Ko Tao - The Great Scuba Adventure

Day One:

We arrived in Ko Tao! Yay!

But now we don't know where to go. Boo...

As we waited to see if the Scuba Junction taxi was going to pick us up, we were approached by a Canadian man who currently works in Thailand. He asked if we needed help or directions. Lucky for us, not only did he know his way around Ko Tao, he also knew alllllll about how evil the US and Canadian government is. We were looking forward to scuba diving, but I don't know what could beat listening to how "the man" is out to get us, first thing in the morning. We also learned that using hair spray makes our hair receptors for the micro processors the government has implanted in us. Fun fact.

We thanked our new BFF for his help and decided to walk to Scuba Junction to get away from him, I mean... to enjoy a nice morning walk.

The walk actually was very nice. Ko Tao (turtle island) is a small and beautiful place. It had more to do than Ko Lanta but had a more laid back feeling than Ko Phi Phi. We were greeted at scuba junction by our instructor, the incredibly awesome Natalie. She was one of the many people that came to Ko Tao on vacation for three days... about five years ago. An incredible scuba master, hilarious, and very nice - we thought she was the coolest person ever. Cooler than Fonzie.

After a less than spectacular lunch at a Thai interpretation of a Mexican restaurant (onions and spices in scrambled eggs? I wanted to cry), we went for orientation back at Scuba J. I forgot that low budget videos from the 1980's are a very important part to any educational system.

We finished our first day with ice cream and going back to the bungalow to do our scuba homework before going to bed early. We are such nerds.

Day Two:

The Scuba J taxi (a pick up truck with benches in the back) picked us up for our high speed roller coaster like ride into town. Reviewing homework isn't so bad when you can do it sitting outside by the ocean eating delicious baked goods. This is how we started out our mornings, followed by videos, then lunch.

Lunch was super great everyday. The wife of one of the scuba masters makes really good Thai food we could buy everyday. Scuba Junction had a great small staff of people who were all friends so it had that "we're one big happy family" thing going. After lunch arrived everyone sat outside to chat and eat together.

After lunch: time to climb aboard the boat and sail off to the dive sites. Steff and I did our equipment checks for about 15 minutes, assuming we had attached something wrong, and our oxygen tank would go floating out to sea. All that was left was to take a big Monty Python step off the boat into the water.

The first part of the afternoon is spent in shallow water doing skills. Steff and I were getting more anxious as we were descending down for the first time. She was nervous about something going wrong and not being able to breath, I was nervous I would do the skills wrong and be "that kid" in class again. Thankfully, our worries were all for not. Steff didn't die, and I did my skills just fine. Natalie and Ferron (our assistant instructor from Oregon) watched us very carefully the whole time to make sure we were ok. Natalie was also an excellent instructor, who went through all of our skills slowly and clearly.

The first time breathing underwater is very strange. We expected it to feel like it does when you're snorkeling. Not quite. It takes a few minutes to adjust to keeping your breathing slow and steady. Also not being distracted by hundreds of bubbles surrounding your face every time you exhale.

After we finished our skills we went for our first short free dive (swimming around). We were surprised to learn that you control your position in the water by how deeply you breath in an out. This takes a little practice... Breath out too fast - crash to the ground! Breath in too fast - fly upward toward the surface. We looked like little scuba yo-yos at first.

Got back to the boat, cleaned off the equipment, wrote about all the little fishies we saw in our PADI log books.

Walking back to the bungalow:

"That... was amazing..."

Day Three:

We had the Scuba J taxi driver drop us off at the bakery down the street (New Heaven - mmmm), so we could pick up breakfast on the way. When we arrived at Scuba J, Natalie greeted us.

Natalie: "We had a bit of a situation this morning."
Us: "Oh? What happened?"
Natalie: "When the taxi driver (who is Thai, and doesn't speak much English) returned with out you we asked:
'Where are the girls?'
he responded 'at the burglary down the street.'
'What?!'
We figured out he meant 'bakery' not 'burglary' but we were so confused for a moment wondering why the driver dropped you off in the middle of a burglary and calmly drove away!"

This was probably our favorite communication fail of the trip. Of course, we have continued to refer to "bakeries" as "burglaries." I'm sure this will amuse us until we are arrested for plotting a robbery.

We kept to the same schedule as Day Two: homework review, videos (we entertained ourselves by making origami cranes from a torn out page of our PADI manuals during video time), lunch break, diving time.

Natalie told us that the skills today would be easier than yesterday. We thought that may have been a huge lie when we found out some of our skills included taking off all of our equipment underwater, and putting it back on again. I'm still amazed we were able to do it. That success led to much under water high fiveing and dancing.

