KL sucks! I’d have to read back to what my impressions were of our Penang visa run, but it might have been that we were so grateful to get out of the minivan that anything would have done. KL is dirty and expensive.
This morning we went to the Thai Embassy. There are warning notices at every window, heeding against trying to get tourist visas for the purposes of work. While it’s a little nerve-wrecking, if the system is stupid they made it thus and thus they should fix it. We handed in our passports without the lady saying so much as boo to us. Pick-up tomorrow between ½ two and ½ four.
Cian had asked us if we’d mind picking up a hard-drive for him he’d had recovered and the hard-drive guy met us back at the guesthouse at 12:30 as arranged by Cian. We just had time between the embassy and the meeting to grab a quick lunch of acceptable Indian curry and excellent chicken tandoori, all accompanied by a plain lassi (yum) and some garlic naan (double yum).
Dinner last night – we walked around looking for Indian food, but in this neighbourhood the streets are lined with Moroccan/Lebanese/Iranian restaurants. We indulged in some lovely Tagine, Pastilla and Moroccan salad. As we were looking at the menu, Ryan is pointing at various dishes that he’s had that I’ve made for him. He likes Moroccan food. And for dessert? Very expensive Haagen Dazs.
We shopped all afternoon and were extremely disappointed. The tech stuff – not as cheap as Thailand. I was looking for a little point and shoot camera that I can use in my day-to-day underwater adventures and haven’t found anything. Ryan thinks I should hold out for the Canon G10, but that’s a lot of money and he doesn’t seem very keen on going halfsies, even though he wants it more than I do. I just want something small and compact. We went to the tech mall we’d been told about, expecting tons of choices in cameras with underwater housings and I’d done my research and had narrowed myself down to 3 options. None available really and next to impossible to find underwater housings.
Also in desperate need of bathing suits and have found nothing reasonably priced. So at a loss there!
At the end of the day, my gimp foot is killing me and now it’s moved up to my knee from walking funny AND I have nothing to show for it!
Tonight’s dinner ended up at Outback Steakhouse. Here’s how…a restaurant by the name of “The Ship” had been recommended to us by Cian for steaks and ribs. Ryan really wanted steak, and quite frankly the thought of a good ribeye was appealing to me. We’d spotted The Ship as we were walking around yesterday. Inside was quite nice – saloon-y steakhouse décor. We were seated and given menus. We started perusing. Suddenly Ryan says (sarcastically), “Score, they have sharkfin soup.” I said, “I’m sorry, we have to leave, I can’t eat here.” We left. And it’s exactly what I told the host on our way out, omitting the “sorry” part and adding “you have sharkfin soup.” That was completely offensive to me.
As we’re walking down the street to Outback, I pondered the somewhat hypocritical “you’ll eat a cow, but you won’t eat a shark.” Ryan’s view on it is quite simple: we breed cows for food. As much as that is completely unappealing to me as well (and I must say that I’m enjoying cow less and less), he’s right. Sharks on the other hand are fished out of the ocean to near depletion just for their fins, their fins are cut off and they’re tossed back in to drown. Following Ryan’s train of thought, we can’t grow new sharks. They don’t even have the decency to use the entire animal for food. I can’t get with a culture that thinks it’s okay. It’s my biggest gripe against Asia as a whole.
Outback was alright. Just can’t muster up the taste for meat I guess. Ryan really enjoyed it. But dessert was the bomb - Thunder from Down Under (not men in g-strings, but hot chocolate brownie topped with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, topped with a scoop of Chantilly cream, all drizzled in chocolate sauce and chocolate shavings – so much better than men in g-strings!). I had to say Chantilly Cream because we wiki’ed Chantilly today and I explained to Ryan that in France, whipped cream is called “crème Chantilly.” We wiki’ed “Chantilly” after wiki’ing “A View to a Kill,” which I’m currently watching.
Tomorrow we pick up our passports and go back to Phuket where hopefully we’ll meet Chris. He was supposed to land tonight. Haven’t heard news from him since he last updated his facebook status from Bangkok six hours ago. I'm a little worried - I hope he found his way okay.
I don’t want to sound all negative-like, so let me pull some positive out of the experience. Always interesting seeing different places. Ryan got to ride the metro for the first time. The Petronas Towers are stunning, especially at night when they’re all lit up. Great new food experiences. Now I can say that’s I’ve walked out of a restaurant, which I’d honestly never done before. Increasingly, I'm learning that I am not a city girl. If I once was, I ain't no more!
