mad, picked up kitty by the scruff of the neck and sionara’ed him out the door.
We got temporary jobs! Princess Divers has an instructor who’s leaving and a couple instructors coming back in a few weeks, so they need us to fill in the gap. We’re very pleased as it will give us a bit of income as well as get us some familiarity with working on the island.
We're on route to Penang - crammed in a mini van that's very bouncy!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Pressing On and a Visa Run
Steve bit me last night. This was after I thoughtfully brought him back home-made fettuccini with an asparagus and mushroom cream sauce that he yummied right up. Little poopmonster drew blood. Believe me that at the time he got called a wide array of colorful names and poopmonster was the kindest and most polite I could come up with for the blog. He bit me on the foot, which I guess got in his way while I was stretching on MY bed. So no walking to the top of the Viewpoint for me today. And thank god for an up-to-date tetanus! It’s on the bottom of my foot though in the arch, so I have to keep a bandaid on it or it will get infected from walking around in
flip flops so it’s going to take forever to heal. Dumb cat!
On our way into town this morning we passed a danger zone. A human had a monkey on a rope and the monkey was up a palm tree picking coconuts for his human. You had to time your passage so as not to end up with a coconut on the head. Don’t see that driving into work on the 101!
We’re off to Penang, Malaysia tomorrow morning to get our three month visas. We’ll be back late Thursday. It’s a 10 hour bus ride tomorrow, followed by a day of waiting for our visas, followed by another day on a bus. A lot of traveling for something that in my opinion could just as easily be done at the immigration office in Phuket. I *really* don’t understand why we have to go through this two days on a bus thing. And we have to do this every three months. The easy answer is that they want their money. And that’s fine, I have no arguments against paying immigration for a visa. Just don’t make it such a pain in the butt to get one. On the plus side, Penang is supposed to have killer Indian food which Phi Phi does not. Looking forward to a Vindaloo.
Much progress has been made over the past couple of days. Let’s see…
We met a really nice lady from Ireland who’s leaving to go visit her brother in San Francisco for 3 months and was looking for someone responsible to sublet her room. So Ryan and I are going to stay at her place. The Pink is small and noisy. I’m glad that Ryan convinced me to try it for a week before we committed to a month. We went and visited Keira’s room which made me realize just how small the Pink is and the noise – well, the noise comes from the wind and rain at night which slams around the corrugated metal fence that separates the Pink property from the neighbours. Keira has assured us that her place is very quiet. If we like it, we’ll probably rent a place from the same complex. (Complex, check me out, I make it sound like it’s cookie-cutter condominiums in Sunnyvale.)
We’re going to leave all of our stuff at Keira’s while we go which will save us a few nights of paying double for a hotel room.
We’ve now put in our resumes and cards to every shop on the island. And we’re waiting. Keira’s departure might open up some opportunities for us as she’s a freelancer with a couple of the shops here – notably one that she recommended to us called Blue View Dives. They’re off the beaten path and cater mostly to resort clientele. They also have a contract with a Canadian company that keeps them busy about 9 months out of the year. And they’re losing their two instructors in September. So we’re hoping we might get some business out of them. When we get back from our visa run, we'll do another rounds to refresh our faces in the minds of all those managers.
I’ve discovered green papaya salad – so so so so good – and a healthy meal alternative to coconut milk curry of some sort over rice.
As I write this, we’re sitting at D’s Books, the little café/bookshop we’ve been having breakfast at while enjoying some “free” wifi. I use the quotes because our breakfast is a little pricier than it would be were it not for the “free” internet. Their menu is an assortment of baked goods, sandwiches, waffles, cereal/muesli with fruit, yogurt or milk, and a couple egg dishes. They also make a very good cup of coffee and some killer fruit shakes. But their “kitchen” would make Nicole scream. First of all, it’s out doors. Consists of two stainless steel work benches and two upright cast iron burners. It’s very simple, very efficient and, unlike the Pad Thai lady, they at least have proper refrigeration. Funny.
flip flops so it’s going to take forever to heal. Dumb cat!
On our way into town this morning we passed a danger zone. A human had a monkey on a rope and the monkey was up a palm tree picking coconuts for his human. You had to time your passage so as not to end up with a coconut on the head. Don’t see that driving into work on the 101!
We’re off to Penang, Malaysia tomorrow morning to get our three month visas. We’ll be back late Thursday. It’s a 10 hour bus ride tomorrow, followed by a day of waiting for our visas, followed by another day on a bus. A lot of traveling for something that in my opinion could just as easily be done at the immigration office in Phuket. I *really* don’t understand why we have to go through this two days on a bus thing. And we have to do this every three months. The easy answer is that they want their money. And that’s fine, I have no arguments against paying immigration for a visa. Just don’t make it such a pain in the butt to get one. On the plus side, Penang is supposed to have killer Indian food which Phi Phi does not. Looking forward to a Vindaloo.
Much progress has been made over the past couple of days. Let’s see…
We met a really nice lady from Ireland who’s leaving to go visit her brother in San Francisco for 3 months and was looking for someone responsible to sublet her room. So Ryan and I are going to stay at her place. The Pink is small and noisy. I’m glad that Ryan convinced me to try it for a week before we committed to a month. We went and visited Keira’s room which made me realize just how small the Pink is and the noise – well, the noise comes from the wind and rain at night which slams around the corrugated metal fence that separates the Pink property from the neighbours. Keira has assured us that her place is very quiet. If we like it, we’ll probably rent a place from the same complex. (Complex, check me out, I make it sound like it’s cookie-cutter condominiums in Sunnyvale.)
We’re going to leave all of our stuff at Keira’s while we go which will save us a few nights of paying double for a hotel room.
We’ve now put in our resumes and cards to every shop on the island. And we’re waiting. Keira’s departure might open up some opportunities for us as she’s a freelancer with a couple of the shops here – notably one that she recommended to us called Blue View Dives. They’re off the beaten path and cater mostly to resort clientele. They also have a contract with a Canadian company that keeps them busy about 9 months out of the year. And they’re losing their two instructors in September. So we’re hoping we might get some business out of them. When we get back from our visa run, we'll do another rounds to refresh our faces in the minds of all those managers.
I’ve discovered green papaya salad – so so so so good – and a healthy meal alternative to coconut milk curry of some sort over rice.
As I write this, we’re sitting at D’s Books, the little café/bookshop we’ve been having breakfast at while enjoying some “free” wifi. I use the quotes because our breakfast is a little pricier than it would be were it not for the “free” internet. Their menu is an assortment of baked goods, sandwiches, waffles, cereal/muesli with fruit, yogurt or milk, and a couple egg dishes. They also make a very good cup of coffee and some killer fruit shakes. But their “kitchen” would make Nicole scream. First of all, it’s out doors. Consists of two stainless steel work benches and two upright cast iron burners. It’s very simple, very efficient and, unlike the Pad Thai lady, they at least have proper refrigeration. Funny.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Pizza Ho-Bag Steve
We came home tonight with no leftovers for Steve. Ryan went to refill the water bottle at the 5TB water station and I headed across the field to the bungalow. Steve came leaping out of the bushes meowing up a storm and followed me inside and meowed the whole time I was in the shower. I exited the shower right around the time Ryan walked in the door to Steve howling. Ryan suggested that we toss the leftover pizza from two nights ago (it’s not been refrigerated), but was wondering what we could give Steve. Ryan bought Basil and Garlic Pringles at the shop tonight so I said he should share with Steve. Which he did (though he decided that two Pringles was about right for cat serving – I thought that was a little stingy).
Steve did too and went and dug the styrofoam of pizza out of the garbage. Ryan heard and took it away from him and was getting ready to boot Steve out of the room. I protested and told Ryan to put the garbage in the bathroom and close the door. Ryan didn't like that idea because then Steve wouldn’t be able to have a drink of water (mind you two seconds earlier Ryan was ready to give him the old heave-ho). So Ryan just put the garbage on top of the clothes rack. And all was quiet for a while. Then came a slap and a thud as first the styrofoam of pizza hit the ground shortly followed by the thud of cat landing. How can you argue with that? He's adamant about having pizza for dinner! And now he’s leaving us which is just as well seeing as that pizza’s two days old so has a good chance of making an encore!
Steve did too and went and dug the styrofoam of pizza out of the garbage. Ryan heard and took it away from him and was getting ready to boot Steve out of the room. I protested and told Ryan to put the garbage in the bathroom and close the door. Ryan didn't like that idea because then Steve wouldn’t be able to have a drink of water (mind you two seconds earlier Ryan was ready to give him the old heave-ho). So Ryan just put the garbage on top of the clothes rack. And all was quiet for a while. Then came a slap and a thud as first the styrofoam of pizza hit the ground shortly followed by the thud of cat landing. How can you argue with that? He's adamant about having pizza for dinner! And now he’s leaving us which is just as well seeing as that pizza’s two days old so has a good chance of making an encore!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Steve, "The Beach", the Viewpoint and the Hawk
Steve also likes pizza. This is what he’s been getting for treats. I said that we should buy a little bit of catfood for Steve, but Ryan is of the opinion that Steve is well fed and I must say that for a stray island kitty he is rather rotund. Steve spends a bit of nap time in the afternoon with us and he spends evenings with us before we kick him out when it’s lights out time. I don’t want to keep him overnight in case he pees on my stuff.
The past two times that we’ve gone diving, we’ve enjoyed our surface interval in Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh. Maya Bay is most famous for being the backdrop of the movie version of The Beach. It is as picturesque as you’d imagine with turquoise water and pale sandy beach. Speed boats spot the shore line, some circled by snorkelers. It is a major stop on the island hopping tours that depart from Phuket and Phi Phi Don.
Both of our visits were greeted by a beached sail boat which hadn’t been there for long – in fact on our first day, it seemed to be getting a visit from the authorities. This prompted my Facebook posting of “Somebody is having a worst day than you are.” Ignoring for a moment that the guy should not have been anchored in Maya Bay in the first place, it’s gotta suck to lose your anchor and start keeling over. We saw that happen in Bequia and a beaching can happen super fast.
Incidentally, this diving that we’re doing is giving us a good introduction to the different sites. Navigation is a breeze – mostly it’s wall dives, so you either keep the reef on your right or you left. The boat drops you off and picks you up, so there’s not a whole lot to it. In fact, I think I’ve mentioned that Andy’s let us go off on our own a couple of times. He’s mentioned that some of the shops wouldn’t let us do that regardless of our dive history, but he’s perfectly happy to do so. And let’s face it, it’s good for him as well. If he’s booked us and he knows he can let us go off, then he’s still free to book a few more people.