It felt much more easy and natural to control our position in the water today during the free dive. We felt comfortable enough to actually look around with out thinking of what we needed to be doing at every second.

That night we were invited to a BBQ at Scuba J. It was also celebrating one of the students, Sam, finishing his classes and becoming a "dive master." We had a lovely time eating amazing grilled food, and watching the other dive masters torment Sam with as series of initiation games such as: pretend you're a fish and make others guess what type, run down the street in scuba fins, and chug a large alcoholic drink that is being poured down a snorkel into your scuba mask. Those crazy scuba kids! We also got a chance to talk more to Ferron and some of the other dive masters in training. All super nice and a lot of fun. It makes it all the more tempting to stay in Thailand to become a scuba instructor.

Although Steff and I were beat, we wouldn't let ourselves leave the party and go to bed before the 5-year-olds that were there. We're lame, but we have to stay up later than children to keep some portion of our pride intact. When they finally left we ran home and crashed in bed.

Day Four:

Change of routine for our last day. Last day? How can that be? No videos because we were done with all of this "learning" stuff. Baked goods and our final exam by the ocean. Not as relaxing as the other days, but we both passed. I thank the tasty muffins for the success.

We had an extra long break, so we walked back to the bungalow to get money for our bus ride to Bangkok in two days. When we got back, we enjoyed one last wonderful Scuba J lunch, before heading out for our afternoon dives.

We had the paper final exam, now we had our scuba skills final. A few fin pivots, an emergency assent and... Ta-da! We were officially open water certified! Much underwater dancing. Fortunately (and unfortunately) our last dive and all this dancing was video taped. Yeah.


Following our final skill test, we had one of the best days... ever. We increased our depth and our dive times, from 30 minutes to an hour per dive. It felt like we were flying, in the little mermaid, and surrounded at all times by 5,000 amazing/adorable creatures. We saw an itty bitty baby box fish. It looked like a drawing of a little square fish come to life. Make sure you have the right mental picture in your head: four adults in scuba gear, giggling and staring at a 1x1 inch fish for about 15 minutes. Turn another corner, and there are hundreds of silver fish, swimming all around perfectly in sync. I see no reason those fish should exist other than to decorate the ocean with sparkley silver flashes. Amazing amazing amazing. Don't EVER bring up scuba diving around me and Steff, because we will never shut up.

Writing about scuba diving just made me feel a little bad, because nothing I say can do it justice. It's the same feeling I get when I take a picture of yet another beautiful nature scene here. Please stop reading this blog. Stop. Book your flight to Ko Tao, Thailand. Check into Scuba Junction. Go scuba diving. Do it.

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A Letter to Malaysia

Dear Malaysia,

How are you? We hope all is well. As you know Steff and I had plans to be in your lovely country around nowish. No, don't wory - we haven't gotten lost. That's actually why we're writing...

I don know how to say this, Malaysia, so Im just going to come right out with it: We're not coming. Now don't be upset! It's not you, it's us. We still think you sound really great, we just don't have time!

Indonesia thought us the valuable lesson that travel in Southeast Asia can be very time consuming and costly. You're simply too hard to get around, especially with us already being behind schedule.

We promise we'll come to visit you, as a second trip to Asia has already been discussed. Stay strong for us Malaysia, we'll be together one day.

Love,

Megan and Steffany

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2/24/10 - 3/6/10 Phuket to Ko Phi Phi to Ko Lanta

Welcome to our third country in one month: Thailand. I'll let you know right now it lives up to the hype.

We landed in Phuket (pronounced poo-ket, you cheeky devils), and checked into the On On Hotel. This was Phukets first hotel, built in 1929. What a crazy maze of a building! I wanted to play hide-and-go-seek soooo bad. It was also the hotel they filmed at for The Beach. Fun fact.

We spread out our maps, books, and notes to make our Thailand game plan. First choice: one day in Phuket was enough. We booked a ferry to Ko Phi Phi for the next morning. The highlight of our time in Phuket was using the Internet in an online gaming cafe. Ten preteens in one room playing online games with each other amid fits of sceams and wild laughter - intense but kind of hilarious.

Megan: "Thank god they didn't have any places like that when I was 12. My friends and I WOULD have been those kids."

Steffany: "Oh yeah. No good would have come of that."

The next day we were welcomed to Ko Phi Phi. Interesting place... Picture a college town on a beautiful island, with no college classes to get in the way of partying. That's what ko phi phi is. Yes, it's touristy, and steff and I are not party girl types, but it is really beautful there. No cars. Small enough to walk across the whole island. Very nifty.