But the best is spending time with Ryan where we actually get to talk and laugh and have leisurely time. We don’t see each other all that much on the island and we don’t’ spend enough good quality time together and when we do, we’re generally knackered. We have mostly late night conversations before falling asleep when, generally, one of us is already half asleep. So it’s good to catch up a bit (even if right now, he’s got his headphones on as I’m screaming at him to be social). Ah young love!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
My Name is Alexia: Adventures with Karma
There are times when Karma is trying to tell you something and you just don’t listen. Now I’m listening! About two weeks ago, I dropped a crate full of wet dive gear weighing approximately 15 pounds on my left big toe. I’m pretty sure that I fractured it. It didn’t turn all the funky colors that John’s toe kaleidoscoped through, but the pain did escalate and has yet to go away fully and it’s still swollen. But two days ago now, I slipped on the fuel-laden deck of the piece of shit boat, Pasadena, we’ve been forced to dive off of since our big boat is at the shipyard. In a very cartoonesque manner, my butt came out from under me and what stopped my fall was my foot jamming into a piece of protruding metal from the railing. Now the pain from the gash kept together by 3 stitches has taken front stage to the pain in my toe!
The gash in the foot occurred right before dive 2 whilst on an afternoon dive with two Discover Scuba Diving students on a day that I had opted to take off diving, but being the only instructor who hadn’t dove in the morning and who wasn’t laying home sick with the flu, I drew the short stick to go afternoon diving. One of my students was already in the water when this happened. My other student implored me to take care of my foot before we went diving. Instead I hurriedly stuck a large piece of gauze to it and wrapped layers of tape around it. The sight of blood pouring out of my foot was quickly making me very woozy and every moment spent on deck was reducing the chances of my hopping in for dive 2. In EFR I learned that the blood coming out of my foot was arterial blood as it was bright red in color and spurty!
Back on shore, I got rid of my students and went to collect Ryan at Adventure Club (his shop) to take me to the hospital and started hobbling down Main Street. A friend of ours took pity and loaned me his bike so I could wheel myself to the hospital. I still had the bike until this morning and it was a tremendous help.
The stitching process I was not looking forward to. First came shots of novocaine which were painful enough. I started screaming, digging into Ryan’s hand and yelling at him, “I don’t like her, tell her I don’t like her” (referring to the mean evil nurse lady with all the needles). I’m very confused how she did the novocaine because the 3rd stitch was completely out of novocaine range and I screamed so loud I’m sure they heard me clear cross the island.
Prior to this, I’ve spent about the past week feeling a little burnt out. I was not giving 100% of my best customer service. My briefings were lacking and I was edgy and I’m sure my customers could tell. We were dealing with less than ideal conditions at Barakuda. Our big boat motor crapped out and off it went to the shipyard. So we’ve been diving off the POS Pasadena, which is okay when conditions are flat, but we’ve had a big stormfront coming through so conditions have been positively craptacular.
One advantage of working at Barakuda is that while I still have to do shop shifts, I don’t necessarily have to sell what I dive. The disadvantage to that is that you sometimes get people who’s expectations have been built up a little too much. And you’re left to deal with the fallout. I’d been dealing with a bit of that as well last week. One of the guys who’s worked at Barakuda for quite some time spends, in my opinion, way too much time on the sauce. And the crap that comes out of his mouth when he’s drunk is fodder for making those of us who have to dive his sales very upset. Ryan calls him Peter Griffin – there is a very, very, very large physical resemblance.
So everything was pissing me off and I was getting a little anti-Barakuda and very much in need of a break. Karma dealt me this and now I can’t dive for a week.
I would have been even more pissed if we hadn’t already scheduled a visa run to Kuala Lumpur to occupy four of those seven days that my foot is requiring me to be out of the water. I think that I’m experiencing a very small taste of what it’s like to be a Mexican laborer in California. I’ve been injured. My injury cost me 1350 baht (which is like 38 bucks, but when you consider that I only made 50 bucks that day, spending 38 on health care sucks), I’m uninsured and I’m out of work for seven days during which time I cannot make any money.
I’ve considered asking Barakuda to pay for my hospital bill since their boat broke me, but I go back and forth on how much of it is their fault and how much is mine and how much of it is Karma kicking me in the ass, telling me I needed a break. In all fairness though, I had already complained to them how slippery the deck of the POS Pasadena was which in the States would give me big cause for having them pay for my hospital bill. But then again, in the States, I’d also be covered by workman’s comp. I dunno. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. There’s also much to be said for still having employment!
Over the weekend of the 19th was International Clean-up. Our friends from Blue View organized a major clean-up effort – one day of beach and one day of underwater. I was called in to work to do some diving for the beach day, but I was able to join them for the underwater one. The plan was to do two dives off of Phi Phi Ley to clean up some of the fishing nets the Thais tie to the reef. Cutting fishing nets off of staghorn coral is a daunting, incredibly infuriating task. Dive 1 we did in front of Viking Cave – huge cave cut into the side of the island and inhabited by Thais who scale the side of the island to go get the nests for the birds nest soup. In front of it, we found large quantities of tires and batteries. I even found a camera in its case (not underwater housing). Ryan was finally yesterday able to get the pictures off the memory stick. Unfortunately nothing that I can send to the tabloids and make millions. Rats!