I touched the exact same thing that I touched in the Philippines and now my left thumb has the SARS. I cut myself on some kind of coral and it itches and has made funny blisters and is red and gross and it will last at least a month because that’s how long it lasted after the Philippines. And being hot and sweaty all the time does not help with the itching.
We’ve gone around to most of the shops on the island and given either a CV or a business card or both. Some shops are adamant that they don’t need people, others are happy to take your information and use you as a freelancer if they have work. One guy went so far as to tell us that he wouldn’t need anyone for at least 5 months (that’s December) – I don’t see how people can make claims like that. But it is the low season so we know that work may be slow to come until September. We have one shop to go visit at the complete other end of the beach. They’re attached to a resort.
I’m really not sure how we’re going to occupy two more months on this teeny tiny island if we don’t get calls for work before high season.
A few days ago we finally walked up to the Viewpoint. It’s a good climb up a million steps and when the steps are done, there’s probably still a good mile or so to climb. But the view is breathtaking. It’s from the top of the mountain that you can see down to Tonsai Village, the strip and two beaches. Tonsai is nothing more than a strip of beach connecting two islands. Out of curiosity and because people do talk about it we’ve googled the tsunami and watched some footage on YouTube. Seeing the topography of Phi Phi Don, I just don’t see how Tonsai registered as so much of a bleep on the tsunami radar.
We went back up to the Viewpoint yesterday and walked even further this time to where you can see Krabi (the province to the east on the peninsula), Phuket and a ton of other small islands. Unfortunately, I did not take the camera this time since I thought that we were just going to see the same thing again. I’ll repeat that it is one hell of a climb! I suspect that Ryan will want to go back up there today and I’m thinking that it’s really really hot to be clambering up there.
There are little convenience stores at the various viewpoint stops. They sell water, sodas, ice-cream – and are adamant, all of them, about no beer which leads me to wonder if in the past they’ve been used as party central either disturbing the peace or leading to an accident of some sort. Anyway there was a nice Scandanavian couple up there yesterday enjoying an ice-cream each – the kind that looks like a dove bar - when a bird of prey – probably a hawk – swooped down and tried to steal the guy’s ice-cream, knocking it out of his hands. The guy then tossed him the ice-cream, the hawk picked the chocolate shell off of it and left the rest to melt on the rocks. A few minutes later a white kitty with very large cohones came by lapped up some of the ice-cream. And the girl did not share the rest of her ice-cream with the guy and the guy did not get a new one.
The past two times that we’ve gone diving, we’ve enjoyed our surface interval in Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh. Maya Bay is most famous for being the backdrop of the movie version of The Beach. It is as picturesque as you’d imagine with turquoise water and pale sandy beach. Speed boats spot the shore line, some circled by snorkelers. It is a major stop on the island hopping tours that depart from Phuket and Phi Phi Don.
Both of our visits were greeted by a beached sail boat which hadn’t been there for long – in fact on our first day, it seemed to be getting a visit from the authorities. This prompted my Facebook posting of “Somebody is having a worst day than you are.” Ignoring for a moment that the guy should not have been anchored in Maya Bay in the first place, it’s gotta suck to lose your anchor and start keeling over. We saw that happen in Bequia and a beaching can happen super fast.
Incidentally, this diving that we’re doing is giving us a good introduction to the different sites. Navigation is a breeze – mostly it’s wall dives, so you either keep the reef on your right or you left. The boat drops you off and picks you up, so there’s not a whole lot to it. In fact, I think I’ve mentioned that Andy’s let us go off on our own a couple of times. He’s mentioned that some of the shops wouldn’t let us do that regardless of our dive history, but he’s perfectly happy to do so. And let’s face it, it’s good for him as well. If he’s booked us and he knows he can let us go off, then he’s still free to book a few more people.
I touched the exact same thing that I touched in the Philippines and now my left thumb has the SARS. I cut myself on some kind of coral and it itches and has made funny blisters and is red and gross and it will last at least a month because that’s how long it lasted after the Philippines. And being hot and sweaty all the time does not help with the itching.
We’ve gone around to most of the shops on the island and given either a CV or a business card or both. Some shops are adamant that they don’t need people, others are happy to take your information and use you as a freelancer if they have work. One guy went so far as to tell us that he wouldn’t need anyone for at least 5 months (that’s December) – I don’t see how people can make claims like that. But it is the low season so we know that work may be slow to come until September. We have one shop to go visit at the complete other end of the beach. They’re attached to a resort.
I’m really not sure how we’re going to occupy two more months on this teeny tiny island if we don’t get calls for work before high season.
A few days ago we finally walked up to the Viewpoint. It’s a good climb up a million steps and when the steps are done, there’s probably still a good mile or so to climb. But the view is breathtaking. It’s from the top of the mountain that you can see down to Tonsai Village, the strip and two beaches. Tonsai is nothing more than a strip of beach connecting two islands. Out of curiosity and because people do talk about it we’ve googled the tsunami and watched some footage on YouTube. Seeing the topography of Phi Phi Don, I just don’t see how Tonsai registered as so much of a bleep on the tsunami radar.
We went back up to the Viewpoint yesterday and walked even further this time to where you can see Krabi (the province to the east on the peninsula), Phuket and a ton of other small islands. Unfortunately, I did not take the camera this time since I thought that we were just going to see the same thing again. I’ll repeat that it is one hell of a climb! I suspect that Ryan will want to go back up there today and I’m thinking that it’s really really hot to be clambering up there.
There are little convenience stores at the various viewpoint stops. They sell water, sodas, ice-cream – and are adamant, all of them, about no beer which leads me to wonder if in the past they’ve been used as party central either disturbing the peace or leading to an accident of some sort. Anyway there was a nice Scandanavian couple up there yesterday enjoying an ice-cream each – the kind that looks like a dove bar - when a bird of prey – probably a hawk – swooped down and tried to steal the guy’s ice-cream, knocking it out of his hands. The guy then tossed him the ice-cream, the hawk picked the chocolate shell off of it and left the rest to melt on the rocks. A few minutes later a white kitty with very large cohones came by lapped up some of the ice-cream. And the girl did not share the rest of her ice-cream with the guy and the guy did not get a new one.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
More Phi Phi
Written June 22.
We’ve moved again. This time we are in the Pink Adobe. It’s a bungalow and we are back to basics – fan, cold shower, manual flush toilet.
We toured the island yesterday and looked at many rooms and this bungalow. Each room is pretty much the same – a bed, a small bathroom – some without even a sink – a fan and very very sparse in furniture. A couple we visited had a big bed and a small bed and we joked that would be Chris’ bed if we took one of those rooms. Some are slightly bigger, some are slightly smaller, all are on the ground level, some with people above you. Most were about a 5 to 7 minute walk into town. All were about the same price - 8000 to 10000 TB per month while it’s still low season.
We opted for the bungalow for a couple of reasons – all having to do with peace and quiet. It’s free standing, so there is no chance of neighbours banging on the walls. It’s away from the bars, so chances of music and other street noise is greatly reduced. It seemed like every night we spent in town was something different - one night it was a loud frat-style party in the next room (those people promptly got kicked out), but only after ruining a night’s sleep. One night a leaf blower noise randomly started at 1:00 in the morning (heard that even through my ear plugs). One night the dive shop across the street stayed open super late with people yammering outside.
So we’re at the Pink Adobe. It’s actually called Gypsy Bungalow, but I’m calling it the Pink Adobe for obvious reasons – it’s hella pink! Ryan LOHOHOHOHOVES it! Now we just need monkeys hanging from the ceiling and it will be oh so reminiscent of my Santa Fe days!
The one common problem with all of these places is complete and total lack of storage space – not a closet, not a dresser, nada, zilch. Even the expensive places grossly lack storage space. Once we’re committed to our new Pinkness, I’m going to have to settle in and be very creative about organization.
I’m fairly certain that the delightful lady who greeted us at the Pink this morning was a man – something about the facial structure, but the mannerisms and gentleness was all woman. And beautiful.
The Pink is no more than 100 meters from the local mosque and we can hear Allah Hakbar every so often.
We’ve adopted a new cat. His name is Steve. He looks a bit like Kermit so I wanted to name him Junior, but Ryan picked Steve first and it’s sticking. He looks a bit like Kermit only 300 lbs lighter – Steve is not dragging large amounts of pink flab around. Steve, like many of his island brothers is the result of his mommy and daddy being related, so he has a funny tail. In fact there are very few cats on the island that have a straight tail with all the vertebrae. Kermit also has a bit of a kink at the end of his tail, so I’m wondering if he was the result of inbreeding. Steve is probably from many generations of it as his tail is short and completely bent over on itself. I don’t want to touch it – not because I think it’s weird but because I think it must hurt. Doesn’t seem to bug Steve.
Steve likes sour cream and onion potato chips. And I think he's got a thing for chocolate because he meows a lot around chocolate. He has no interest in mango.
We had lunch at the Pad Thai place – so called because that’s all they serve. It’s a little shack near the Thai market and the woman stands in front of a single burner and makes pad thai all day. She’s got four tables under a bamboo shack adjacent to her little kitchen with the single burner and a variety of coolers where she keeps her ingredients. The little dining room has notes posted all over the walls from happy customers praising the pad thai. A note from Chris went so far as to say he’d go down on a lady boy for that pad thai. I assume Chris was a guy mostly because of the vulgarity of his note! Completely sexist, I know.
Some of the street vendor food looks a bit frightening, but the majority of it looks really delicious. We haven’t ventured much into it – other than today’s pad thai. But at the market there are lots of buffet style setups where you can dine cafeteria style. I wouldn’t mind trying it – I’d bet it’s super tasty (and probably super Thai spicy).
I think of Nicole often as we’re walking the streets. We’ll see something particularly health department offensive and I’ll have to mention that Nicole would just be completely besides herself here. You’ll see fish left out for hours or mollusks baking in the sun. And you just have to wonder how more people don’t get sick.
One thing we have been buying a lot from street vendors is fruit – mangos mostly and some pineapple. Both are a real treat and it’s a treat you don’t have to work for – they both come completely peeled and ready to eat.
We’ve found a pasta joint that has really good pasta and really good pizza. As many of you may already know, pizza is about the last thing that I would choose to have for dinner unless it’s super late at night and I’ve got to shove something down my throat before bed and all the Una Masses have closed. I eat it but it's not something I seek out. Here the pizza is REAL ITALIAN pizza – very thin crust with excellent quality tomato sauce and cheese – it is truly a slice of heaven. We’ve also enjoyed a fettuccini with pesto sauce where the fettuccini tastes homemade. It’s nice to have variation from Thai food every so often. I did hit the proverbial wall on Thai food last week and craved a salad and anything that didn’t have chili in it.
