Whale Sharks, Here We Come!!!!

Maybe the next great American-French novel will be scripted at Sunflower Bar as here I sit again penning a few lines for you all. Today all the colors seem particularly vivid – the turquoise of the sea, the greens of the palm trees, the red tarp on the longtail, the gray of the rocks and the beige sand. The high tide wavelets are slap-slapping against the rocks. A father and two sons are bouncing pool balls around a table and what I can best describe as light alternative rock is coming from the speakers.

I’ve put in my order for Kimmie’s Special (tuna melt with chili peppers), French fries and a soda water.

After HUGE amounts of juggling and frustration, we’re booked for a Similans trip that leaves March 9th for 4 days/4 nights. The trip we originally wanted to go on because some of our friends are going on it didn’t work out because Blue View has one of their Canadian groups coming the same week. Then the trip Ryan wanted to go on didn’t work because two other people from Barakuda were going to be gone that week. It’s also a bit of juggling because we have to do a border crossing to activate part 2 of our double entry visas before the 21st of March and we were wanting to combine the two. I’m resigned – nothing can be simple when trying to organize a trip!

It’s fourteen dives, including 3 night dives. Ryan and I are sharing a twin room, because that’s all that was available and Chris has himself booked for a quad. I’m of course afraid that I’m going to roll out of bed. As some of you may know, I’ve fallen out of a twin-sized bed as an adult. So I’m almost hoping that it will be a little like the Channel Islands where your bed is more of a coffin-bunk than an actual twin size bed. But somehow, I think this is a little more upscale than the Truth Aquatics boats!

If you want to take a look at the boat: http://www.khaolakscubaadventures.com/liveaboards/37. Unfortunately, they don’t post the itinerary, so you’ll have to wait on my debrief for that.

Here we go chasing Mantas and Whale Sharks, so wish us luck!

The staff at Barakuda is starting to thin out. We’ve had two instructors leave and two more will be leaving in the next 10 days or so and then another shortly after. It’s becoming a bit more chill of an environment. This morning, a friend of mine and I were starting to talk a little bit about how we can make it our own now that the curmudgeon-y old timers are leaving.

My big beef about staff and Barakuda continues to be that we have to have sufficient staff for two shops which is not necessarily the amount of staff we need for the diving. Sitting at the shop doesn’t pay a single Baht (unless you book something), diving does!

My friend Nicole announced yesterday that she’s leaving. She’d applied for a position on a Similans liveaboard at the beginning of the season and they called her up and asked if she’d come out and finish out the season. After that, she may be back. Since she’s about my favorite person at Barakuda I’m totally bummed she’s leaving, while being very happy for her that she gets her dream job for a while.
I keep getting asked if I’m leaving, how long I’m staying, etc. etc. My new stock answer is that I’m not leaving till I’ve seen a whale shark. At this rate, it could be a while.

If we indeed stay put for low season, I’d like to consider moving us to a bungalow that has hot water. Otherwise, no major changes are upon us personally.

On the diving front - we had that sweet spot of incredible conditions before full moon screwed everything up. I had the unforeseen pleasure of going to the wreck with a very good diver. It yielded these pictures taken with the new little point and shoot that I picked up from one of our departing instructors:





















Now that's what I call good viz!

Well, I’m off to have a massage.

Peace out.

Who's Got Fever????

The deadheads would love Phi Phi. I say this as I’m sitting at Sunflower bar watching young men practice twirling firesticks and fireballs attached at the ends of strings – I don’t know what they’re called. But the sight reminds me of Dead show parking lot scenes – tattooed youngsters (and not-so-young-sters) with too-long hair or dreadlocks, needing a shave and a shower, wearing fisherman pants that equally need a wash, firm, tone, youthful bodies – and most certainly under the influence of something illegal (or barely legal). And on Phi Phi, pot is easy to come by. The average age of the average visitor must be 22 and they all look like they just came in for the show.

Perhaps my favorite place to relax when I get the chance is down here at Sunflower. The atmosphere is super chill, the music never makes me want to leave, the view doesn’t suck and they have hammocks and other lounge furnishings. And it seems that it’s always 10 degrees cooler here.

Even at night, when the beach becomes a Rave, Sunflower stays super mellow.
















(See, the view doesn't suck.)

I’ve just had a massage up at the Viewpoint Resort. I popped in on Ryan who’s sat at the shop doing theory with an open water student and surfing CalGuns.

I wrenched my back earlier this week being at the bent-over-receiving-end of a box full of dive gear that was way too heavy. I dove for two more days and then could barely move. So I decided to take it seriously and was recommended to go see the Barefoot Doctor who rubbed red tiger balm-smelling crap all over my back then trod on me and dug his heels into me. All the while hanging from bamboo bars on his ceiling. Then he rolled me over and prodded my belly and told me that the root of all my problems was too much gas. I left 600 bahts lighter and an hour later I had the worse bellyache and my back was stiffer than ever. I was really really disappointed as I earnestly hoped I’d found a real healer. I won’t go so far as to call him a quack, but hell, if it walks and talks, you fill in the rest…

This was Wednesday.

Thursday we went to Phuket to get our stamps in our passports. Four hours on the ferry and a short minibus ride and taxi ride assuredly did not improve my situation. And yesterday I spent all day lying down reading “The Hour I First Believed” by Wally Lamb that Jenny brought me when she visited. I did this for about 10 hours, minus about 1 hour of hanging with Chris up until the barbeque at Barakuda where Carlien once again outdid herself!