Dive 2 we did at the south end of the island called Grouper’s Corner. About 20 minutes into that dive, unbeknownst to me, our friend Lisa was forced to do an emergency ascent. I found her on the boat, breathing O2 when my buddy and I got back up. What puzzled me later was that I ran across her buddy about 50 minutes into the dive solo diving, screwing around with leopard sharks in 15 meters of water and 3 minutes into deco (i.e., no longer recreational limits). This person is a dive pro and apparently also a retard.
Lisa spent the past week at the recompression chamber in Phuket. She did bend herself. She already began experiencing symptoms of decompressions sickness on the boat and continued to experience symptoms for just about the duration of the week. But she’s recovering and only needs to be out of the water for a month. When you consider all the possible alternatives, she’s very lucky. It will be interesting to hear all the details and stories from her talks with the chamber attendants. She is also very grateful that she had DAN insurance. They covered everything. She said otherwise it would have cost her 7300 Euros.
A month ago just about now, we’d planned this visa run to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ryan, you may recall, had categorically refused to get on another 12-hour minivan ride ever again after our Penang visa run. Honestly, with advanced planning, we flew to KL for barely more than the cost of the minivan to Penang. Our friend Gee randomly decided to come with us. We were to meet at 8:00 this morning at Phi Phi Bakery to have breakfast before catching the 9:00 ferry to Krabi (I had to keep reminding myself that we were flying out of Krabi and not Phuket).
Gee called early this morning to say that he couldn’t find his passport. His passport has disappeared. He’s fairly certain it was stolen by a certain person he had over in his room. So now, instead of a fun filled 3 days in KL with us (which he needed as much as I did), he’s stuck figuring out the logistics of getting a new passport. Luckily, he’s got until the 9th of October before he has to leave Thailand without incurring a daily overstay fee, but the British consulate told him it would take 10 days to get a replacement passport. And it being low season, he absolutely does not have the money for this whole mess. Whoever stole his passport has the devil coming after him/her.
I’m typing this from a bus taking us from the KL airport to KL Sentral Station. I know my dad is thinking that I should be looking outside at the scenery instead of at my computer screen, but honestly, it looks like every other suburban highway. We could be in the outskirts of Paris, Taipei, the Bronx (hell, we just passed Yankee Stadium).
We have plans to eat a lot of Indian food while here, do lots of shopping and maybe see a movie. We may go see the Petronas Towers (world’s 2nd tallest buildings?) and possibly hit the aquarium only because it’s been recommended. We’ll keep you posted.
Goodnight and Good Luck!
The gash in the foot occurred right before dive 2 whilst on an afternoon dive with two Discover Scuba Diving students on a day that I had opted to take off diving, but being the only instructor who hadn’t dove in the morning and who wasn’t laying home sick with the flu, I drew the short stick to go afternoon diving. One of my students was already in the water when this happened. My other student implored me to take care of my foot before we went diving. Instead I hurriedly stuck a large piece of gauze to it and wrapped layers of tape around it. The sight of blood pouring out of my foot was quickly making me very woozy and every moment spent on deck was reducing the chances of my hopping in for dive 2. In EFR I learned that the blood coming out of my foot was arterial blood as it was bright red in color and spurty!
Back on shore, I got rid of my students and went to collect Ryan at Adventure Club (his shop) to take me to the hospital and started hobbling down Main Street. A friend of ours took pity and loaned me his bike so I could wheel myself to the hospital. I still had the bike until this morning and it was a tremendous help.
The stitching process I was not looking forward to. First came shots of novocaine which were painful enough. I started screaming, digging into Ryan’s hand and yelling at him, “I don’t like her, tell her I don’t like her” (referring to the mean evil nurse lady with all the needles). I’m very confused how she did the novocaine because the 3rd stitch was completely out of novocaine range and I screamed so loud I’m sure they heard me clear cross the island.
Prior to this, I’ve spent about the past week feeling a little burnt out. I was not giving 100% of my best customer service. My briefings were lacking and I was edgy and I’m sure my customers could tell. We were dealing with less than ideal conditions at Barakuda. Our big boat motor crapped out and off it went to the shipyard. So we’ve been diving off the POS Pasadena, which is okay when conditions are flat, but we’ve had a big stormfront coming through so conditions have been positively craptacular.
One advantage of working at Barakuda is that while I still have to do shop shifts, I don’t necessarily have to sell what I dive. The disadvantage to that is that you sometimes get people who’s expectations have been built up a little too much. And you’re left to deal with the fallout. I’d been dealing with a bit of that as well last week. One of the guys who’s worked at Barakuda for quite some time spends, in my opinion, way too much time on the sauce. And the crap that comes out of his mouth when he’s drunk is fodder for making those of us who have to dive his sales very upset. Ryan calls him Peter Griffin – there is a very, very, very large physical resemblance.
So everything was pissing me off and I was getting a little anti-Barakuda and very much in need of a break. Karma dealt me this and now I can’t dive for a week.