We’ve moved again. This time we are in the Pink Adobe. It’s a bungalow and we are back to basics – fan, cold shower, manual flush toilet.
We toured the island yesterday and looked at many rooms and this bungalow. Each room is pretty much the same – a bed, a small bathroom – some without even a sink – a fan and very very sparse in furniture. A couple we visited had a big bed and a small bed and we joked that would be Chris’ bed if we took one of those rooms. Some are slightly bigger, some are slightly smaller, all are on the ground level, some with people above you. Most were about a 5 to 7 minute walk into town. All were about the same price - 8000 to 10000 TB per month while it’s still low season.
We opted for the bungalow for a couple of reasons – all having to do with peace and quiet. It’s free standing, so there is no chance of neighbours banging on the walls. It’s away from the bars, so chances of music and other street noise is greatly reduced. It seemed like every night we spent in town was something different - one night it was a loud frat-style party in the next room (those people promptly got kicked out), but only after ruining a night’s sleep. One night a leaf blower noise randomly started at 1:00 in the morning (heard that even through my ear plugs). One night the dive shop across the street stayed open super late with people yammering outside.
So we’re at the Pink Adobe. It’s actually called Gypsy Bungalow, but I’m calling it the Pink Adobe for obvious reasons – it’s hella pink! Ryan LOHOHOHOHOVES it! Now we just need monkeys hanging from the ceiling and it will be oh so reminiscent of my Santa Fe days!
The one common problem with all of these places is complete and total lack of storage space – not a closet, not a dresser, nada, zilch. Even the expensive places grossly lack storage space. Once we’re committed to our new Pinkness, I’m going to have to settle in and be very creative about organization.
I’m fairly certain that the delightful lady who greeted us at the Pink this morning was a man – something about the facial structure, but the mannerisms and gentleness was all woman. And beautiful.
The Pink is no more than 100 meters from the local mosque and we can hear Allah Hakbar every so often.
We’ve adopted a new cat. His name is Steve. He looks a bit like Kermit so I wanted to name him Junior, but Ryan picked Steve first and it’s sticking. He looks a bit like Kermit only 300 lbs lighter – Steve is not dragging large amounts of pink flab around. Steve, like many of his island brothers is the result of his mommy and daddy being related, so he has a funny tail. In fact there are very few cats on the island that have a straight tail with all the vertebrae. Kermit also has a bit of a kink at the end of his tail, so I’m wondering if he was the result of inbreeding. Steve is probably from many generations of it as his tail is short and completely bent over on itself. I don’t want to touch it – not because I think it’s weird but because I think it must hurt. Doesn’t seem to bug Steve.
Steve likes sour cream and onion potato chips. And I think he's got a thing for chocolate because he meows a lot around chocolate. He has no interest in mango.
We had lunch at the Pad Thai place – so called because that’s all they serve. It’s a little shack near the Thai market and the woman stands in front of a single burner and makes pad thai all day. She’s got four tables under a bamboo shack adjacent to her little kitchen with the single burner and a variety of coolers where she keeps her ingredients. The little dining room has notes posted all over the walls from happy customers praising the pad thai. A note from Chris went so far as to say he’d go down on a lady boy for that pad thai. I assume Chris was a guy mostly because of the vulgarity of his note! Completely sexist, I know.
Some of the street vendor food looks a bit frightening, but the majority of it looks really delicious. We haven’t ventured much into it – other than today’s pad thai. But at the market there are lots of buffet style setups where you can dine cafeteria style. I wouldn’t mind trying it – I’d bet it’s super tasty (and probably super Thai spicy).
I think of Nicole often as we’re walking the streets. We’ll see something particularly health department offensive and I’ll have to mention that Nicole would just be completely besides herself here. You’ll see fish left out for hours or mollusks baking in the sun. And you just have to wonder how more people don’t get sick.
One thing we have been buying a lot from street vendors is fruit – mangos mostly and some pineapple. Both are a real treat and it’s a treat you don’t have to work for – they both come completely peeled and ready to eat.
We’ve found a pasta joint that has really good pasta and really good pizza. As many of you may already know, pizza is about the last thing that I would choose to have for dinner unless it’s super late at night and I’ve got to shove something down my throat before bed and all the Una Masses have closed. I eat it but it's not something I seek out. Here the pizza is REAL ITALIAN pizza – very thin crust with excellent quality tomato sauce and cheese – it is truly a slice of heaven. We’ve also enjoyed a fettuccini with pesto sauce where the fettuccini tastes homemade. It’s nice to have variation from Thai food every so often. I did hit the proverbial wall on Thai food last week and craved a salad and anything that didn’t have chili in it.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Still on Phi Phi
I was finally able to post pictures yesterday. The internet is incredibly flaky, so it took more time and effort than I would have liked.
After a few days off, we chose to dive again today and were rewarded for our patience. The ocean was flat so visibility greatly improved. We saw everything short of a whale shark. Our first dive at Bida Nai (inside island) treated us to at least two leopard sharks – I say at least two because we had four sightings total, but we’re pretty sure it was only two sharks. We were then treated to a beautiful dive of lionfish and nemofish and Indian Walker fish and a couple of swim throughs. Our safety stop was amidst small black tip reef sharks. Dive two was on the windward side of Phi Lay – a site called Palong South. This time we were treated to two turtles – one had a conch riding on it. We also saw a greater variety of nudibranchs on this dive than we’d seen so far. Oh, and an Octopus. I failed miserably in the photography department today, which is why we saw so much great stuff! Oh, and Andy, our instructor/divemaster/tour guide, came with us as well which might have added to the spotting of cool stuff!
Had a couple frustrating days. After seeing two brand new job listings on the PADI board yesterday, we visited both shops only to be told that they weren’t *really* looking for anybody. One of the shop managers even kind of made it sound like their shop totally didn’t have their crap together – not the best way to attract staff – AND talked badly of another shop which is totally unprofessional – in fact the shop he bad-mouthed was the same shop that we first applied to. It’s a shame because the other chap who works there who first greeted us was great. In the meantime, I’m starting to feel quite comfortable with the shop we’ve been diving with – we’ve chatted a bit with the three anglo staff members there and they’re all real nice. If we dive with them enough, who knows, maybe we’ll end up sticking there as permanent fixtures.
It’s low season, so the job thing is tough. And I’d gotten my hopes up a bit seeing as one shop was hiring I started thinking it would be nice to get jobs this early. In a couple months every single shop will be hiring.
Oh, I should really post about this: Andy’s best friend is Eel Toe Thumb guy. If you don’t know who Eel Toe Thumb Guy is, then watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHNpYxCSnUM. I’ll reserve all judgment - I’m sure the story actually hits much closer to home than some of us might care to admit or want to think about. Andy’s then girlfriend is the one who shot the video. The eel lives in the Similan Islands and is a friendly eel – would come out and happily take hot dogs from tour leaders and would rub himself on divers. Combination of the “friendly” eel having a “grumpy” day and as you can clearly see in the video, Toe Thumb Guy having a bit of a problem getting the hot dog out of the bag AND this eel, as all eels, having extraordinarily bad eyesight, led to a particularly bad day for Toe Thumb Guy. As Andy told us, they’d done this tons of times (think of how many harbor seals you’ve petted or how many crabs you’ve picked up) and it was very, very shitty luck. What got me the most about the story as if it wasn’t bad enough was the following detail – it wasn’t to the first set of jaws that he lost his thumb, it was to the second set. So the moral of the moray story is: don’t harass or feed the wild life! Didn’t you learn this in open water?
Oh, another tidbit of wisdom, I’ll pass along to all my diver friends – don’t watch where you put your knees in the sand, just don’t put your knees in the sand! We watched a scorpionfish today walk across the sand and bury himself and disappear to where I could not make it out at all – no classic telltale signs - no mouth, no eyeballs, nothing - and I’m still pretty sure that would have been a BIG ouchy if I’d knelt on it. After watching that, I did a lot of picture taking doing fin pivots (maybe that’s why all my pictures sucked). Oh and upon return to shop, we read up on a guy who’d been stung by a stonefish (or maybe it was a scorpionfish) – not my idea of a fun way to spend three months – starting with 1,000,000 units of penicillin over 6 days! Parental units, I apologize if this short episode causes you worry! Don’t worry, we’re not putting our knees down anywhere or feeding eels!
Ryan is now napping – it was my idea to nap and he stole it and I’m sitting at the bar typing! I’m hoping that we’ll decide to do more diving tomorrow and that I can redeem myself with the picture taking.
We saw:
A Leopard (zebra) Shark
A Turtle
A Pretty Nudibranch
And I didn't bother with the reef sharks - they're too squirly to photograph - you'll just have to take my word for it, unless Ryan got some good video. I got some good turtle video which I will post later!
After a few days off, we chose to dive again today and were rewarded for our patience. The ocean was flat so visibility greatly improved. We saw everything short of a whale shark. Our first dive at Bida Nai (inside island) treated us to at least two leopard sharks – I say at least two because we had four sightings total, but we’re pretty sure it was only two sharks. We were then treated to a beautiful dive of lionfish and nemofish and Indian Walker fish and a couple of swim throughs. Our safety stop was amidst small black tip reef sharks. Dive two was on the windward side of Phi Lay – a site called Palong South. This time we were treated to two turtles – one had a conch riding on it. We also saw a greater variety of nudibranchs on this dive than we’d seen so far. Oh, and an Octopus. I failed miserably in the photography department today, which is why we saw so much great stuff! Oh, and Andy, our instructor/divemaster/tour guide, came with us as well which might have added to the spotting of cool stuff!
Had a couple frustrating days. After seeing two brand new job listings on the PADI board yesterday, we visited both shops only to be told that they weren’t *really* looking for anybody. One of the shop managers even kind of made it sound like their shop totally didn’t have their crap together – not the best way to attract staff – AND talked badly of another shop which is totally unprofessional – in fact the shop he bad-mouthed was the same shop that we first applied to. It’s a shame because the other chap who works there who first greeted us was great. In the meantime, I’m starting to feel quite comfortable with the shop we’ve been diving with – we’ve chatted a bit with the three anglo staff members there and they’re all real nice. If we dive with them enough, who knows, maybe we’ll end up sticking there as permanent fixtures.