As with all Wally Lamb books, it's not the most uplifting story, but boy is it ever the page-turner - I am absolutely loving it.

Which brings me to today’s no-joke approach to getting myself all good to be back in the water for my two French DSDs tomorrow afternoon. Oil massage up at Viewpoint and tonight – light yoga with Keira.

It’s too hot to be on land. I’m fairly certain I’ve said this before, but honest, it’s 35 celsius in the shade, never mind in the sun! I was “thrilled” to hear that this was “unseasonably warm” because I’d heard that April and May are the hottest months. So to hear that this is what it’s normally like in April either means that this is the hottest it gets or that come April we’re screwed! But the heat is unbearable – just imagine the worst summer heat with humidity and no break from it. And all you can do is complain about it. The cold shower thing is a joke – because come mid-day when the sun is at its hottest, it’s had all morning to beat down on the water containers and turn your nice cool shower into a warm shower – the last thing you want. So the only release from the heat is two hours daily submerged beneath the sea.

So I’ve not written for a while you say. It’s been a weird couple of months. I have been prisoner of my own head which is never good and spent a little too much time post the whole Adventure Club mess followed by a small mess of my own completely focused on the negative and making very little effort to change, ergo feeling like I really had nothing to write about. It’s the fight or flight conundrum. Since I’ve decided that I don’t want to be subject to other people’s bullshit anymore, I’m tending more towards the removing myself from situations I don’t like approach which may not always be the best solution.

And honesly, Island Fever is not a joke!

A bright spot in all that crap was Jenny’s week long visit. While both of us worked, it sure was nice to hang out with her, enjoy meals and chats. And I had the privilege to take her diving.

Changes are upon us as we’re shifting from high season back towards low season. While technically we are still well in high season, seasonal locals are starting to leave Phi Phi for their next high season location. The island will start to thin out.

(Aside – I’ve just enjoyed a tuna, cheese and chili toastie on baguette – otherwise known as a tuna melt – and had to pick a couple of the chilies out so I’d actually still be able to breath after finishing it. So now my fingers are covered in chili nematocysts and I’m trying to be careful not to get them near my eyes, but I’ve already rubbed my nose with them a number of times and now my nostrils have this funny tingly sensation.)

Well folks, I’m off to yoga!

It's a New Year Alright!

I’ve started writing this entry a few times now and I just can’t seem to get it quite right to publish it. So I’ll give it one more try and see how it comes out this time. Thus far 2010 has turned Phi Phi from small paradise to brick-wall-hitting-you-in-the-face-crap!

A few nights ago Ryan and I got caught in a heavy downpour as we were going home from dinner. We dashed into one of the local guesthouse’s reception area and waited out the storm. Mon, the manager of the house, bent our ear for about an hour as the rain streamed down in heavy sheets, reminding us that, high season or not, we are indeed in the tropics. Mon showed us a picture of Phi Phi 20 years ago and said to us, “People come here, they say it’s paradise. This isn’t paradise, this is hell.”

New Year’s Eve, we had dinner at 9:00 at La Mamita with Ryan’s work crew. Ryan was tired and somewhat grumpy so he ate and went home. I stayed out for a long while longer, bouncing from Ryan’s work crew to my work crew and at midnight we said our “happy new years” from under the fireworks over Tonsai Bay. It was a stunning display. The party continued after that at the Rolling Stoned Bar where the live cover band entertained and made us dance. No, the name is not a misprint on my part. What I don’t know and can’t seem to get an answer to is whether they were being witty when they named it (as in haha, they were always stoned, let’s call it Rolling Stoned) or whether it’s a simple Thai misprint, which would oh so typical. The evening ended much too late with flying fists between DMs who ordinarily love each other all because of a drama queen divemaster trainee. Shortly after I went home, shaking my head.

January 1st, 2010, Barakuda was closed for the majority of the day – we had no dive boats going out. Ryan and I were scheduled to fun dive together with Adventure Club. We were supposed to do that Christmas Day, but everything had gotten messed up. We had one super nice dive and one mediocre dive, but nonetheless we were both super happy to enjoy some quality underwater time together. It’s been almost 6 months since we’ve been diving – that’s a crazy long time! And, as it turned out, our first dive together, our stunning dive on Bida Nok Deep, my favorite site, just happened to be my 600th dive (fact which I found out 10 days later when I finally got around to downloading my computer).

January 2nd, 2010, all hell breaks loose and this little paradise turns craptacular!
And thus the story begins…

On new year’s day, Dom, one of the DMs at Adventure Club picked up his pay and then quit. He packed his gear and went to leave the shop. Andrew, the owner of Adventure Club, followed him down the street, grabbed his gear bag and turned it inside out in the middle of the street “to make sure Dom wasn’t stealing anything.” Later we come to find it was really a last ditch effort to humiliate him.
Dom and Andrew had their differences, but honestly, Andrew butts heads with anybody who’s got half a brain and doesn’t automatically agree with him.

Apparently Adventure Club has an unwritten (and unspoken) rule that if you quit without giving notice, you forego your last two weeks of pay. I’m still unclear in what world you can work and not get paid, just another reminder that we’re not in Kansas anymore. Andrew believes therefore that Dom stole from him. So, later that night, he puts together a posse and goes hunting for Dom.