I would have been even more pissed if we hadn’t already scheduled a visa run to Kuala Lumpur to occupy four of those seven days that my foot is requiring me to be out of the water. I think that I’m experiencing a very small taste of what it’s like to be a Mexican laborer in California. I’ve been injured. My injury cost me 1350 baht (which is like 38 bucks, but when you consider that I only made 50 bucks that day, spending 38 on health care sucks), I’m uninsured and I’m out of work for seven days during which time I cannot make any money.
I’ve considered asking Barakuda to pay for my hospital bill since their boat broke me, but I go back and forth on how much of it is their fault and how much is mine and how much of it is Karma kicking me in the ass, telling me I needed a break. In all fairness though, I had already complained to them how slippery the deck of the POS Pasadena was which in the States would give me big cause for having them pay for my hospital bill. But then again, in the States, I’d also be covered by workman’s comp. I dunno. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. There’s also much to be said for still having employment!
Over the weekend of the 19th was International Clean-up. Our friends from Blue View organized a major clean-up effort – one day of beach and one day of underwater. I was called in to work to do some diving for the beach day, but I was able to join them for the underwater one. The plan was to do two dives off of Phi Phi Ley to clean up some of the fishing nets the Thais tie to the reef. Cutting fishing nets off of staghorn coral is a daunting, incredibly infuriating task. Dive 1 we did in front of Viking Cave – huge cave cut into the side of the island and inhabited by Thais who scale the side of the island to go get the nests for the birds nest soup. In front of it, we found large quantities of tires and batteries. I even found a camera in its case (not underwater housing). Ryan was finally yesterday able to get the pictures off the memory stick. Unfortunately nothing that I can send to the tabloids and make millions. Rats!
Dive 2 we did at the south end of the island called Grouper’s Corner. About 20 minutes into that dive, unbeknownst to me, our friend Lisa was forced to do an emergency ascent. I found her on the boat, breathing O2 when my buddy and I got back up. What puzzled me later was that I ran across her buddy about 50 minutes into the dive solo diving, screwing around with leopard sharks in 15 meters of water and 3 minutes into deco (i.e., no longer recreational limits). This person is a dive pro and apparently also a retard.
Lisa spent the past week at the recompression chamber in Phuket. She did bend herself. She already began experiencing symptoms of decompressions sickness on the boat and continued to experience symptoms for just about the duration of the week. But she’s recovering and only needs to be out of the water for a month. When you consider all the possible alternatives, she’s very lucky. It will be interesting to hear all the details and stories from her talks with the chamber attendants. She is also very grateful that she had DAN insurance. They covered everything. She said otherwise it would have cost her 7300 Euros.
A month ago just about now, we’d planned this visa run to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ryan, you may recall, had categorically refused to get on another 12-hour minivan ride ever again after our Penang visa run. Honestly, with advanced planning, we flew to KL for barely more than the cost of the minivan to Penang. Our friend Gee randomly decided to come with us. We were to meet at 8:00 this morning at Phi Phi Bakery to have breakfast before catching the 9:00 ferry to Krabi (I had to keep reminding myself that we were flying out of Krabi and not Phuket).
Gee called early this morning to say that he couldn’t find his passport. His passport has disappeared. He’s fairly certain it was stolen by a certain person he had over in his room. So now, instead of a fun filled 3 days in KL with us (which he needed as much as I did), he’s stuck figuring out the logistics of getting a new passport. Luckily, he’s got until the 9th of October before he has to leave Thailand without incurring a daily overstay fee, but the British consulate told him it would take 10 days to get a replacement passport. And it being low season, he absolutely does not have the money for this whole mess. Whoever stole his passport has the devil coming after him/her.
I’m typing this from a bus taking us from the KL airport to KL Sentral Station. I know my dad is thinking that I should be looking outside at the scenery instead of at my computer screen, but honestly, it looks like every other suburban highway. We could be in the outskirts of Paris, Taipei, the Bronx (hell, we just passed Yankee Stadium).
We have plans to eat a lot of Indian food while here, do lots of shopping and maybe see a movie. We may go see the Petronas Towers (world’s 2nd tallest buildings?) and possibly hit the aquarium only because it’s been recommended. We’ll keep you posted.
Goodnight and Good Luck!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
We're Not in Kansas Anymore...
Ryan posted on Facebook yesterday that even though he’s living the dream, he doesn’t have anything to say on his status update because he’s still working a job, getting a night’s sleep and hanging with friends. I suppose that there’s a certain amount of truth to that.
As we’re settling into what our life is projected to be for the foreseeable future, very little seems to change from day to day. The island has more or less tourists on it. A new string of Discover Scuba Divers comes through our shops and some stay around for a full course. We work more or less shop hours depending on our diving schedule. And we get more or less sleep depending on the 3 Hs, how late we ate a heavy curry and how late we had to work. And we more or less see our friends and socialize.
While the monsoon was already supposed to be underway when we arrived in June, we’ve been rather lucky with the weather. Up until about a month ago, the days were remaining very bright and sunny. A little over a month ago, the rains started in periodically with a few good storms lasting a couple of days each. Now we are in the midst of a full-blown monsoon where never a day goes by without a substantial downpour. So long as the wind stays away, it does not affect the diving too much, but it does deter people from getting on a boat and spending what they perceive to be 4 hours in ghastly conditions. I suppose that if I didn’t know better, I’d be a little weary of anyone telling me that it’s a good idea to go diving in such downpours. But honestly, there is naught else to do, except sit in a bar and drink!
