07 April 2008 – 19:57
Breakfast
For once I woke up at a fairly reasonable time, refreshed and relaxed and ready for whatever the day was to throw at me.
The sun was, as ever, roasting hot even at 8:30 in the morning, but by now after spending more than a week in such conditions I was finally acclimatising – ironically on my last proper full holi-day. My breakfast was spent quietly on one of the many wooden seats looking out from the covered but essentially open air eating area looking out onto the lush gardens that were in full bloom. Although my breakfast was largely unremarkable, I had two domesticated, though very cautious, cats for company. Although essentially healthy, the cats didn’t look particularly well fed and I’d assumed that they lived largely off scraps. My offered segments of frankfurter were eagerly accepted, and right there and then I’d made friends for life – or at least as long as the food kept coming
Literally as I’d passed my last scraps over to my new friends, some slightly older ones arrived. Firstly Elin and Adam, followed shortly after by Felipe and Katerina entered the dining area. Whilst they tucked into their respective meals I spied Katie wandering up the gravelled drive.
Now I’m not sure if it’s just me, but the sounds of footsteps up a gravelled drive sounds distinctly different on a hot summer’s day? Perhaps it is the memory of a walk on a beach or something, but the sound of movement on gravel, be it tyres of a car, bike or in particular footsteps, but the sound emotes hot lazy days to me, and this day reinforced that association.
The previous day Katie had organised an opportunity for a Thai cooking lesson for those who didn’t wish to go diving. Helen and, in particular, Jude had showed interest in the cooking option when offered the previous day, I suspect in part because they had already done a try dive before.
As Katie approached us, a covered pick-up truck entered the Mild Bungalows drive and out jumped three bronzed Europeans; our diving instructors for the day. It turned out two of the three were the owners of the local diving company and originated from Germany. The third was a chap from Newcastle, and possibly like so many before him had fallen in love with the whole diving experience and the locality and made Thailand his diving home.
Because of the previous nights revelling, it was a no show for many of the crew, and in the end Laura was the sixth and last person to join the diving party. We climbed into the van and set off for the beach a mile or so down the road.
The Dive
As we reached the shore, we helped load one of the local small boats with all the diving gear. Unsurprisingly, some of the bags (containing the weights and gas canisters) were quite heavy! We climbed on board the small boat and set off on a half hour trip to some of the local islands that had a great reputation for good diving and beautiful scenery.
It must be said that, as so often the case with such craft, may of the wooden boats in Thailand look barely seaworthy, and invariably have an engine mounted at the rear that looks extremely oversized for its task of propelling the boat. Spewing noxious fumes and making a racket these engines drive a propeller that’s barely a foot in diameter on a drive shaft that’s at least three meters in length. I guess it’s a simple design that’s easy to maintain, rather than efficient and eloquent. I think because of the Thai law that only permits locals to own and pilot boats means that ease of maintenance is key to the success, of what are effectively tuk-tuks on water!
The short trip was my favourite boat trip of the whole holiday. Possibly because I was really looking forward to the dive and I was more relaxed after a good night’s sleep; Possibly because we were right on the water and as we sped along the water occasionally splashed us in the boat, but I would like to think that this trip was more how I imagined the whole Thai experience was going to be? Experiencing things ‘low-fi’ and less as a cosseted tourist.
As we reached the shore of our target island we noticed that we wouldn’t be alone. Although not busy, few beaches actually were busy, this clearly was geared for the swimmers and divers. There were designated areas for swimming and clearly marked areas for the boats to come and go – which was reassuring. The beach itself was littered with a few people and a couple of boats were tethered to the shore, but mostly we were aware of the grandeur of the setting. The beach was a horseshoe shape with tall cliffs encircling the beach, lined with lush green vegetation clinging to the sides and where the sand turned to sandy soil by the rocky edges. at the foot of the cliffs. Barely visible in amongst the trees was a hotel, which presumably was owned by the island owners as often seemed the case on the Thai islands.
After unpacking the six of us (Laura, Felipe & Katarina, Elin & Adam
and I) were given a quick tutorial on how to use the equipment. This was only
going to be a “try dive”, so we were only allowed to go a few meters
down and had to buddy up with one of the instructors. As there was only three,
we were told we would only be diving for 15 minutes – which seemed
desperately short. Laura and I
went first.