Well, later that night, Dom and the rest of the Adventure gang (sans Ryan, of course) are found having drinks at Rolling Stoned. Andrew walks in and grabs Dom and tells him that they need to settle “this” outside. Dom declines so Andrew tries to get the bar to stop serving them drinks, which the bar refuses to do since the gang was causing no trouble. Andrew’s posse looms in the doorways of the bar while Andrew stays in the shadows outside. When the gang left after the bar closed, Andrew and his friends jumped Dom and beat him to a pulp.

The consequences: Adventure Club has exactly one instructor and no divemasters left. Amanda quit the following morning and left the island with Robyn (new divemaster) and Dom. Ryan quit/was fired the following night. Michael quit the evening after that and Tobias gave 10 days notice because he can’t afford to forego any pay. And Jemma, the manager, has given her notice – she’ll be leaving at the end of the month.

Ryan walked into all this shit at 7:00 a.m. the following morning expecting it to be business as usual and be going out for a good day’s diving with his pals. Instead he was treated to Amanda in tears, who then told him what had happened.

Ryan was willing to give Andrew the benefit of the doubt or was even willing to forgive Andrew if he mustered up an “I really fucked up, things got out of hand and I’m very sorry for all of it.” But instead Andrew called together a staff meeting and justified why he was right in what he did. Then he put Ryan on the spot to make a decision right there, and while I think Ryan had already made his decision, that pretty much cinched the deal.

Andrew then left the island the next day and that was a huge relief. I was worried that if he felt that Ryan had antagonized him in any way or determined that if Ryan didn’t give back the last pay he’d received, then he’d stolen money, he might come after Ryan in the same way he went after Dom.

A day later Andrew came back and as far as I can tell has really made no trouble since, except to pretty much make work hell for Jemma who is counting the days over there.

Ryan’s totally bumming . Despite Andrew being a complete psychopath, he had a nice time working at Adventure. He enjoyed his team and had fun with them. And Andrew wasn’t on the island all that much anyways. When the whole “you can’t go on your visa run when you need to go or you’ll be fired” fiasco happened, Ryan fought for that job.

My girlfriends, Amanda and Robyn left the island after coming back for two nights and I was so sad when they left.

As you can imagine, we are absolutely floored by all of this. It’s been a really sad and frustrating start to the new year.

In the meantime, it’s back to longtail diving for Ryan as he’s found a home at Blue View Divers with Cian and Lisa. He’d already scoped out a job there when Andrew had said Ryan was fired if he went on his visa run at the intended time, so 10 days later it wasn’t too difficult to just walk into that job. Cian and Lisa are real nice people and I think that Cian’s wanted Ryan to work there for a while now so it should be a good fit. He’ll probably find that his hours are a bit shorter as Blue View isn’t open until 10:00 every night and they start diving later.

I’m a little frustrated with certain things at Barakuda. While it continues to be a source of good work, some of the idiosyncracies there are incredibly frustrating. When Jemma changes shops, there is a chance that I will leave. Mostly, I’m looking forward to moving on at the end of high season to see what other paradise the seven seas have to offer.

Happy New Year people! My only resolve is to stop using potato chips as a meal.

December 21, 2009

The disadvantage of living on a secluded island in the Andaman Sea is that travel to and from is a game of hurry up and wait for a multitude of different modes of transport and it takes at least a day of travel to get anywhere beyond Phuket. But a last we were getting off this rock just as I was falling into the madness that is Island Fever.

We boarded the Chao Koh ferry minutes before 9:00 this morning after stopping off at the French Bakery to pick up a “pain au chocolat” and cappuccino. Ryan had grabbed a bacon egg and cheese from Phi Phi Bakery and Chris had an assortment of different breakfasts from a couple different places. At 8:30 in the morning the pain au chocolat from French Bakery is still really really good as it has yet to transgress into a humidity-imbibed stale copy of its earlier self.

The ferry is about an hour and a half crossing to Rasada Pier, Phuket Town from where we took a half hour mini bus ride to Phuket Airport where we waited for our 2:40 flight. We opted on Burger King for lunch (and I also got a piece of quiche from a bakery vendor which I didn’t so much enjoy but ate out of hunger with some BK fries which I over-enjoyed). Chris hasn’t recovered from his BK lunch yet, while Ryan savored every last fat globule.

Pete from Seafrog who was also joining us on this trip to Vientiane met us in the lounge while we waited to board. A quick 1:40 minute flight landed us in Udon Thani at about half past four where we found ourselves another mini bus for the hour drive to Nong Khai, the Thai side of the Thai-Laos border. The Thai customs agent did not say a word to me as seems to be the custom and we were in No Man’s Land waiting for a bus to take us over the Mekong River via the Friendship Bridge. The sun was just setting, painting an eerie still picture over the water of the Mekong. Lao visa on arrival cost us $30 apiece – more than our flights to Udon Thani! And then we were on another mini bus into Vientiane where we arrived about 6:30.

From all the sitting and jostling around in poorly suspended vehicles, I can’t feel my tailbone and Ryan’s complaining that his butt hurts.

I’ve idled the day away reading an extremely depressing and poorly written book titled “And Then One Morning” about the Tsunami. It’s a fantastic story and it really is a shame that the guy can’t write and that it wasn’t professionally edited. Otherwise it’s riveting and I would recommend it – it’s a quick read – only a couple hundred pages. It’s all the more interesting from the perspective of one living on Phi Phi when you can follow his every move and know some of the people he writes about.