Last week was a good week – I dove for six days straight, which means I made money. I’ve learned during this low season period to take any work that I can, even if it’s just a fun diver since your next day of work may not be just around the corner. I’ve gone four days without diving, which makes me substantially grumpy. It’s too much time spent sitting in the shop; it’s too much time spent out of the water; and it’s too long to go without making a few baht.
Last week was also a good week because I had what must be the greatest dive ever! I’ve already emailed some about it (not sure why I didn’t just do a blog post – maybe because I wanted to make sure that some people who aren’t signed up for email alerts of our blog got it).
I’d been diving in the morning with a couple of nice Spanish DSDs (did I mention previously that I’m doing a lot of teaching/tour leading in Spanish). I got a call while on the boat to take two fun divers out in the afternoon. Still not sure why I got picked, but was not complaining – as I said in the previous paragraph, at this time of year, you’re never sure when your next Baht is coming, so might as well take all the Bahts that are offered!
We picked Bida Nok (before, since and always, my favorite site here). Conditions were perfect – slack tide so no currents. This means that I was able to pick my dive and I opted for the deep side where Mother Nature does not always let you go (unless you want to be kicking against some pretty intense current). We dropped down in the little bay and soon saw two cuttlefish, which I always deem to be a treat. We leisurely made our way to the deep side, staying around 10 meters (30 feet) where we have good chances of seeing Black Tip Sharks. This is exactly what I was scanning the horizon for, eyes darting back and forth on full alert, when I happened to look over my left shoulder and there was a Manta Ray keeping pace with us. It was the most amazing experience ever. So unexpected and so rare and so special. I was overcome with emotion. We watched it for a while and then it flew away. It was truly a very special moment for me.
The dive continued on to be magnificent. After the Manta Ray left us, we continued on and came across a zebra shark swimming. He spent a few minutes swimming around us with his little remora friend. After he left us, we came upon Mr. Turtle and as we’re looking at Mr. Turtle, a Black Tip swims past behind him.
It was an extraordinary 45 minutes. When we surfaced and got back on the boat I had to make sure my divers understood just exactly how special that was. Then I had to properly adjust their expectations for the second dive. Then I had to call Ryan from the middle of the Andaman Sea!
The island is welcoming many Israeli tourists at the moment. It appears that it’s their university holiday-time and they travel in droves. We’d been warned about them and I absolutely abhor stereotypes (even though experience has taught me that stereotypes are based on some nugget of truth). A friend of ours described his selling technique for Israelis and I thought it was a bit abrupt and quite rude, but now I understand. Abrupt and rude avoids a three hour argument.
My own experience now has led me to the conclusion that they’re pushy, rude and entitled and I find it incredibly off-putting. An argument I overheard a few days ago between six Israelis and the guesthouse lady next door to Shop 2 completely floored me and I am now completely put-off by an entire race! We’ve met some lovely Israelis though but generally, you’ll find that the nice (and more importantly polite) ones were either raised somewhere other than Israel and moved to Israel later in life or were born in Israel and raised elsewhere.
And as I put this out there into the ether, I know that some will read it as anti-semitic. It’s not. Strange how a nationality is so intertwined with its religion. If I said that I think it's true: the French are rude, which they sometimes are, most would take it at face value.
I suppose that whilst I’m on stereotypes, I can give you a few others that are proving to the true (and at times amusing).
Irish are extraordinarily heavy drinkers. Irish can’t swim. There is no race whiter than the Irish. Even my boyfriend who is incredibly white is still not as white as the Irish. There, I’ve picked on them enough.
Spaniards can’t keep their freaking hands off the reef even though you tell them not to touch anything (but then you point out a Scorpionfish and the gleaming look in your eye dares them to touch it and they don’t). I seriously think that my briefings to Spaniards are now going to include the following: if you touch, dive over, no refund.
Asians shouldn’t be within a 100 feet of the water, period. It’s astounding that repeatedly, at the Olympics, numbers of them prove to be such incredible athletes.
Eastern Europeans, Americans, English and French tend to do alright with the diving.
Americans are loud and overly boisterous.
Apparently Americans eat a lot.
French are quite reserved and don’t show an overwhelming amount of emotion. (Wasn't true with the very cute and overly enthusiastic young snowboard pro that I Disco'ed last week.)
Latin Americans remain some of the most well-adjusted, happy, jovial people I have ever encountered. I have no idea if that's a stereotype or not, but it is my experience.
I’m used to being around a multitude of nationalities, but I wonder how Ryan is taking in all of this. We haven’t really talked much about it. While admittedly we come from a fairly diverse community living in California, this is a vastly different experience. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.