We put on out equipment, including our flippers, mask and breathing gear and of course the weights. We were shown how to regulate the breathing, and how to inflate and release air from the straps that helped maintain buoyancy. Then we set off into the water.
I wish I could recount a wondrous visual experience, and list all the fish I saw while swimming around in the water, But to be honest, although I found it very easy and natural to breathe in the water, I found myself concentrating on trying not to breathe too deeply. For the first few minutes I found myself bobbing up and down in the water while I gulped in the air from the tanks. At first I was stunned at how my swimming depth was maintained by one lungful of air, but as time wore on I started to take more shallow mouthfuls of air and started to swim more naturally.
After about 30 minutes of swimming around my diving buddy had finally had enough of me bobbing around and we returned to the shore. Laura too, returned looking very happy with her time in the water. Only when we got to the shore and took the equipment off did we realise that we’d been down for nearly twice as long as originally planned. Clearly because only half of us turned up we were allowed a little longer in the water.
By the time we dried off Elin and Adam had been kitted up and had entered the water for their turn. By now the sun was almost at its zenith and I sought some shade by the top of the beach by the palm trees. I looked down the beach and soaked up scenery and the relaxing atmosphere.
In what seemed no time at all Adam and Elin had returned from their ½ hour session giggling and clearly happy with their experience. While they were out Felipe had bargained a proper diving session with one of the instructors as he had previous diving experience, so while Katarina went for her session around the shore, Felipe and the other instructor took a more advanced swim a little further around the coast. Now dry Laura Elin and I walked along the shore and had a look at some of the caves that had formed in the rocks around the water’s edge. One of the caves had a set of large phallic icons which seemed a little out of place, but provided much amusement to the girls!
Eventually Felipe returned after what seemed like an hour (Katarina had already done her ½ hour session and was dry by then), and we packed up and set off back to the mainland after a happy morning diving and relaxing by the water’s edge.
The trip back was spent in a reflective mood as we all were in our own thoughts – possibly trying not to think of the trip home the following day.
The Afternoon
We returned to a warm welcome from the rest of the party, who had spent most of the morning lounging on the local beach (other than Jude and Helen who’d been on their cooking course).
After a quiet lunch, Daniel and Felipe hired two bikes and drove into town, while I returned to my ‘bungalow’ for a shower and a change of clothes, as well as topping up my sun tan lotion as I had definitely caught the sun that morning.
I’d agreed to wander into the town about an hour or so after lunch with Christope to look round the market. Later still we had arranged to meet up with Daniel and find an internet café to book three rooms in the Shangrila Hotel in Bangkok for our last night as we’d decided not to return to the hotel we visited on our first night.
The afternoon was a chilled out affair as Christope and I wandered through the market streets that followed the beach taking in the sun drenched scenery. Many of the stalls offered linen, silks and the usual tourist shopping trappings – such as T-shirts, sun glasses and mementoes, plus the inevitable fake (but reasonable quality) designer watches going for a song. We popped into a couple of air conditioned shops to grab some water enroute, as well as buy some sweets to bring back to our respective offices.
After wandering round the shops, we’d met up firstly with Daniel (where we managed to book our last night’s hotel), and later with Catherine and Rob and made our way back to the Mild Bungalows resort.
Our evening was spent in a sushi themed restaurant. We were seated at a long table outside in a courtyard of the restaurant, being entertained by a couple playing pop covers from the eighties. Although the music was recognisable and generally well received, it had the production qualities and polish of someone who’d just bought their first Casio keyboard and wanted to impress their grandparents at a Christmas party.
Our last supper together was a feast of our chosen main meals, plus a sushi platter from Katie and some of the meals cooked earlier by Helen and Jude, which turned out to be really good!
After we had our food, we posed for photos together and made little speeches telling of our favourite moments throughout our time in Thailand.
Most moved
on to a bar in town, while Felipe & I returned to the Mild Bungalows along
with Katerina who was feeling a little poorly – possibly too much sun that
day. Felipe and
I chose to stay close and go literally round the corner and watched a
Thai-boxing tournament.