Vientiane so far is promising to be a much better choice in cities for us. It’s bustling, there are streetside cafes with people sitting outside, the streets are lined with welcoming guesthouses in a variety of interesting architectures. There’s a little night market and street vendors. I think this will be a much more pleasant city for us to explore on foot than KL was. And from where I stand the fact that I can actually STAND and WALK this time should alone make it a huge improvement!
We had a fantastic Indian meal for dinner of pappadam, naan, rogan josh, tikka massala and vindaloo. I topped mine off with sweet sweet lassi.

December 23, 2009

I slept troubled our first night in Vientiane. My first mistake was finishing the world’s most depressing book before falling asleep so that I was full on fountain of tears, with snot running down my nose by the time I read the last word and turned out the lights. There is just no uplifting ending to that story. It keeps getting worse and ends just as awful as it could. I suppose that’s the difference between truth and fiction. In fiction the guy gets the girl in the end or there’s a beautifully uplifting moral. In truth everybody dies and it’s miserable.

Until now I’ve not understood why the Thais head for the hills or Krabi every time there’s the most minute, little earthquake. Certainly logic can dictate the difference between a 4.5 quake and the wave that might create in comparison to the second most violent earthquake in recorded history. But I think now I understand the trauma that must linger so overwhelmingly and PTSD is not logical.

I’ve also concluded that Andrew, Ryan’s boss was very very lucky indeed. His entire family was at Adventure Club when he saw terrorized people running down the street away from the beach. He didn’t question, but just grabbed his wife and kids and headed for Reggae Bar. He could have lost his entire family.

But now we’re in Laos. If you blink in Laos you’ll miss a temple. There are more temples in Vientiane than there are Starbucks in Santa Clara – not making a comparison, just saying.

Vientiane is lovely – like I said – bustling. It reminds me a bit of New Orleans in the French influenced architecture – lots of wooden balconies and terraces. It is also a bit of collision of old versus new. Lots of shiny new building interspersed with old world charm. A scooter goes by side saddled by a girl wearing shorter than short shorts and a clingy t-shirt at the same time you cross an old Lao woman in the traditional Lao garb, covered from head to toe in grey drab clothing complete with the straw pointy hat and carrying their wares in two baskets carefully suspended from a big stick.





The names of the streets are mostly in French – all “rue” something or other. Our guesthouse is on Rue Francois Ngin.

We started our first day by going to drop off our passports at the Thai Consulate. I had a minor freak out at the border when I realized that I only have one empty page left in my passport. I was hoping that asking for a double-entry visa was not going to require two pages.


(Riding the Tuk Tuk)


(Bahts and Kips and Dollars, oh my! How to pay for a Tuk Tuk)

Once passports were dropped off we wanted to go to Buddha Park but did not realize that Buddha Park is about 30 km outside Vientiane. The Tuk Tuk driver dropped us randomly at the Victory Arch which they compare to the Arc de Triomphe. The only resemblance is that it is indeed an arch and it represents victory. That’s where the similarities end. To say that the Arc de Triomphe is beautiful might be a little excessive, but it is not displeasing to the eye. This thing, however, was an eye sore! But like the Arc de Triomphe, you can climb to the top of it (albeit via stairs, not an elevator) and the view is quite nice from the top. Unlike the Arc de Triomphe, there are two levels of mall like stalls selling all manner of Lao souvenirs from t-shirts for BeerLao to old French colonial coins to knick-knackery made from ivory (score!).











We’ll come back later to how much my ass hurts from climbing up all the Lao stairs.

From the Victory Arch we walked back to our hotel. Vientiane is actually really really small and you can certainly walk everywhere if you have the time, and well, we have nothing but time. We had lunch at a lovely little outdoor restaurant and I enjoyed one of my favorite dishes – laap gai with khao niao (shredded chicken salad with sticky rice).

While Ryan napped the afternoon away, Chris and I decided to go see one of these million temples that you can’t blink in case you’ll miss it. Not so randomly, we opted for Vat Sisaket. It was a lovely and charming low-key little temple with lots of shrines, a central Sim that was in desperate need of restoration and boasted a ceiling replica of a Chateau from the Loire Valley and a massive Buddha.












Now let’s talk about dinner. I had spotted a Vietnamese restaurant that sounded wonderful to me (dragging Ryan there for lunch tomorrow before we leave). But, the three boys outvoted me. So off we went to try Lao food at supposedly the best Lao restaurant in Vientiane. I had a really bad feeling about this, but I figure that I can always find something to munch on. Oh how wrong I was!

You all know how I do not eat mystery meat to begin with. What you don’t know is how incredibly picky I’ve become since living in Asia. I eat chicken, shrimp, bacon on top of my Sports Bar salad only and ham in my Unni’s Ham, Cheese, Pasta salad only. That is it – no other pork and absolutely no beef and no fish except every once in a while I’ll have the chili/lime fish at Esom. Otherwise, it’s generally not difficult to find vegetarian options so not too big an issue.

The menu had everything from entrails to fried frog skin – not a single dish with chicken or shrimp. But there all the way at the end of the menu was my dish – fried noodles with no mention of meat. Okay, I’ll order that! All the boys ordered the same thing – beef stew. And we opted to share a papaya salad; it came first and was tart and not at all spicy despite a request for 3 chilies.