As we’re settling into what our life is projected to be for the foreseeable future, very little seems to change from day to day. The island has more or less tourists on it. A new string of Discover Scuba Divers comes through our shops and some stay around for a full course. We work more or less shop hours depending on our diving schedule. And we get more or less sleep depending on the 3 Hs, how late we ate a heavy curry and how late we had to work. And we more or less see our friends and socialize.
While the monsoon was already supposed to be underway when we arrived in June, we’ve been rather lucky with the weather. Up until about a month ago, the days were remaining very bright and sunny. A little over a month ago, the rains started in periodically with a few good storms lasting a couple of days each. Now we are in the midst of a full-blown monsoon where never a day goes by without a substantial downpour. So long as the wind stays away, it does not affect the diving too much, but it does deter people from getting on a boat and spending what they perceive to be 4 hours in ghastly conditions. I suppose that if I didn’t know better, I’d be a little weary of anyone telling me that it’s a good idea to go diving in such downpours. But honestly, there is naught else to do, except sit in a bar and drink!
Last week was a good week – I dove for six days straight, which means I made money. I’ve learned during this low season period to take any work that I can, even if it’s just a fun diver since your next day of work may not be just around the corner. I’ve gone four days without diving, which makes me substantially grumpy. It’s too much time spent sitting in the shop; it’s too much time spent out of the water; and it’s too long to go without making a few baht.
Last week was also a good week because I had what must be the greatest dive ever! I’ve already emailed some about it (not sure why I didn’t just do a blog post – maybe because I wanted to make sure that some people who aren’t signed up for email alerts of our blog got it).
I’d been diving in the morning with a couple of nice Spanish DSDs (did I mention previously that I’m doing a lot of teaching/tour leading in Spanish). I got a call while on the boat to take two fun divers out in the afternoon. Still not sure why I got picked, but was not complaining – as I said in the previous paragraph, at this time of year, you’re never sure when your next Baht is coming, so might as well take all the Bahts that are offered!
We picked Bida Nok (before, since and always, my favorite site here). Conditions were perfect – slack tide so no currents. This means that I was able to pick my dive and I opted for the deep side where Mother Nature does not always let you go (unless you want to be kicking against some pretty intense current). We dropped down in the little bay and soon saw two cuttlefish, which I always deem to be a treat. We leisurely made our way to the deep side, staying around 10 meters (30 feet) where we have good chances of seeing Black Tip Sharks. This is exactly what I was scanning the horizon for, eyes darting back and forth on full alert, when I happened to look over my left shoulder and there was a Manta Ray keeping pace with us. It was the most amazing experience ever. So unexpected and so rare and so special. I was overcome with emotion. We watched it for a while and then it flew away. It was truly a very special moment for me.
The dive continued on to be magnificent. After the Manta Ray left us, we continued on and came across a zebra shark swimming. He spent a few minutes swimming around us with his little remora friend. After he left us, we came upon Mr. Turtle and as we’re looking at Mr. Turtle, a Black Tip swims past behind him.
It was an extraordinary 45 minutes. When we surfaced and got back on the boat I had to make sure my divers understood just exactly how special that was. Then I had to properly adjust their expectations for the second dive. Then I had to call Ryan from the middle of the Andaman Sea!
The island is welcoming many Israeli tourists at the moment. It appears that it’s their university holiday-time and they travel in droves. We’d been warned about them and I absolutely abhor stereotypes (even though experience has taught me that stereotypes are based on some nugget of truth). A friend of ours described his selling technique for Israelis and I thought it was a bit abrupt and quite rude, but now I understand. Abrupt and rude avoids a three hour argument.
My own experience now has led me to the conclusion that they’re pushy, rude and entitled and I find it incredibly off-putting. An argument I overheard a few days ago between six Israelis and the guesthouse lady next door to Shop 2 completely floored me and I am now completely put-off by an entire race! We’ve met some lovely Israelis though but generally, you’ll find that the nice (and more importantly polite) ones were either raised somewhere other than Israel and moved to Israel later in life or were born in Israel and raised elsewhere.
And as I put this out there into the ether, I know that some will read it as anti-semitic. It’s not. Strange how a nationality is so intertwined with its religion. If I said that I think it's true: the French are rude, which they sometimes are, most would take it at face value.
I suppose that whilst I’m on stereotypes, I can give you a few others that are proving to the true (and at times amusing).
Irish are extraordinarily heavy drinkers. Irish can’t swim. There is no race whiter than the Irish. Even my boyfriend who is incredibly white is still not as white as the Irish. There, I’ve picked on them enough.
Spaniards can’t keep their freaking hands off the reef even though you tell them not to touch anything (but then you point out a Scorpionfish and the gleaming look in your eye dares them to touch it and they don’t). I seriously think that my briefings to Spaniards are now going to include the following: if you touch, dive over, no refund.
Asians shouldn’t be within a 100 feet of the water, period. It’s astounding that repeatedly, at the Olympics, numbers of them prove to be such incredible athletes.
Eastern Europeans, Americans, English and French tend to do alright with the diving.