It’s low season, so the job thing is tough. And I’d gotten my hopes up a bit seeing as one shop was hiring I started thinking it would be nice to get jobs this early. In a couple months every single shop will be hiring.
Oh, I should really post about this: Andy’s best friend is Eel Toe Thumb guy. If you don’t know who Eel Toe Thumb Guy is, then watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHNpYxCSnUM. I’ll reserve all judgment - I’m sure the story actually hits much closer to home than some of us might care to admit or want to think about. Andy’s then girlfriend is the one who shot the video. The eel lives in the Similan Islands and is a friendly eel – would come out and happily take hot dogs from tour leaders and would rub himself on divers. Combination of the “friendly” eel having a “grumpy” day and as you can clearly see in the video, Toe Thumb Guy having a bit of a problem getting the hot dog out of the bag AND this eel, as all eels, having extraordinarily bad eyesight, led to a particularly bad day for Toe Thumb Guy. As Andy told us, they’d done this tons of times (think of how many harbor seals you’ve petted or how many crabs you’ve picked up) and it was very, very shitty luck. What got me the most about the story as if it wasn’t bad enough was the following detail – it wasn’t to the first set of jaws that he lost his thumb, it was to the second set. So the moral of the moray story is: don’t harass or feed the wild life! Didn’t you learn this in open water?
Oh, another tidbit of wisdom, I’ll pass along to all my diver friends – don’t watch where you put your knees in the sand, just don’t put your knees in the sand! We watched a scorpionfish today walk across the sand and bury himself and disappear to where I could not make it out at all – no classic telltale signs - no mouth, no eyeballs, nothing - and I’m still pretty sure that would have been a BIG ouchy if I’d knelt on it. After watching that, I did a lot of picture taking doing fin pivots (maybe that’s why all my pictures sucked). Oh and upon return to shop, we read up on a guy who’d been stung by a stonefish (or maybe it was a scorpionfish) – not my idea of a fun way to spend three months – starting with 1,000,000 units of penicillin over 6 days! Parental units, I apologize if this short episode causes you worry! Don’t worry, we’re not putting our knees down anywhere or feeding eels!
Ryan is now napping – it was my idea to nap and he stole it and I’m sitting at the bar typing! I’m hoping that we’ll decide to do more diving tomorrow and that I can redeem myself with the picture taking.
We saw:
A Leopard (zebra) Shark
A Turtle
A Pretty Nudibranch
And I didn't bother with the reef sharks - they're too squirly to photograph - you'll just have to take my word for it, unless Ryan got some good video. I got some good turtle video which I will post later!
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Koh Phi Phi
We are on Koh Phi Phi Don. It is paradise on earth – really truly – I am not sure I have ever seen such beauty (or maybe I have, just different beauty). The topography is breathtaking and the water is turquoise. It is not only diver’s paradise, but also climber’s paradise as it is covered in rock walls that must call out to rock climbers.
We arrived yesterday via ferry full of Japanese tourists. I felt ridiculous with all our baggage – diving is a cumbersome sport and underwater photography with a digital SLR makes it even more so. We trekked the ¼ mile or so to our hotel – the Sea Sandview Resort where we’d booked the least expensive room the internet had to offer. It’s rudimentary to say the least. It’s a bamboo bungalow with a mattress directly on the ground, a fan, a toilet that you flush by scooping water into it and a cold shower which ironically is piping hot during the day when you want to cool off the most and lukewarm at night. Oh and there are two outlets – one of which is occupied by the fan. I will post pictures of it tomorrow so you can get the full effect.
Phi Phi loosely looks a big like a barbell with a skinny portion in the middle and two wider portions on either side. In the middle portion, you can see ocean on both sides. There is one area of the barbell unobscured by buildings on either side where you can see ocean on the left and ocean on the right.
There is a single little town – Tonsai Village located in the handle portion of the barbell. Its small streets are lined with tourist shops and dive shops and restaurants. There are no cars and only the occasional odd scooter. Whereas in Patong, you can’t walk 25 feet without being asked if you want a taxi, tuk-tuk, massage, suit, handbag, tee-shirt or food, Phi Phi is way more low-key. It’s a nice break. Like our accommodations it’s rudimentary though and a bit more expensive than Phuket, especially with respect to lodging. If we stay longer we do want to move to a room that has four real walls and air-con, but the price is almost double what we were paying on Phuket. The main reason for that is that Phi Phi has to generate it’s own electricity and that must be goodly expensive.
And the diving is really really nice and a lot easier to get to than from Phuket. When Ryan and I decided to make this trip, Phi Phi is more what I had in mind in terms of moving to a tropical paradise. It is a different life than Phuket. Phuket has more western conveniences – i.e. movie theatres, grocery stores and a mall. Phi Phi not so much. We have some decisions to make. The other huge difference is in terms of working – dive shops in Phuket won’t hire you if you don’t have a work permit; dive shops on Phi Phi could care less. Basically, they know ahead of time when immigration is coming and the shops tell everyone to make themselves scarce for the day. If someone gets caught, the shop pays a fine and then it’s back to business. Getting the whole work permit thing sorted out is bureaucratic nonsense I’m not inclined to deal with if we’re only going to stay for one season. If we were to decide to stay longer, then it might make sense to get a work permit, though the divemaster who came out with us today has been here seven years and he’s never had one.
So today we dove. It was very beautiful. We dove the little islands south of Phi Phi Don – first dive at Bida Nok the southern most island (it literally means Outside Island). Second dive on Phi Phi Leh (a.k.a. Homer Simpson Island because it crudely looks like Homer lying down). We arranged our diving through a shop called Hippo Divers (it was the first shop we came across). The instructor/divemaster who greeted us ran us through the whole spiel (including the fact that every shop on the island charges the exact same prices to ensure that they all stay in business), but interestingly enough was willing to let us dive without a divemaster, for which we whole-heartedly opted. He came with us on the boat – gave us a boat briefing and dive site briefing and sat back and read his book while we enjoyed some diving at our own pace. Let it be noted that the reason we opted for this had nothing to do with not wanting a divemaster along – I’m perfectly happy to follow a divemaster and have them point out cool stuff – it’s moving at other divers’ pace that I find irritating.
We dive again tomorrow. We’ll need to decide where it is we want to stay tomorrow night and how much longer we want to stay on Phi Phi. I’m inclined to never leave again – mostly I don’t want to move the suitcases anymore.
Yesterday we adopted a kitty. He’s a really cute little gray tiger – probably about 3 months old – super cuddly and friendly. He adopted Ryan while I was trekking ahead to go locate our hotel. We saw him again last night on the way back from dinner. I want to take him home, hold him, squeeze him and call him George. There are a lot of cats in Thailand – nice svelt kitties – not big fat lumps like ours. Many of them are very friendly and while I hesitate to touch strange animals, especially when hand wash is not immediately available, I am getting my kitty fix.
We arrived yesterday via ferry full of Japanese tourists. I felt ridiculous with all our baggage – diving is a cumbersome sport and underwater photography with a digital SLR makes it even more so. We trekked the ¼ mile or so to our hotel – the Sea Sandview Resort where we’d booked the least expensive room the internet had to offer. It’s rudimentary to say the least. It’s a bamboo bungalow with a mattress directly on the ground, a fan, a toilet that you flush by scooping water into it and a cold shower which ironically is piping hot during the day when you want to cool off the most and lukewarm at night. Oh and there are two outlets – one of which is occupied by the fan. I will post pictures of it tomorrow so you can get the full effect.
Phi Phi loosely looks a big like a barbell with a skinny portion in the middle and two wider portions on either side. In the middle portion, you can see ocean on both sides. There is one area of the barbell unobscured by buildings on either side where you can see ocean on the left and ocean on the right.
There is a single little town – Tonsai Village located in the handle portion of the barbell. Its small streets are lined with tourist shops and dive shops and restaurants. There are no cars and only the occasional odd scooter. Whereas in Patong, you can’t walk 25 feet without being asked if you want a taxi, tuk-tuk, massage, suit, handbag, tee-shirt or food, Phi Phi is way more low-key. It’s a nice break. Like our accommodations it’s rudimentary though and a bit more expensive than Phuket, especially with respect to lodging. If we stay longer we do want to move to a room that has four real walls and air-con, but the price is almost double what we were paying on Phuket. The main reason for that is that Phi Phi has to generate it’s own electricity and that must be goodly expensive.
And the diving is really really nice and a lot easier to get to than from Phuket. When Ryan and I decided to make this trip, Phi Phi is more what I had in mind in terms of moving to a tropical paradise. It is a different life than Phuket. Phuket has more western conveniences – i.e. movie theatres, grocery stores and a mall. Phi Phi not so much. We have some decisions to make. The other huge difference is in terms of working – dive shops in Phuket won’t hire you if you don’t have a work permit; dive shops on Phi Phi could care less. Basically, they know ahead of time when immigration is coming and the shops tell everyone to make themselves scarce for the day. If someone gets caught, the shop pays a fine and then it’s back to business. Getting the whole work permit thing sorted out is bureaucratic nonsense I’m not inclined to deal with if we’re only going to stay for one season. If we were to decide to stay longer, then it might make sense to get a work permit, though the divemaster who came out with us today has been here seven years and he’s never had one.
So today we dove. It was very beautiful. We dove the little islands south of Phi Phi Don – first dive at Bida Nok the southern most island (it literally means Outside Island). Second dive on Phi Phi Leh (a.k.a. Homer Simpson Island because it crudely looks like Homer lying down). We arranged our diving through a shop called Hippo Divers (it was the first shop we came across). The instructor/divemaster who greeted us ran us through the whole spiel (including the fact that every shop on the island charges the exact same prices to ensure that they all stay in business), but interestingly enough was willing to let us dive without a divemaster, for which we whole-heartedly opted. He came with us on the boat – gave us a boat briefing and dive site briefing and sat back and read his book while we enjoyed some diving at our own pace. Let it be noted that the reason we opted for this had nothing to do with not wanting a divemaster along – I’m perfectly happy to follow a divemaster and have them point out cool stuff – it’s moving at other divers’ pace that I find irritating.
We dive again tomorrow. We’ll need to decide where it is we want to stay tomorrow night and how much longer we want to stay on Phi Phi. I’m inclined to never leave again – mostly I don’t want to move the suitcases anymore.