Then came my fried noodles slathered in mystery meat. The boys decided that they would share my plate and I would order it again and specify no meat. I explained best I could what I wanted having also specified that the menu said nothing about meat. Translation – hint, hint, I’ll be polite, but really, if you’re gonna have meat on something, the menu needs to say so

Chris enjoyed more of my noodles than his own stew – he slurped the broth from his stew, but left all the chunky bits. Pete and Ryan ate everything except the big hunks of fat.

Here is what must have gone through the guy’s head as he headed for the kitchen to order my noodle dish take 2: “why is she ordering the exact same thing again when she hasn’t even eaten the one she has.” Here is what went through my head when he brought me back the exact same dish slathered in the exact same mystery meat: “Why would I order the same thing twice.”

So that night for dinner I had apple pie with vanilla ice cream – nice white people food ordered at the very white people pub next to our hotel.

I told Chris as we were leaving the restaurant that if Laos was known for the quality of its cuisine, we’d have a Lao restaurant in the San Jose area.

Day two began at 8:00 a.m. We’d decided to try for Buddha Park and left early since we needed to be at the consulate at 1:00 to pick up our passports. We’d been told that we could get the government bus to Buddha Park, a much more financially reasonable option than a taxi. The bus is an oversized mini van with about six rows of seats – a bit like the shuttle that takes you from the airport to your hotel or rental car place or long-term parking, but much much much much much older and noisy.
Miraculously we got on the right bus. We were the only three white people on board and compared to all the Lao might as well have been giants. I think that Ryan’s head touched the ceiling when he was standing. The back row of the bus was already rather full, I thought, when we got on. But these three people parted to make room for me to sit down. And now we were nice and sandwiched in there. Then the bus driver walked around the outside to the back window and started yelling at us about the back row. 5 people. 5 people. He barked this a few times and more buns were squeezed too close together to make room for Ryan who was able to squeeze about 1/3 of his butt between mine and the Lao butt on his other side.

We started our journey through Vientiane and then along the Mekong River heading towards Buddha Park. A few stops were made to pile more people onto an already crammed bus. Only major stop – Friendship Bridge/Thai border where virtually everybody got off except the 3 white giants who then spread out for the remainder of the trip to Buddha Park. Since this was the only major stop, we’re considering taking the same bus to the border tomorrow.

Buddha Park rocked! On the banks of the Mekong is a plot of land covered in various Buddhist statues, amongst them, a reclining Buddha and this very odd structure that’s like a jungle gym for adults. Made of concrete and shaped like one of those Mexican outdoor stoves (or like a big onion), you enter through the mouth and inside there are three levels connected by a series of incredibly narrow, high and dangerous stairways. Each level has a ring of statues with a theme, each level stranger than the next. From the top, there’s a nice view of the rest of the park. Apparently this thing was all sculpted and put together by some ferang who’d spent a little too much time sniffing glue?

We took lots of funny pictures.

























Growling bellies dictated that we ought to enjoy some Lao lunch on the banks of the Mekong, this time emphasizing the need for it to be vegetarian. We hopped the bus back to the bus depot in Vientiane. Since we had an hour to kill before we needed to be at the consulate, we decided to walk there and avoided the instant onslaught of Tuk Tuk drivers that swarmed the second we descended from the bus.

We picked up our passports and all checked our visas and sure enough, next to the spot where it says “Number of Entries” was printed the number 2. And mine was taking up the last possible page of my passport, so off we went to the American Embassy to enquire about having new pages sewn into my passport. The boys figured that they’d do that as well since we were going anyway. I never expect anything to be easy when it comes to governmental bodies and was pleasantly surprised. We filled out a form each, handed in our passports and 20 minutes later got them back with a booklet of pages sewn into the middle, giving us many more travel possibilities before our passports expire.

December 24, 2009

Day three in Vientiane brought about much laziness before our noonish departure. Deciding how to get back down to Udon Thani was an exercise in herding cats amidst so many simple solutions. I left the boys to figure it out while I went to spend 10 minutes by myself to get my eyebrows waxed. Still cannot find a place to do it completely correctly like my place in Santa Clara. When I returned the boys still hadn’t figured it out and I still butted out because I said I was okay with whatever they chose. As I said to Ryan, “I got us up here, you guys figure out how to get us back down.”

Ryan and I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant – remember that restaurant I wanted to have dinner at the night I ended up in mystery meat hell? It was almost everything I’d hoped for though the quality of the duck in the 5 spice duck dish I ordered was, well, tough.

I’m writing the last of this as we’re sitting at Udon Thani airport awaiting our flight back to Phuket. For the first time in four days, I’ve managed to log on to the internet and Facebook is abuzz with Christmas-y type status updates and it is making me incredibly homesick. I said to Ryan that I would love nothing more than for Scotty to beam me back to pellet stove and flannel sheets and Homer PJs and figuring out how we’re going to fit in all the Christmas visits that we want to get done.

We did not successfully find and connect to any wifi while in Laos which was a bit of a shame as I was curious whether we’d have full access to sites like Facebook and wiki from within a communist country – I know that in China, for example, you can’t. Watching a smidge of Lao television this morning, I was able to surmise that the movie “Finding Neverland” is just now coming out in Lao theatres. Hmmmmm.