Americans are loud and overly boisterous.
Apparently Americans eat a lot.
French are quite reserved and don’t show an overwhelming amount of emotion. (Wasn't true with the very cute and overly enthusiastic young snowboard pro that I Disco'ed last week.)
Latin Americans remain some of the most well-adjusted, happy, jovial people I have ever encountered. I have no idea if that's a stereotype or not, but it is my experience.
I’m used to being around a multitude of nationalities, but I wonder how Ryan is taking in all of this. We haven’t really talked much about it. While admittedly we come from a fairly diverse community living in California, this is a vastly different experience. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Extra, extra, read all about it...
Ryan was offered permanent employment today! YAY!
Just in time for the most miserable month of the year as is rumored, we are both gainfully employed and awaiting high season.
Love to all.
Just in time for the most miserable month of the year as is rumored, we are both gainfully employed and awaiting high season.
Love to all.
We interrupt this regularly scheduled program...
We are “living” with a narcoleptic cat named Fatty. He flops on the bed, belly up and passes out. He also howls more than Kitten, if that’s possible. But really, the only time he shuts his trap is either when he’s purring or passed out. And even when he’s purring, it can quickly turn into a howl. Fatty is not fixed, but somehow Fatty is a big mush. Not aggressive. And narcoleptic. If he were fixed he would just melt he’d get so mushy.
Porno Kitty
What a good head!
We are also “living” with a cat we call Little Girl. Little Girl looks like what you’d expect the love child of a gray tabby and an orange tabby with some white thrown in to look like. She’s still a wee bit shy, unlike Fatty who went from being unsure of whether he wanted to come into our room at all to flopping on the bed like porno kitty within 24 hours. Little Girl is warming up to the whole human experience.
Mostly they live outside, but when we’re home they do hang with us quite a bit. And it’s costing us about 60 Baht a week to feed the monsters. The other night I didn’t get home until past midnight and was surprised to be greeted by a big howler monkey. Ryan had kept Fatty in to keep him company.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve written – mostly because I’ve been insanely busy. Some highlights:
• We had about a week of absolutely spectacular conditions. It was a great preview to what awaits us high season.
• I got to see two octopi mating. That was such a treat and I’m very bummed that I didn’t have any camera with me. I had a feeling it was going to happen. I hovered and watched these two interacting for quite some time, skirting around each other and flirting with each other. And then one tentacle reached across…After it was over there was some rather aggressive behavior. One “ran” after the other and completely “swallowed” it up. Shortly thereafter, the swallowed-up one was able to free itself and promptly swam off.
• I’ve found where the Black Tip Reef Sharks like to hang out and have had a few great dives surrounded by them. On one occasion, I was literally surrounded by 10 to 15 of them swimming around us during a very extended safety stop. It was very impressive. A few times one of them came very close to me only to be squared away by the sound of my bubbles as I exhaled.
• I did my 400th dive and was lucky enough to have 4 really great fun divers and a DMT helping me, so my 400th dive was over an hour long and included a leopard shark, a black tip, a turtle, an octopus and a cuttlefish.
• After about a week of freelancing every day for Barakuda Dive Center, I was offered a permanent job with them and I was happy to accept. They gave me two t-shirts and wrote my name on the board for shop hours and it was official. I’ve now been with them for about 3 weeks. They’re a nice bunch of people (the only guy there who I thought was an idiot and a total drama queen quit after being the butt of the boss’ displeasure on a few issues).
• The island has once again tremendously slowed down. This cycles every month as the full moon approaches and every one leaves for the full moon party. But still the island seems slower than last month. And a lot of the people who are here seem to be nearing the end of their holidays and have little money left.
• Ryan is still freelancing, though is spending a good amount of his non-diving time at a shop called Adventure Club doing shop hours and the odd bit of diving. There’s a chance that they’ll hire him on for the high season (unless something else comes along while they’re making up their minds I suppose).
• Ryan was also sick for about 4 days with a miserable cold. The worst of it was the sickest and most unhappy I think I’ve ever seen him. Poor sweet pea. He did not give it to me so far and for that I am grateful.
• I finally got my bamboo tattoo! I love it! I wanted a shark and a turtle and can’t decide on an octopus or seal. So for now it’s a turtle and shark. It took 7 hours and parts of it were incredibly painful, even after downing 8 Tylenols. But he did nice work. And it will probably be my last tattoo unless I decide to add the octopus or seal to it. I don’t think that I will soon forget how much this one hurt.
We ‘ve planned our next visa run. My initial thought and Ryan agreed was to take a proper break before high season starts. The plan was to go to Bali, meet up with the Elliotts and dive for a couple of days after dropping our passports off at the Thai Embassy in Denpassar. But after looking a little bit at how September is shaping up – it’s supposed to be real slow and the fact that Bali is a lot of traveling for a short break, we’ve decided to go to Kuala Lumpur instead. We’ll leave on the 9:00 a.m. ferry out to Krabi on the 28th and be in KL by 3:00 p.m. The flight is only about an hour. We’ll drop our passports off at the embassy on the 29th and pick them up on the 30th and be able to take the last flight from KL to Phuket at 8:00 p.m. on the 30th. We’ll spend the night in Phuket Town and have the morning to go to Tesco before the afternoon ferry. And since Gee let us tag along last month on his Phuket run, we’re letting him tag along on our visa run.