Yesterday we adopted a kitty. He’s a really cute little gray tiger – probably about 3 months old – super cuddly and friendly. He adopted Ryan while I was trekking ahead to go locate our hotel. We saw him again last night on the way back from dinner. I want to take him home, hold him, squeeze him and call him George. There are a lot of cats in Thailand – nice svelt kitties – not big fat lumps like ours. Many of them are very friendly and while I hesitate to touch strange animals, especially when hand wash is not immediately available, I am getting my kitty fix.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Racha Yai
We start the day with a cup of cappuccino for me, and waffles for Ryan. I don’t know what made me think that I’d be having to give up coffee once we got here. As Gar likes to say, “you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Starbucks.” Trying to stay away from there in favor of local shops.
We’re slowly getting over jetlag. Since we’re not on any schedule, it’s actually harder to get over than when we went to Philippines for example. If we had to get up for diving every morning we’d probably be over it by now.
Mostly we’ve been exploring and checking out the local dive shops. Sunday we walked the whole length of one of the main streets – Rat-U-Thit Rd. The streets are covered in street vendors (selling t-shirts, clothing of all types - jeans, swim shorts, underwear, nice shirts, you name it - bags, Thai souvenirs), food carts, taxi and tuk-tuk drivers selling their services, tour operators selling trips to Phi Phi or James Bond Islands or Elephant Treks, massage parlors, tatoo parlors, bars, discos, couple nudi bars, restaurants, 7-11’s, Family Marts (7-11’s competitor) and electrical wires. The other main strip is Patong Beach Rd, which has more of the same on one side and this gorgeous stretch of beach on the other. It’s Disney World for adults.
The food is sensational and so so cheap. We’re averaging a little over $10 per meal for the two of us and doing about two meals a day. Mostly we’ve had Thai food – I found the world’s best Pad Thai on Sunday and it was $2. We’ve also had Indian food once – that was our expensive dinner at $25 for two. My vow to stay vegetarian has somewhat gone out the window. Those of you who have gone to Dusita’s with me will know how much I love the duck curry, so you’ll understand that when faced with duck curry on a menu here I crumbled. Thai food in America, by the way, is surprisingly authentic. I’ve also caved in on chicken – they’re probably healthier than the chickens back home anyway – not pumped full of hormones and fed their own feces.
Sunday we spent upwards of 2 hours in a dive shop – Sunrise Divers having struck up conversation with the two managers. We’d gone into every dive shop on Rat-U-Thit and this was the last one (and I’d seen their website as directed by PADI’s website). We were actually on our way to my $2 Pad Thai and were diverted in our quest. One of the managers approached us asking us if we were instructors – not sure what screamed out “instructors” about us. I did have my little PADI backpack, but I’m pretty sure all that screams out is that I got a PADI cert that paid enough dues to get me free swag. Any hoodles, we ended up chatting with them for over 2 hours and got some really good information that we now need to research. We also both walked out of there saying that this was the kind of shop we wanted to work for and I think it’s the kind of shop that would appreciate the level of quality training we’ve received at Diver Dan’s. I realize that sounds a lot like I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid, but when you hear these horror stories of how they churn out divemasters and instructors around here, you realize quickly that quality training is a rare commodity and not necessarily a given.
Information they shared with us – some of the islands are party central – divemasters and instructors are kids living “the dream” on mommy and daddy’s credit card, partying it up with lots of drugs. That of course has zero appeal to Ryan and me. They also feel that the level of instruction in some of those places is completely sub-standard – down to giving students the answers for the final and what not – it’s more about giving them a c-card than teaching them how to dive. I refuse to do that. Ryan’s on the fence – depends on how many baht they slip him.
It looks like we may have to go through the hassle of getting work visas and that’s something that we have to look into fairly quickly because rumor has it the process takes three months. The other thing I’m uncertain of is whether we can indeed stay 30 days, leave for a couple of days and then come back for another 30 days without raising eyebrows at customs. I’m inclined to do everything the legal way as this is pretty much guaranteed to lead us to zero problems. We shall be visiting the immigration office tomorrow to see how they recommend we proceed and also to get an outline of the procedure from A to Z. We also want to look into getting extended tourist visas so that we can stay beyond the 30 days without any hassles.
Yesterday was Ryan’s birthday and we went diving. It was a very interesting experience. We’ve been spoiled – our most recent experience of a dive vacation I think ruined me for life. I am now a resort snob and I also am well aware that there’s much fancier out there than Atlantis, so I haven’t even experienced the choosiest of resort diving!
We’d organized our dives through one of the shops listed on PADI’s website called ScubaCat. They told us we’d be picked up at our hotel at 7:30. We were indeed picked up by a songthaew (baht bus) – it’s a pick-up truck with a bench on either side of and a canopy over the top of the bed - don't even get me started on the lack of seatbelts (which nobody wears here anyways). The bus picked up a number of other passengers – some tourists like us, others dive staff from various shops. We drove south from Patong, through Kata and Karon Beach areas and over to Chalong. The bay of Chalong houses one of only two ports on the island and it’s where all the dive boats depart from, as well as many of the tour boats going to the Phi Phis and other islands. Without all the stops it’s probably a half hour drive from Patong.
From there we boarded a golf car which took us all the way down the pier to the boat we were boarding. The boat was a behemouth twin hull, two story monstrosity. In all at least 4 shops were all on the same boat. Apparently, they all share boats, especially at this time of year when the tourist population is a bit scarce. There were 23 divers, two non-divers, probably about 8 dive staff and the boat staff. The ringmaster gathered the troups upstairs for the boat briefing which was followed by breakfast – cooked to order omelets, sausages, bacon, fruit toast. We then set up our gear and we were headed to Racha Yai. Racha Yai is a small island directly south of Phuket and the western coast seems to be one long stretch of little bays, all diveable and covered in Staghorn coral. The crossing was a bit rough – the ringmaster later told us that if it had been any rougher he would have called the dives that day – which was actually good to know. It was uncomfortable. We were introduced to our divemistress – Sarina - from an entirely different dive shop than the one we’d signed up to go diving with. I thought this was odd – we basically got sold to another dive shop. There was a member of the dive shop with which we’d signed up on board doing an Open Water class with one student, and he did make sure to talk to us and what not.
Sarina was a local – from the south of Thailand she claimed – she didn’t look Thai though, so I’m thinking she was of mixed heritage. To me she looked part Indian – absolutely stunning girl and incredibly sweet. She did our dive briefing in bars and meters which led me later to mistakingly tell her that I was at t-time turnaround at 150 bar at 18 minutes – oh well. We have to get used to bars and meters – only we in America would stay stuck on feet and PSI – really.
The diving itself was fine. It was actually quite beautiful and unique in that I’ve never before seen such a field of Staghorn. That’s truly all it was – a reef of Staghorn coral as far as the eye can see. No interesting reef formation with all manner of colorful things, but very pretty in its own right with lots of little critters hiding and thriving in the branches of the Staghorn. After dive 1, it took forever for the boat to come pick us up as we were bopping at the surface in probably 5 foot swells. I got tired of having swells go over my head, so I found a rock to drop back down on and waited for the dive boat below the surface which was much more comfortable.
We finally did get picked up and boarded the boat again. It’s a bit of mayhem when everyone’s trying to gear up to go in or gear down and change tanks. Lunch was waiting for us – a real diver’s lunch, not pissy little stale sandwiches – no – we’re talking Pad See Ew, rice, chicken yellow curry and some kind of shrimp and veggie stir fry. It was great. While we were having lunch, the boat moved us to our next dive spot and we splashed in for dive 2 which was very similar to dive 1.
What we did not see – a whale shark. What we did see - gallery.me.com/scubalex!
After dive 2, we broke down and rinsed our gear – incidentally the first time our gear has actually gotten a good rinse (i.e., dunked in fresh water as opposed to just hosed off) since before the Caribbean. The crossing back was much the same as the crossing over. Ryan and I talked to the ringmaster, Henry from Sweden. I call him the ringmaster because his job is to coordinate this clusterfuck that is getting a multitude of divers from different hotels onto boats with different shops and back to their hotels. Back on Phuket land, we took golf carts back to the port and were assigned a bus back to our hotel – this time an enclosed air-conditioned mini bus which was rather luxurious. We were back in the hotel room around 4:30. I protested, but Ryan insisted that we should go out for his birthday dinner instead of falling into bed and sleeping.
So we’ve decided that we are leaving Patong at the end of the week. We’ll take the ferry over to Koh Phi Phi and stay there for a while. If nothing else, the diving will be a lot cheaper and much more convenient. I’ve booked us a bungalow for two nights (we’ll extend it if we like it – didn’t want to commit to too many nights if the hotel is crap – the other thing is that we might be able to negotiate a better rate OR a better room for the same rate). It’s going to be very very basic as the ad promises a mattress, a fan and a shower! No air-con, no fridge, no TV. Oh, and no hot water, but I figure that with no air-con, I won’t care about taking cold showers! And we don’t need a TV – I’ve got six seasons of Sopranos to watch on my computer and I guess we’ll just have to live without Aljazeera Praise Allah TV. And I’m pretty sure that we can forget about free wifi at the hotel as well - have to catch up on Facebook with my morning coffee (yes, I'm a facebook crackwhore!)!
I’m also hoping for some shore diving – the hotel boasts that they’re on the beach, 50 meters from the coral reef. I can swim 50 meters, no problem! One of the things that I’m realizing more and more is that I have more fun diving when it’s just me and Ryan (or me and Chris and Ryan and John) than when there’s a divemaster hurrying things along. I like to be able to go at my own pace and spend 20 minutes taking pictures of the same fish if that’s what I want to do. And I came out of both dives yesterday with lots of no-deco time and about 1400 PSI. Why? Cause we’re on somebody else’s schedule. I think we really were spoiled in the Philippines because I don’t remember feeling ever feeling gypped out of bottom time. Meh!
Oh, I forgot, we got phones! The SIM cards were under $3 and included some minutes. We bought extra minutes. If you call us, it’s free; if we call you it’s pretty cheap!
We’re slowly getting over jetlag. Since we’re not on any schedule, it’s actually harder to get over than when we went to Philippines for example. If we had to get up for diving every morning we’d probably be over it by now.
Mostly we’ve been exploring and checking out the local dive shops. Sunday we walked the whole length of one of the main streets – Rat-U-Thit Rd. The streets are covered in street vendors (selling t-shirts, clothing of all types - jeans, swim shorts, underwear, nice shirts, you name it - bags, Thai souvenirs), food carts, taxi and tuk-tuk drivers selling their services, tour operators selling trips to Phi Phi or James Bond Islands or Elephant Treks, massage parlors, tatoo parlors, bars, discos, couple nudi bars, restaurants, 7-11’s, Family Marts (7-11’s competitor) and electrical wires. The other main strip is Patong Beach Rd, which has more of the same on one side and this gorgeous stretch of beach on the other. It’s Disney World for adults.