The Lao immigrations agent asked me how I enjoyed my visit to Laos and I told him that I loved Vientiane and I would like to come back to Laos for longer and visit the countryside. I’m tempted to say that even though we don’t have to do another visa run, we do have to cross the border again in 3 months and I wouldn’t be against using that time to take a few days to go up to Vang Vieng.

Laos has no elevators. Remember how I said I’d talk about all the stairs I’d climbed? In addition to the stairs at the Victory Arch and the concrete onion Ryan and my room was on the fourth floor of a building with oversized floors – better make sure that you haven’t forgotten anything before you start off on your adventures!

Much love to you all. Peace.

My Beach Bar Debut and Other Tribulations

It’s dead slow. I’m really ceasing to believe a lot of what I’ve been told about this island. Or maybe it’s changing.

I went out for a bit of a crazy girl’s night out with Amanda (fellow instructor of Ryan) and Robyn (Ryan’s DMT) a few nights ago. We went out for an absolutely fantastic dinner at La Piazzetta – indulged in the appetizer of Italian meats and cheeses, followed by pastas and pizzas and all topped off with liter of nice red wine. What I most appreciated is that we sat around a table enjoying all of this loveliness for an hour and a half – it was very leisurely and unrushed.

We all found out after dinner that none of us had to dive the following morning so we thought we’d go out to Deco Bar and continue our evening of girly chats for a bit longer. As it turns out, this ended quite contrary for one of us (not me) who got a call at 6:45 in the morning because the DM at her shop had called in sick and another one of us (me) got called in to dive in the afternoon. I was so knackered from only 5 solid hours of sleep.

The evening ended at 2:30 in the morning after a few hours of bar hopping and dancing at the beach parties and watching crazy drunk people think that they can jump rope with fire. One guy seriously caught on fire - his entire left side went up in flames and I’m sure that it wasn’t until the next morning that he realized just how badly he was burned.

Anyways, all this not just to tell you that I had a lovely crazy girls night out, but that the beach party was packed. So there are people on the island. They’re just here to drink and party. These people are not here to dive.

This morning Chris and I had a nice chill n chat session on our mutual patio, followed by a mediocre breakfast, followed by a walk on the beach to see naked boobies. And the beaches were covered in people napping off their hangovers.

So today on Phi Phi, every dive shop sent out a boat with 2 or 3 divers on it, but tonight the beach bars will be raging mad and tomorrow the beaches will be covered with people again napping off their hangovers.

It’s been an insanely slow week. I’ve actually enjoyed some really nice dives with some fun divers, which as I think I’ve said before doesn’t pay much, but when the divers are good it is so enjoyable and easy. And I’ve been mostly diving in the afternoon which I now prefer. There’s no-one on the dive sites, there’s no-one on the boat. It’s great.

I also had the most spastic open water student this week. I started out with two, but one dropped out after getting ill in confined. I don’t know why, but as Gar used to say, “I can’t want it more than she does.” That left me with Carl who was just scary insane. He focused on the most bizarre things – like what would happen if he lost his weight belt or what would happen if the inflator on his jacket malfunctioned. Carl tried to grab my reg out of my mouth twice (while underwater). Carl tried to hold his breath and go to the surface. Carl tried to climb on top of me both underwater and at the surface more than once.

At the end I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that I issued Carl a certification card, but he was able to do the skills to what PADI would consider mastery for an open water student and his form in the water wasn’t even all that bad. He is the only person that I’ve ever certified and felt like I should leave a little note in his logbook for his next instructor to let them know that it really isn’t my fault that I’m not a crap instructor because I know that the next PADI professional is going to take one look at him and go “who the hell certified him.” In my opinion this guy should not dive unsupervised and I told him as much.

At Barakuda the tension is palpable. I’m glad that Ryan and I leave for our visa run on Monday because I can feel myself getting more fed-up every day. Probably the biggest problem is that no-one is diving a lot. We’re all still making enough money to live, but if it continues at this rate, that’s all it’s going to be. Possibly when I come back it will be a bit busier. I’m actually getting a little fed up with some of the drama that goes on there as well as some of the completely demented business decisions that get made. I came here to dive not to listen to prima donnas.

So I’m a little anti-Barakuda at the moment which will either pass with a little distance from it that this visa-run will afford me or it won’t pass, in which case I will go see the manager at Ryan’s shop and beg her for a job and if that doesn’t work then I’ll have to email the owner and beg him for a job and if that doesn’t work then Ryan will just have to support me in the manner in which I’ve become accustomed.

We are nearing Christmas and the 5th anniversary of the Tsunami. I found out today that one of my colleagues lost his girlfriend in the Tsunami. I imagine that it will be quite a somber day here. Another of my colleagues and his wife are from New Orleans and she was expecting the Tsunami memorial to be a celebration of life in much the same way as they do in New Orleans, and was surprised to find out that it is quite the opposite. After Katrina it’s hard to imagine that even the spirit of New Orleans can take a day that became a mass funeral and turn it into a celebration of life.

We return to the island on Christmas day and I’m hoping that Ryan and I will get to go diving together that afternoon with cameras and all. Now that I know the sites so well, I’d really like to spend some time photographing. And I’d like to dive with Ryan – it’s been so long! I’m hoping we’ll have Christmas dinner together as well with friends – a little family dinner away from family.

As we leave Monday, you’ll probably hear from me before Christmas unless Vientiane doesn’t have wifi. It’s Southeast Asia, anything is possible.

Peace.