Keira will be back in October and we’re thinking that we will stay on at Valentine. But if we leave Keira’s room, we will suddenly find ourselves in the midst of very bare-bones living, so a trip to Tesco to get a little fridge and a hot water maker is of the essence before she returns.
Happy Labor Day to all. Have a safe weekend.
Porno Kitty
What a good head!
We are also “living” with a cat we call Little Girl. Little Girl looks like what you’d expect the love child of a gray tabby and an orange tabby with some white thrown in to look like. She’s still a wee bit shy, unlike Fatty who went from being unsure of whether he wanted to come into our room at all to flopping on the bed like porno kitty within 24 hours. Little Girl is warming up to the whole human experience.
Mostly they live outside, but when we’re home they do hang with us quite a bit. And it’s costing us about 60 Baht a week to feed the monsters. The other night I didn’t get home until past midnight and was surprised to be greeted by a big howler monkey. Ryan had kept Fatty in to keep him company.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve written – mostly because I’ve been insanely busy. Some highlights:
• We had about a week of absolutely spectacular conditions. It was a great preview to what awaits us high season.
• I got to see two octopi mating. That was such a treat and I’m very bummed that I didn’t have any camera with me. I had a feeling it was going to happen. I hovered and watched these two interacting for quite some time, skirting around each other and flirting with each other. And then one tentacle reached across…After it was over there was some rather aggressive behavior. One “ran” after the other and completely “swallowed” it up. Shortly thereafter, the swallowed-up one was able to free itself and promptly swam off.
• I’ve found where the Black Tip Reef Sharks like to hang out and have had a few great dives surrounded by them. On one occasion, I was literally surrounded by 10 to 15 of them swimming around us during a very extended safety stop. It was very impressive. A few times one of them came very close to me only to be squared away by the sound of my bubbles as I exhaled.
• I did my 400th dive and was lucky enough to have 4 really great fun divers and a DMT helping me, so my 400th dive was over an hour long and included a leopard shark, a black tip, a turtle, an octopus and a cuttlefish.
• After about a week of freelancing every day for Barakuda Dive Center, I was offered a permanent job with them and I was happy to accept. They gave me two t-shirts and wrote my name on the board for shop hours and it was official. I’ve now been with them for about 3 weeks. They’re a nice bunch of people (the only guy there who I thought was an idiot and a total drama queen quit after being the butt of the boss’ displeasure on a few issues).
• The island has once again tremendously slowed down. This cycles every month as the full moon approaches and every one leaves for the full moon party. But still the island seems slower than last month. And a lot of the people who are here seem to be nearing the end of their holidays and have little money left.
• Ryan is still freelancing, though is spending a good amount of his non-diving time at a shop called Adventure Club doing shop hours and the odd bit of diving. There’s a chance that they’ll hire him on for the high season (unless something else comes along while they’re making up their minds I suppose).
• Ryan was also sick for about 4 days with a miserable cold. The worst of it was the sickest and most unhappy I think I’ve ever seen him. Poor sweet pea. He did not give it to me so far and for that I am grateful.
• I finally got my bamboo tattoo! I love it! I wanted a shark and a turtle and can’t decide on an octopus or seal. So for now it’s a turtle and shark. It took 7 hours and parts of it were incredibly painful, even after downing 8 Tylenols. But he did nice work. And it will probably be my last tattoo unless I decide to add the octopus or seal to it. I don’t think that I will soon forget how much this one hurt.
We ‘ve planned our next visa run. My initial thought and Ryan agreed was to take a proper break before high season starts. The plan was to go to Bali, meet up with the Elliotts and dive for a couple of days after dropping our passports off at the Thai Embassy in Denpassar. But after looking a little bit at how September is shaping up – it’s supposed to be real slow and the fact that Bali is a lot of traveling for a short break, we’ve decided to go to Kuala Lumpur instead. We’ll leave on the 9:00 a.m. ferry out to Krabi on the 28th and be in KL by 3:00 p.m. The flight is only about an hour. We’ll drop our passports off at the embassy on the 29th and pick them up on the 30th and be able to take the last flight from KL to Phuket at 8:00 p.m. on the 30th. We’ll spend the night in Phuket Town and have the morning to go to Tesco before the afternoon ferry. And since Gee let us tag along last month on his Phuket run, we’re letting him tag along on our visa run.
Keira will be back in October and we’re thinking that we will stay on at Valentine. But if we leave Keira’s room, we will suddenly find ourselves in the midst of very bare-bones living, so a trip to Tesco to get a little fridge and a hot water maker is of the essence before she returns.
Happy Labor Day to all. Have a safe weekend.
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