The food is sensational and so so cheap. We’re averaging a little over $10 per meal for the two of us and doing about two meals a day. Mostly we’ve had Thai food – I found the world’s best Pad Thai on Sunday and it was $2. We’ve also had Indian food once – that was our expensive dinner at $25 for two. My vow to stay vegetarian has somewhat gone out the window. Those of you who have gone to Dusita’s with me will know how much I love the duck curry, so you’ll understand that when faced with duck curry on a menu here I crumbled. Thai food in America, by the way, is surprisingly authentic. I’ve also caved in on chicken – they’re probably healthier than the chickens back home anyway – not pumped full of hormones and fed their own feces.
Sunday we spent upwards of 2 hours in a dive shop – Sunrise Divers having struck up conversation with the two managers. We’d gone into every dive shop on Rat-U-Thit and this was the last one (and I’d seen their website as directed by PADI’s website). We were actually on our way to my $2 Pad Thai and were diverted in our quest. One of the managers approached us asking us if we were instructors – not sure what screamed out “instructors” about us. I did have my little PADI backpack, but I’m pretty sure all that screams out is that I got a PADI cert that paid enough dues to get me free swag. Any hoodles, we ended up chatting with them for over 2 hours and got some really good information that we now need to research. We also both walked out of there saying that this was the kind of shop we wanted to work for and I think it’s the kind of shop that would appreciate the level of quality training we’ve received at Diver Dan’s. I realize that sounds a lot like I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid, but when you hear these horror stories of how they churn out divemasters and instructors around here, you realize quickly that quality training is a rare commodity and not necessarily a given.
Information they shared with us – some of the islands are party central – divemasters and instructors are kids living “the dream” on mommy and daddy’s credit card, partying it up with lots of drugs. That of course has zero appeal to Ryan and me. They also feel that the level of instruction in some of those places is completely sub-standard – down to giving students the answers for the final and what not – it’s more about giving them a c-card than teaching them how to dive. I refuse to do that. Ryan’s on the fence – depends on how many baht they slip him.
It looks like we may have to go through the hassle of getting work visas and that’s something that we have to look into fairly quickly because rumor has it the process takes three months. The other thing I’m uncertain of is whether we can indeed stay 30 days, leave for a couple of days and then come back for another 30 days without raising eyebrows at customs. I’m inclined to do everything the legal way as this is pretty much guaranteed to lead us to zero problems. We shall be visiting the immigration office tomorrow to see how they recommend we proceed and also to get an outline of the procedure from A to Z. We also want to look into getting extended tourist visas so that we can stay beyond the 30 days without any hassles.
Yesterday was Ryan’s birthday and we went diving. It was a very interesting experience. We’ve been spoiled – our most recent experience of a dive vacation I think ruined me for life. I am now a resort snob and I also am well aware that there’s much fancier out there than Atlantis, so I haven’t even experienced the choosiest of resort diving!
We’d organized our dives through one of the shops listed on PADI’s website called ScubaCat. They told us we’d be picked up at our hotel at 7:30. We were indeed picked up by a songthaew (baht bus) – it’s a pick-up truck with a bench on either side of and a canopy over the top of the bed - don't even get me started on the lack of seatbelts (which nobody wears here anyways). The bus picked up a number of other passengers – some tourists like us, others dive staff from various shops. We drove south from Patong, through Kata and Karon Beach areas and over to Chalong. The bay of Chalong houses one of only two ports on the island and it’s where all the dive boats depart from, as well as many of the tour boats going to the Phi Phis and other islands. Without all the stops it’s probably a half hour drive from Patong.
From there we boarded a golf car which took us all the way down the pier to the boat we were boarding. The boat was a behemouth twin hull, two story monstrosity. In all at least 4 shops were all on the same boat. Apparently, they all share boats, especially at this time of year when the tourist population is a bit scarce. There were 23 divers, two non-divers, probably about 8 dive staff and the boat staff. The ringmaster gathered the troups upstairs for the boat briefing which was followed by breakfast – cooked to order omelets, sausages, bacon, fruit toast. We then set up our gear and we were headed to Racha Yai. Racha Yai is a small island directly south of Phuket and the western coast seems to be one long stretch of little bays, all diveable and covered in Staghorn coral. The crossing was a bit rough – the ringmaster later told us that if it had been any rougher he would have called the dives that day – which was actually good to know. It was uncomfortable. We were introduced to our divemistress – Sarina - from an entirely different dive shop than the one we’d signed up to go diving with. I thought this was odd – we basically got sold to another dive shop. There was a member of the dive shop with which we’d signed up on board doing an Open Water class with one student, and he did make sure to talk to us and what not.
Sarina was a local – from the south of Thailand she claimed – she didn’t look Thai though, so I’m thinking she was of mixed heritage. To me she looked part Indian – absolutely stunning girl and incredibly sweet. She did our dive briefing in bars and meters which led me later to mistakingly tell her that I was at t-time turnaround at 150 bar at 18 minutes – oh well. We have to get used to bars and meters – only we in America would stay stuck on feet and PSI – really.
The diving itself was fine. It was actually quite beautiful and unique in that I’ve never before seen such a field of Staghorn. That’s truly all it was – a reef of Staghorn coral as far as the eye can see. No interesting reef formation with all manner of colorful things, but very pretty in its own right with lots of little critters hiding and thriving in the branches of the Staghorn. After dive 1, it took forever for the boat to come pick us up as we were bopping at the surface in probably 5 foot swells. I got tired of having swells go over my head, so I found a rock to drop back down on and waited for the dive boat below the surface which was much more comfortable.
We finally did get picked up and boarded the boat again. It’s a bit of mayhem when everyone’s trying to gear up to go in or gear down and change tanks. Lunch was waiting for us – a real diver’s lunch, not pissy little stale sandwiches – no – we’re talking Pad See Ew, rice, chicken yellow curry and some kind of shrimp and veggie stir fry. It was great. While we were having lunch, the boat moved us to our next dive spot and we splashed in for dive 2 which was very similar to dive 1.
What we did not see – a whale shark. What we did see - gallery.me.com/scubalex!
After dive 2, we broke down and rinsed our gear – incidentally the first time our gear has actually gotten a good rinse (i.e., dunked in fresh water as opposed to just hosed off) since before the Caribbean. The crossing back was much the same as the crossing over. Ryan and I talked to the ringmaster, Henry from Sweden. I call him the ringmaster because his job is to coordinate this clusterfuck that is getting a multitude of divers from different hotels onto boats with different shops and back to their hotels. Back on Phuket land, we took golf carts back to the port and were assigned a bus back to our hotel – this time an enclosed air-conditioned mini bus which was rather luxurious. We were back in the hotel room around 4:30. I protested, but Ryan insisted that we should go out for his birthday dinner instead of falling into bed and sleeping.
So we’ve decided that we are leaving Patong at the end of the week. We’ll take the ferry over to Koh Phi Phi and stay there for a while. If nothing else, the diving will be a lot cheaper and much more convenient. I’ve booked us a bungalow for two nights (we’ll extend it if we like it – didn’t want to commit to too many nights if the hotel is crap – the other thing is that we might be able to negotiate a better rate OR a better room for the same rate). It’s going to be very very basic as the ad promises a mattress, a fan and a shower! No air-con, no fridge, no TV. Oh, and no hot water, but I figure that with no air-con, I won’t care about taking cold showers! And we don’t need a TV – I’ve got six seasons of Sopranos to watch on my computer and I guess we’ll just have to live without Aljazeera Praise Allah TV. And I’m pretty sure that we can forget about free wifi at the hotel as well - have to catch up on Facebook with my morning coffee (yes, I'm a facebook crackwhore!)!
I’m also hoping for some shore diving – the hotel boasts that they’re on the beach, 50 meters from the coral reef. I can swim 50 meters, no problem! One of the things that I’m realizing more and more is that I have more fun diving when it’s just me and Ryan (or me and Chris and Ryan and John) than when there’s a divemaster hurrying things along. I like to be able to go at my own pace and spend 20 minutes taking pictures of the same fish if that’s what I want to do. And I came out of both dives yesterday with lots of no-deco time and about 1400 PSI. Why? Cause we’re on somebody else’s schedule. I think we really were spoiled in the Philippines because I don’t remember feeling ever feeling gypped out of bottom time. Meh!
Oh, I forgot, we got phones! The SIM cards were under $3 and included some minutes. We bought extra minutes. If you call us, it’s free; if we call you it’s pretty cheap!
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Taipei - June 4th (I think), 2009
I am still of the opinion that our return home was too short. We barely had time to see everyone, especially with both of us getting sick and moving at half speed. I think that another week might have been nice. I also hadn’t counted on how happy I would be to return to California after the Caribbean that it seemed I left it way too fast.
As Ryan mentioned, our plane ride was completely uneventful, which is more than all those souls on that Air France flight told St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. That about wraps up why I feel that an uneventful plane ride is about the best description ever. As Ryan also mentioned, we must have gotten quite a bit of sleep as the flight seemed short. I don’t remember the flight to the Philippines feeling that short. I fell asleep before the plane even took off. I had the blanket over me, my neck pillow around the neck and my Kitty Carlisles on and the stewardess felt the imperative to wake me up and ask me about Chicken or Beef. I thought airline etiquette stated that Kitty Carlisles over the eyes meant “Do Not Disturb.” Not in China Air parlance, apparently.
I woke up to the little map with the little plane flying over Japan and the countdown stating that we had four hours and 26 minutes left to go. Some quick math told me that I’d slept for more than eight hours. And since it was working out so well for me, I slid the Kitties back on and tried for a few more hours – got me through one movie and the start of another and then the stewardess came around asking about Scrambled Eggs or something that sounded like Rice. Being white, I went with scrambled eggs, tea and OJ.
I believe Ryan also mentioned that we were stuck in Taipei, though I believe that he called it “relaxing” at the café with the same song on an endless loop.
And that’s where Ryan left us.
After finding some Chinese fast food at the Terminal 1 food court (choices of Burger King, Chinese fast food or ice cream and you know who categorically said NO to Burger King), we boarded a small bus for our tour, flanked by a couple Italian guys, a Canadian, a Brit and an indeterminate couple – I think they were American. Our guide was delightful. He told us “tour free so you come back and spend money.” It’s not a bad marketing ploy if you think about it since so many flights fly through Taipei and offer nice long layovers.