Chasing Mantas and Proust

The monsoon comes and goes and conditions ebb and flow depending on how close we are to full moon. The closer we are to full moon the more the currents rip making diving conditions more challenging. The farther we are from full moon, the easier it seems to be.

There are stories of manta rays and whale sharks and whales around the island, making those of us who believe in such things dream of large and glorious underwater encounters. For two days now I’ve been searching for mantas and coming up with morays. I’m not sure why we can’t just take the boat out in the morning and go looking for such things and once we spot them from the surface, then go diving. Why must I search such a large sea for such a big fish? It is perfect conditions for these critters as the sea is rich with plankton, making the viz a bit hazy, but certainly giving mantas and whale sharks a reason to stick around.

I just hope that when I see my first whale shark it is as awe-filled as the first time I stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I certainly am anticipating it in much the same way.

We’re settling into a nice routine I think. And I’m starting to feel like I’m really a part of this little expat community. And I really like this little expat community. Everyone has a story, a reason why they’re here. Some had what we would all consider “good” jobs back home and chucked it all to come live a bit of this incredible dream. Some are young kids just prolonging or avoiding settling into a 9 to 5 life or maybe they’ve just figured out that’s just not the way to go.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life and living and dying. I think that the Existentialist movement was nothing more than the midlife crises of a few eloquent, creative men. I think I might be going through a bit of a midlife crisis. I don’t know what you call the funny emotions and thoughts I’ve been having, but I have concluded one thing – you only get one of these and you better make it count for what you want it to count for and enjoy the most of it. I feel like I’ve spent the better part of my life doing things that I was supposed to do, living up to imaginary expectations of imaginary ghosts. No more! No matter what comes next, from here on out my life is on my terms.

I think our society propagates fear and keeps us in a constant state of anxiety (and then puts us on Prozac to numb us). I haven’t seen the news in months. I have absolutely NO idea what is going on in the world and I am 100% okay with that. In fact I feel healthier for it. And I’m sure it hasn’t changed much – there’s wars going on somewhere over something stupid like religion or oil, massacres and persecutions are abundant, I’m sure, and someone’s still not happy with who’s president of the U.S. And have we figured out yet that the only way to reform healthcare in America is to get rid of lobbyists known as insurance companies and pharmaceuticals? No? So still not interested in watching the news or reading CNN.com.

I also think it’s strange that the human body can’t go more than 16 hours without getting sleep. That’s not a very efficient machine.

It’s a funny life we’re living at the moment. Ryan and I see each other very little but for the 8 or so hours that we’re sleeping. We work incredibly hard and I think that we’re both feeling very rewarded in what we’re doing. We’re living like gypsies in a tiny little room (though very large by island standards) with a bed, two seats that we never use, a clothes rack that we’ve converted into a “closet,” a small vanity and a 3 drawer Tupperware thing that houses undies and bathing suits. And a fridge atop of which we keep the kettle, the catfood and the Tupperware I use for my take-away. I wish Ryan would use the Tupperware for his take-away as well. It’s a small contribution to reducing my carbon footprint – this island is Styrofoam and plastic bag MAD!

I had an argument with Ryan a while back after he opened the flavor packet for his cup o salt and the contents went flying all over the bed and I asked what the frick he was doing making dinner on the bed anyways and he argued that we didn’t have a kitchen and I said, “yes, but we have a food prep area, it’s on top of the fridge. If you’ll just take the cat food down off of the fridge…”

We have chores. I still do the dishes, he picks up water from Water Hill and feeds the cats (mostly). I pay for laundry and drop it off and pick it up. He buys me chocolate and ice-cream. It works out okay. Sometimes we’ll argue about our chores, but since neither one of us wants the other’s chores we always agree in the end.

Well, it’s almost time for another visa run and I’ve got the whole thing planned for Vientiane (Laos) this time. We fly up on the 21st and will return to the island on the morning ferry Christmas Day with double entry tourist visas. The flights were hella cheap at $41 roundtrip. From what I’ve heard, Vientiane is actually supposed to have a certain charm, unlike KL, which everyone agrees is a shit-hole (I really wish people had coughed up that bit of info before we went on our KL run).

I’ll sign off with New Rule! If you’re reading this blog update, you’d better be thinking of a few lines to put in an email and send me! I know that you all think that nothing’s new, that it’s all same, same and NOT different, but believe me, hearing about how and what you’re doing makes me happy.

I’ll write more after I’ve seen a whale-shark.

Love to all. Peace, out!

Purple Rock, Red Rock

Yesterday morning as I arrived at work bright and early, I was greeted by Lee, the owner of Barakuda, as he bellowed at me from his third floor apartment above the shop, king of his domain from where he surveys his 2 inches of ocean view in the far distance past his backyard of junk heap pile in the vacant lot between Barakuda and the Phi Phi Market. Lee was all excited for some reason or other. He was not going with us on our very packed Hin Muang/Hin Daeng trip, but came down to see us off (or maybe to see if there were no-shows in which case he’d have snuck himself on the boat).

I was anticipating this trip a little bit like a 4 year old anticipates Christmas and the arrival of Santa Claus. I said to Russell and Veronica as we walked to the speedboat that expecting Manta Rays and Whale Sharks felt a little bit like praying for Santa Claus. Then I said the same thing to Paula and Juan in Spanish. And off we were 11 intrepid divers and 3 intrepid instructors, one of which was giddy as a school girl, off to see the absolute best diving that Phi Phi has to offer.