Ryan also mentioned that it was pouring buckets I think.
Driving through Taipei on this dreary afternoon reminded me of driving through certain parts of New York circa 1982. I kept getting that déjà vu of the lower east side. If you weren’t lucky enough to know New York in the early 80s, then maybe you can YouTube Welcome Back Kotter. Old 70s style architecture that didn't look "wrong" in 1982 now seems a little decrepit and out of place and time. And dirty - New York doesn't look that dirty anymore, but once upon a time it did.
We began our tour at Long Shan Temple – home to both Taoist and Buddhist worshippers. The architecture is what you think of when you think Chinese. It is set up like a big marketplace – a place of fellowshipping as well as praying. There are many statues of deities, incense holders and tables to place offerings of food. I am very curious about all of this and it is on my list of things to research.
Our tour continued on to Chang Kai-Shek memorial. During our drive, our tour guide gave us the Cliff Notes version of Taiwanese history, including a nice homage to Chang Kai-Shek. The people of Taiwan are very proud of this history and of their leader. They consider themselves fortunate to have remained immune to the fate of mainland China. At least this is all the opinion of our tour guide. If the memorial building is any indication, the rest of Taiwan feels the same as our tour guide. It is a massive structure flanked by the opera house (Pavarotti appeared there twice) and playhouse. It took five years to build and is of marble and this stunning royal blue tiling. The inside houses memorabilia such as medals, photographs, Chang’s sedan and a replica of his office. The old photographs represent such a slice of history frozen in time and to me were the treat of the tour.
Next we visited the Martyr’s Shrine, passing by the Presidential Office (the red and white house haha!). Our tour guide informed us that their old president was in jail for laundering money I believe he said. I of course immediately had to feel a certain pride for a country who had the balls to bring a leader to justice for crimes. Yes, America, that is a poke at you.
Martyr’s Shrine is their war memorial. Military service is compulsory for men over 20 for 2 years in Taiwan. Buckingham Palace type guards (minus the furry hats) gave us a statue-esque welcome. One must have to develop such a knack for meditation in order to do this job – I can’t imagine any other way to get through a shift standing perfectly still, not reacting to stupid tourists. Though I did see one of them shift his eyes.
Our last stop was Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world followed by the Sears Tower and until Dubai gets done with theirs. With no skyscrapers flanking it, you don’t get a real sense of its grandeur. Again, let’s compare it to New York circa 1982 where the Empire State Building still looks impressive next to the buildings surrounding it; where the view from the WTC is only of rooftops. Also, to us, it looked like this:
Ah, yes, a rainy foggy day in Taipei.
We then returned to the airport where Ryan, apparently being much better at telling time than girl, sprung on me that our flight departed at 8:30, not 10:30 (20h, not 22h). I was so tired that it was like being told that it was Christmas and my birthday all wrapped into one. We tried a different Chinese fast food for dinner which was equally tasty and fought the sleep demons for a couple more hours waiting to board our flight to Phuket.
Again, I was asleep before the plane even took off. And woke up to Ryan poking me to put my seat back up when it was time to land.
Our flight to Thailand had exactly no Thai people on it and 3 white people (Ryan and me inclusive). The rest was an airplane full of Chinese tourists. So customs took FOHOHOHOHOEHEHEHEHEHEVAH! Ryan and I spent much time when booking our flights contemplating the eventuality that any number of people could be made unhappy by the fact that we didn’t have an exit ticket. But, we’d asked Vlad about it and he said that in all the countries he’d visited only one time had somebody gotten their knickers in a twist over his lack of exit ticket and 1. It hadn’t been in Thailand and 2. They’d solved the issue by buying the cheapest fully refundable ticket they could get on a moment’s notice. When I finally got to the customs agent, I was a little nervous, but I had my story all set – we weren’t sure when we were leaving, but that we’d be going to either Malaysia or Vietnam and getting there by some mode of ground transportation (at that point, I think we’d left California something like 32 hours earlier, and the way I looked, I don’t think that it was a stretch to make anyone believe that I’d no intention of getting back on a plane ever again). The customs agent said exactly 0 words to me. They don’t give a shit. You’ve got 30 days to get out and on day 31 the meter starts ticking.
Finding a cab at 1:00 in the morning leaves very little room for bargaining down the price, so our ride down to Patong Beach was comparatively very expensive at 650TB (almost $20). But when you’re approached by exactly 1 taxi driver, it’s hard to use his competition for leverage. Plus, everything I’d read indicated that it would be in the vicinity of 550TB to get down to Patong, so a few extra bucks to make that happen in the middle of the night did not seem unreasonable to me.
We’d booked a room at Lamai Apartment in Patong Beach via internet as our arrival being so late I didn’t want to have to futz around with finding a hotel. We booked it for 2 nights. The price was relatively “right” though Ryan seemed to be under the impression that once here we could do better. Our room is clean and comfortable and for the $15 each night has cost us thus far offers quite a few amenities: air con, free wifi, soap, shampoo, q-tips, and a red light (as in "Roxanne, you don't have to turn on the red light") which totally cracks me up! An additional fee will be charged for the plentiful assortment of medium, large or x-tra large condoms or for the beer, soda, water and juice found in the large fridge. The one drawback to our room is the lack of windows – well, there is a window, which is about an inch away from the wall of the neighbouring building.
Yesterday was our first day here in Patong. We left the hotel at about 11:30 a.m., walked around a little bit, spent $10 on an excellent Thai lunch of pineapple fried rice and yellow curry (asked for red, but got yellow, didn’t care, it tasted great) and these delicious fried shrimp cakes. Decided to go back to the room to enjoy a bit of air conditioning around 2:30 p.m. Fell asleep again and woke up at 2:30 in the morning. Now, when I woke up at 2:30 in the morning, Ryan was awake watching some movie or reading, I don’t remember, but while our room lacks windows, it does have these little airvents along the ceiling on the wall facing the hallway. There was light coming through the slits, so I assumed it was still light out, while convinced that I’d slept longer than that. Indeed, – it was the artificial light from the hallway. Fell back asleep. So, just about our entire first day was wasted sleeping, but judging from the number of hours that I was able to sleep, I’d say my body needed it. I will say this though - I do not intend to spend my time here in the hotel room getting more naps than Kitten (I'd say Kermit, but Kitten naps more).
Today we’ve explored a bit more and booked some diving for Monday, Ryan’s birthday. Since I had no idea what to get him, I figured you can’t go wrong with a day of diving. And we’ve been “guaranteed” Whale Sharks. I think that’s a nice present! The owner of the shop told us a story that one of her instructors was with a student recently – it was his first open water dive (the student’s) and he saw a whale shark. I don’t feel that is right. What's left to anticipate when you see a whale shark on your first dive - makes our star fish seem, well like star fish!
From all we’ve seen thus far, Patong is set up to be party central and while it’s fine to explore right now, I can’t imagine that we’ll end up here. We are in the dead season – high season starts on October. There are still a lot of people here. I know that Ryan and I will have to reconcile our loathing of crowds with our wish to be divemasters which has to be in a touristy area, but I’m not sure that there needs to be a Starbucks wherever we end up and rows and rows of bars and Irish Pubs. A quick read of the Lonely Planet description, “The sort of people drawn to this teeming, neon-lit atmosphere will adore Patong, while the more peace-loving souls (you know who you are) might want to stay far, far away,” is pretty indicative that Ryan and I should probably not spend too much time here.
At any rate, we’re here for at least another week as we’ve negotiated a reduced rate at the hotel and we probably need that much time before we subject our bodies to further travel and to make some sort of sensible plan of attack.
P.S. We just got back to our hotel and paid for our week and got a different room. It’s an upgrade – it has all the same amenities as the other room PLUS a window.
P.P.S. I am posting more pictures of Taipei. I've also caught up the photo gallery with pics of St. Lucia and Bequia. The site again is gallery.me.com/scubalex.
P.P.P.S. We'll be getting our news from Aljazeera from here on out. Praise Allah!
As Ryan mentioned, our plane ride was completely uneventful, which is more than all those souls on that Air France flight told St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. That about wraps up why I feel that an uneventful plane ride is about the best description ever. As Ryan also mentioned, we must have gotten quite a bit of sleep as the flight seemed short. I don’t remember the flight to the Philippines feeling that short. I fell asleep before the plane even took off. I had the blanket over me, my neck pillow around the neck and my Kitty Carlisles on and the stewardess felt the imperative to wake me up and ask me about Chicken or Beef. I thought airline etiquette stated that Kitty Carlisles over the eyes meant “Do Not Disturb.” Not in China Air parlance, apparently.
I woke up to the little map with the little plane flying over Japan and the countdown stating that we had four hours and 26 minutes left to go. Some quick math told me that I’d slept for more than eight hours. And since it was working out so well for me, I slid the Kitties back on and tried for a few more hours – got me through one movie and the start of another and then the stewardess came around asking about Scrambled Eggs or something that sounded like Rice. Being white, I went with scrambled eggs, tea and OJ.
I believe Ryan also mentioned that we were stuck in Taipei, though I believe that he called it “relaxing” at the café with the same song on an endless loop.
And that’s where Ryan left us.
After finding some Chinese fast food at the Terminal 1 food court (choices of Burger King, Chinese fast food or ice cream and you know who categorically said NO to Burger King), we boarded a small bus for our tour, flanked by a couple Italian guys, a Canadian, a Brit and an indeterminate couple – I think they were American. Our guide was delightful. He told us “tour free so you come back and spend money.” It’s not a bad marketing ploy if you think about it since so many flights fly through Taipei and offer nice long layovers.
Ryan also mentioned that it was pouring buckets I think.
Driving through Taipei on this dreary afternoon reminded me of driving through certain parts of New York circa 1982. I kept getting that déjà vu of the lower east side. If you weren’t lucky enough to know New York in the early 80s, then maybe you can YouTube Welcome Back Kotter. Old 70s style architecture that didn't look "wrong" in 1982 now seems a little decrepit and out of place and time. And dirty - New York doesn't look that dirty anymore, but once upon a time it did.
We began our tour at Long Shan Temple – home to both Taoist and Buddhist worshippers. The architecture is what you think of when you think Chinese. It is set up like a big marketplace – a place of fellowshipping as well as praying. There are many statues of deities, incense holders and tables to place offerings of food. I am very curious about all of this and it is on my list of things to research.