Hin Muang (Purple Rock) and Hin Daeng (Red Rock) are 90 km south of Phi Phi and about an hour and change away by speedboat when it’s flat. As we later found out it’s about 2 hours by speedboat when it’s not flat. In the high season it is the place for Manta Rays and Whale Sharks. Since I’ve seen a Manta Ray on Bida Nok a little over a month ago, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to expect them to pop up every now and then and I didn’t think that it was really too much to hope for on this trip either. I had absolutely no expectation of really seeing a whale shark.

There’s no point in any suspense – we saw neither. What we did see was two of the most incredible dive sites I’m sure I’ve ever seen. The depth of the canyons, the richness of the corals and quantities of anemones was breathtaking. I can well imagine the awesomeness of seeing mantas swooping through the canyons. And since they’ve been untouched by divers for over 6 months and are not touched by divers on a daily basis AND are only approached by divers with good buoyancy skills they are in such pristine condition. Imagine flying through a somewhat smaller version of the Grand Canyon and you’ll come close to imagining what it’s like to swim through these structures that rise 60 meters from the sea floor to the surface. It was an experience of a lifetime. I hope to live it again real soon this time with the big fellas that draw the crowds there in high season.

I’ve been demoted to divemaster. There’s an insane number of fun divers funneling through the shop and smaller numbers of DSDs and Open Water or Advanced students. So most of us instructors are playing DM. It’s not great for the pocket book – DM work pay is crap compared to instructor pay, but what it lacks financially, it greatly makes up for in fun, fun, fun!

Last week I had the pleasure of touring around a divemaster from Spain here on vacation with his girl. He dove every day while she alternated a day of diving with a day of beach and yoga. He loved the diving here and he was so easy to dive with. He’d come in the evening, pack his bags, analyze his nitrox and order his food. All I had to do was toss my box out and order lunch. When his girl dove, he’d pack her crap as well. By the end of the week I was feeling much more comfortable speaking Spanish – I figure that if I could just get Spaniards for a month or so straight, some of it might actually really begin to stick.

A couple of nights ago, I’d talked to Norwegians who at the time were drunk, but I got one of them dreaming about seeing turtles. They had been to Koh Tao and dove Koh Tao. I told them diving was better here. They told me that’s what they’d told them on Koh Tao. But they’d not seen turtles on Koh Tao, so the one who wanted to see turtles got hooked. Yesterday they signed up and today they went diving with me and their girlfriends snorkeled. I gave them turtles, I gave them sharks. By the time we came out of dive 2 they were talking about going again this afternoon. Diving was definitely better here they told me. The girls were thrilled as they got two great snorkels and I told them where to go to see the sharks on Bida Nai.

Well one of them decided to go again this afternoon and the other one was off to nap, I suppose. So off we went again with him and his girlfriend and another friend. He was the only one diving. We ended the day with a dive on Malong and he got to spend 15 minutes with a turtle right at the beginning of the dive and saw another one during the dive. He came up saying that he would remember that experience his whole life. And that is why I love my job.

Having decided that it really wouldn’t be smart to start shopping for another point and shoot camera until I’d exhausted all avenues available to me in the cameras we already have, I’ve taken Ryan’s other camera – the one that he found at Breakwater – diving the past two days. He doesn’t like it, but I’ve decided that it’s a fine little camera and after just two days, I’m taking pretty decent pics with it. So I’m going to keep at it.

Here’s what today yielded:







Have I mentioned on the blog that swimming with sharks doesn’t get old? Have I mentioned on the blog that swimming with sharks is so freaking cool. I do not tire of it. I could honestly spend every dive just hunting for black tips and that would be okay with me. It is the greatest thing in the world. The zebra sharks are all right, they’re cute, but they just lay there and don’t move most of the time. It’s a huge treat to see them swim, just doesn’t happen very often. The black tips though, they look like real sharks and they dart around like real sharks – I think I get a bit of adrenaline going every time I see them and I’m a little bit addicted. I totally wanna go cage diving with the whites now.

I’m guessing that Ryan’s days are pretty much the same. Maybe for his parental units he will one day script us a blog entry so you can get his impressions of his daily life, not just my impressions of his daily life, which for now you can all assume are the same as mine except that he has no impressions of Hin Muang/Hin Daeng yet.

As for Chris, after a month and just as he was starting to get seriously bored here, he landed himself a fantastic gig. I’m actually really jealous, except that I can’t afford his job. He is going to be videographer for P.P. Seafrog, a local diveshop. That means that he gets to go diving every day they go out and video the dives and the divers. He makes his money on commissions from video sales. Not financially super lucrative, but here’s my reasoning. Most shops have a videographer and all of these people can’t be independently wealthy. So…while it may still be a bit slow at the moment, I’m guessing that he might be pleasantly surprised to find that come a month or two, he’ll be able to pay his rent and food and occasional samsong and diet coke.

It’s been funny to see Chris go through much of the same that Ryan and I experienced when we first got here. Being refused by shops because you don’t speak a language other than English, being refused by shops because you’re not male/female, being told that they’ll call you for freelance and never hearing anything, being refused by a shop because it’s the full moon the second Tuesday of the month. I was also watching Chris slowly run out of things with which to occupy his days. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, for people like us, Phi Phi is hella boring if you’re not diving. The occasional day off to catch up on sleep is nice, but other than that, I’d rather be diving.

Love to all, peace out.