Our tour continued on to Chang Kai-Shek memorial. During our drive, our tour guide gave us the Cliff Notes version of Taiwanese history, including a nice homage to Chang Kai-Shek. The people of Taiwan are very proud of this history and of their leader. They consider themselves fortunate to have remained immune to the fate of mainland China. At least this is all the opinion of our tour guide. If the memorial building is any indication, the rest of Taiwan feels the same as our tour guide. It is a massive structure flanked by the opera house (Pavarotti appeared there twice) and playhouse. It took five years to build and is of marble and this stunning royal blue tiling. The inside houses memorabilia such as medals, photographs, Chang’s sedan and a replica of his office. The old photographs represent such a slice of history frozen in time and to me were the treat of the tour.
Next we visited the Martyr’s Shrine, passing by the Presidential Office (the red and white house haha!). Our tour guide informed us that their old president was in jail for laundering money I believe he said. I of course immediately had to feel a certain pride for a country who had the balls to bring a leader to justice for crimes. Yes, America, that is a poke at you.
Martyr’s Shrine is their war memorial. Military service is compulsory for men over 20 for 2 years in Taiwan. Buckingham Palace type guards (minus the furry hats) gave us a statue-esque welcome. One must have to develop such a knack for meditation in order to do this job – I can’t imagine any other way to get through a shift standing perfectly still, not reacting to stupid tourists. Though I did see one of them shift his eyes.
Our last stop was Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world followed by the Sears Tower and until Dubai gets done with theirs. With no skyscrapers flanking it, you don’t get a real sense of its grandeur. Again, let’s compare it to New York circa 1982 where the Empire State Building still looks impressive next to the buildings surrounding it; where the view from the WTC is only of rooftops. Also, to us, it looked like this:
Ah, yes, a rainy foggy day in Taipei.
We then returned to the airport where Ryan, apparently being much better at telling time than girl, sprung on me that our flight departed at 8:30, not 10:30 (20h, not 22h). I was so tired that it was like being told that it was Christmas and my birthday all wrapped into one. We tried a different Chinese fast food for dinner which was equally tasty and fought the sleep demons for a couple more hours waiting to board our flight to Phuket.
Again, I was asleep before the plane even took off. And woke up to Ryan poking me to put my seat back up when it was time to land.
Our flight to Thailand had exactly no Thai people on it and 3 white people (Ryan and me inclusive). The rest was an airplane full of Chinese tourists. So customs took FOHOHOHOHOEHEHEHEHEHEVAH! Ryan and I spent much time when booking our flights contemplating the eventuality that any number of people could be made unhappy by the fact that we didn’t have an exit ticket. But, we’d asked Vlad about it and he said that in all the countries he’d visited only one time had somebody gotten their knickers in a twist over his lack of exit ticket and 1. It hadn’t been in Thailand and 2. They’d solved the issue by buying the cheapest fully refundable ticket they could get on a moment’s notice. When I finally got to the customs agent, I was a little nervous, but I had my story all set – we weren’t sure when we were leaving, but that we’d be going to either Malaysia or Vietnam and getting there by some mode of ground transportation (at that point, I think we’d left California something like 32 hours earlier, and the way I looked, I don’t think that it was a stretch to make anyone believe that I’d no intention of getting back on a plane ever again). The customs agent said exactly 0 words to me. They don’t give a shit. You’ve got 30 days to get out and on day 31 the meter starts ticking.
Finding a cab at 1:00 in the morning leaves very little room for bargaining down the price, so our ride down to Patong Beach was comparatively very expensive at 650TB (almost $20). But when you’re approached by exactly 1 taxi driver, it’s hard to use his competition for leverage. Plus, everything I’d read indicated that it would be in the vicinity of 550TB to get down to Patong, so a few extra bucks to make that happen in the middle of the night did not seem unreasonable to me.
We’d booked a room at Lamai Apartment in Patong Beach via internet as our arrival being so late I didn’t want to have to futz around with finding a hotel. We booked it for 2 nights. The price was relatively “right” though Ryan seemed to be under the impression that once here we could do better. Our room is clean and comfortable and for the $15 each night has cost us thus far offers quite a few amenities: air con, free wifi, soap, shampoo, q-tips, and a red light (as in "Roxanne, you don't have to turn on the red light") which totally cracks me up! An additional fee will be charged for the plentiful assortment of medium, large or x-tra large condoms or for the beer, soda, water and juice found in the large fridge. The one drawback to our room is the lack of windows – well, there is a window, which is about an inch away from the wall of the neighbouring building.
Yesterday was our first day here in Patong. We left the hotel at about 11:30 a.m., walked around a little bit, spent $10 on an excellent Thai lunch of pineapple fried rice and yellow curry (asked for red, but got yellow, didn’t care, it tasted great) and these delicious fried shrimp cakes. Decided to go back to the room to enjoy a bit of air conditioning around 2:30 p.m. Fell asleep again and woke up at 2:30 in the morning. Now, when I woke up at 2:30 in the morning, Ryan was awake watching some movie or reading, I don’t remember, but while our room lacks windows, it does have these little airvents along the ceiling on the wall facing the hallway. There was light coming through the slits, so I assumed it was still light out, while convinced that I’d slept longer than that. Indeed, – it was the artificial light from the hallway. Fell back asleep. So, just about our entire first day was wasted sleeping, but judging from the number of hours that I was able to sleep, I’d say my body needed it. I will say this though - I do not intend to spend my time here in the hotel room getting more naps than Kitten (I'd say Kermit, but Kitten naps more).
Today we’ve explored a bit more and booked some diving for Monday, Ryan’s birthday. Since I had no idea what to get him, I figured you can’t go wrong with a day of diving. And we’ve been “guaranteed” Whale Sharks. I think that’s a nice present! The owner of the shop told us a story that one of her instructors was with a student recently – it was his first open water dive (the student’s) and he saw a whale shark. I don’t feel that is right. What's left to anticipate when you see a whale shark on your first dive - makes our star fish seem, well like star fish!
From all we’ve seen thus far, Patong is set up to be party central and while it’s fine to explore right now, I can’t imagine that we’ll end up here. We are in the dead season – high season starts on October. There are still a lot of people here. I know that Ryan and I will have to reconcile our loathing of crowds with our wish to be divemasters which has to be in a touristy area, but I’m not sure that there needs to be a Starbucks wherever we end up and rows and rows of bars and Irish Pubs. A quick read of the Lonely Planet description, “The sort of people drawn to this teeming, neon-lit atmosphere will adore Patong, while the more peace-loving souls (you know who you are) might want to stay far, far away,” is pretty indicative that Ryan and I should probably not spend too much time here.
At any rate, we’re here for at least another week as we’ve negotiated a reduced rate at the hotel and we probably need that much time before we subject our bodies to further travel and to make some sort of sensible plan of attack.
P.S. We just got back to our hotel and paid for our week and got a different room. It’s an upgrade – it has all the same amenities as the other room PLUS a window.
P.P.S. I am posting more pictures of Taipei. I've also caught up the photo gallery with pics of St. Lucia and Bequia. The site again is gallery.me.com/scubalex.
P.P.P.S. We'll be getting our news from Aljazeera from here on out. Praise Allah!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Arrived safe and sound in Phuket, Thailand
Hello all, just a quick heads up, we arrived safely in Thailand without incident, and we were successful in finding a taxi ride down to our hotel in Patong Beach. (On the southwest coast of the island of Phuket, which itself is off the southwest coast of Thailand) Nothing too big to report, the line for Passport/Immigration was way too long, we probably overpaid for the taxi to the hotel, and the room is small but functional. The taxi ride showed that 7-Elevens are still popping up everywhere in Thailand but otherwise there was very little to see. Its just shy of 2AM here, (coming up on noon at home) and we're about to fall asleep. Hoping we'll be able to get out and explore tomorrow, update the blog and e-mail people.
WE'RE HERE!!!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Sitting in the airport in Taipei....
Well, we're in Taiwan, Republic of China. The flight was long, luckily Alexia and I slept through a major chunk of it and we both noted it seemed shorter than the 13+ hours it was. Didn't even watch any of the movies they were playing (nothing looked particularly interesting)! We were greeted in Taipei with a lovely rain storm, very wet outside, other than a bit of mild turbulence it's not much of a bother.
We've got 14 hours of time to waste here in Taipei till our flight leaves tonight to take us to Phuket in Thailand, where it seems like we'll have to hail a cab sometime after midnight to take us down south to the Patong Beach area where we've got a hotel room booked for the next few days.
For today, we found out about a free city tour sponsored by the Taiwan Tourism board, basically pile onto a bus filled with other tourists and they'll drive us around showing whatever they can in a few hours. Amongst other destinations, we should be checking out the world's tallest skyscraper, Taipei 101. Don't yet know if we'll be hopping out of the bus much, what with all the rain.
We've been relaxing in a cafe at the airport for the last few hours, enjoying free internet, snacks, and 1 song. I don't know why but the cafe has literally been playing the same song on repeat the entire time we've been here. Hours. I don't know how the employees deal with it, I'd go fruit loops. Wonder if it's a subliminal ploy to keep customers from sitting around in the cafe too long. Like us. :) In our case we're too stubborn to leave.
Well, that's all for now. Oh, we'll send out an update about it later, but did you notice the new "subscribe to Scubadditions via e-mail" link at the top of this page? That's how I spent the first few hours of my cafe time, figuring out how to add that feature. Should be -much- easier to get updates on our blog now that it's turned on, try it, you'll like it!
We've got 14 hours of time to waste here in Taipei till our flight leaves tonight to take us to Phuket in Thailand, where it seems like we'll have to hail a cab sometime after midnight to take us down south to the Patong Beach area where we've got a hotel room booked for the next few days.
For today, we found out about a free city tour sponsored by the Taiwan Tourism board, basically pile onto a bus filled with other tourists and they'll drive us around showing whatever they can in a few hours. Amongst other destinations, we should be checking out the world's tallest skyscraper, Taipei 101. Don't yet know if we'll be hopping out of the bus much, what with all the rain.
We've been relaxing in a cafe at the airport for the last few hours, enjoying free internet, snacks, and 1 song. I don't know why but the cafe has literally been playing the same song on repeat the entire time we've been here. Hours. I don't know how the employees deal with it, I'd go fruit loops. Wonder if it's a subliminal ploy to keep customers from sitting around in the cafe too long. Like us. :) In our case we're too stubborn to leave.
Well, that's all for now. Oh, we'll send out an update about it later, but did you notice the new "subscribe to Scubadditions via e-mail" link at the top of this page? That's how I spent the first few hours of my cafe time, figuring out how to add that feature. Should be -much- easier to get updates on our blog now that it's turned on, try it, you'll like it!
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