We were here for 6 days. Much of our time was either spent lounging on the beach, eating, or walking around enjoying some truly great people watching.

The first day we walked up several hundred steps to reach "the view point." this is a high peek on the island where everyone gathers to watch the sun set. Everytime the breeze came, it blew the scent of all the floral trees around us. The view overlooking the island and surrounding ocean was spectacular by itself. It all grew more and more stunning as the sun set. Watching the sun set with a large group of people, in silence, whose top priority is just enjoying the beauty, was also really cool. I hiked back up to the top on a few other mornings. Steff, for some reason, doesn't agree that rolling out of bed and climbing up a mountain five minutes later is fun. Strange.

We decided to take a boat trip around to see some of the other places surrounding Ko Phi Phi. We now love boats. Everything is cooler and food always tastes better on a boat.

We were taken around to see: shark point (didn't see any sharks), bamboo island for a tasty fried rice lunch, monkey island (we didn't see any monkeys), and Maya Beach (where they filmed The Beach.)

Snorkeling was great in all of these places. We were surrounded by neon colored fish every where we were! They were the most insane rich colors that I never would have believed ocured in nature.

Although Monkey Beach had a disappointing lack of monkeys, it did have sand that felt like baking flour. We said they should rename it "Pastry Beach" and sell cupcakes. Maybe we just wanted to eat cake...

When we arrived at a rocky bay, the crew informed us that we had arrived at Maya beach. We had to walk across the island to the beach part. Simply jump off the boat and scuttle over those large slippery rocks... Oh yeah... Don't forget your flip flops so you can walk across the island.
"um.. How can we bring our shoes and swim to shore?"
::crew member puts flip flop on his hand and makes paddling motion::
Ah, I see.
The sight of 15 people doggy paddling to shore with flip flops on their hands, was harious. That in combination of all of us stumbling over the rocks was too much. Steff and I were cracking up. Many of the others were not. Next we had to hike across the island. Can you feel more ridiculous hiking while wearing a bathing suit and a snorkel mask on your head? No.. You can't... If only we had our snorkel fins on our feet, I would have felt like a character out of Monty pyhthon. Maya Beach, though a little touristy, was stunning. Huge lime stone cliffs surrounded us. The late afternoon sun cast a million shadows on the cliffs. We could have sat there for hours.

Good news: we used our camera to take underwater picutres all day, and it's still in perfect working order!
Bad news: we felt a little sad/ashamed to take every photo because, as always, the pictures don't do any of the scenery justice.
Bad news: our camera battery died RIGHT before the sunset on the boat.
Good news: we don't need any more sunset pictures and, again, it wouldn't have done it justice. This was the most perfect beautiful sunset. The sky and the ocean turned about 40 different colors every minute. All we could think or say was "this is so beautiful." Needless to say, we very much enjoyed the day.

Let me tell you something about the food on Ko Phi Phi: it's pretty spectacular. They're big on Nutella. We liked that. We liked that a lot.
Nutella banana pancake - even if the rest of the trip is awful, this will have made it worth it. So good we wanted to cry.
Nutella/butter French bread
The biggest portions ever at Papya
Pizza... That actually tasted like pizza.
Cheese pringels
Fruit shakes of every flavor everyday

The big Full Moon Party with a few thousand people is in Ko Phangan every month. However, due to our travel schedule there was no way we could make it over there in time, so we opted for the smaller full moon party in little ko phi phi. We had a huge meal at the famous back packer resturant, papya, to coat our stomachs for our first night out on the town since we left NYC. We attempted to pretty up. Then, fliers in hand (that are given out daily for drink specials), we made our way down to the beach. In our sober state it was stunningly hilarious. The whitest white boys dancing with glee inthe ocean, dirt cheap drink specials, and fire.

Fire: fire limbo, fire jump rope, fire shows, fire hoops. Fire. Everything there was SUCH a bad idea - but so fun.

We got the famous buckets (these are small buckets filled with soda and a small bottle of rum, vodka, or gin, and 4 straws), walked to the 4 different bar areas, danced, met a few really great people. I offered everyone I met a cheesy pringle. The night was so hilarious and fun. I didn't even hurt myself jumping through the fire hoop.

Needless to say, we took one more day in ko phi phi to sleep in/lounge on the beach eating mangos. I bought a cheap set of water colors, sissors, needle and thread in the hopes to sew something soon. Traveling in paradise is great and all, but we miss knitting.

After five days we hopped a ferry and said a warm hello to Ko Lanta. MUCH less touristy and quiet. We did make the terrible mistake of pulling out our guide books on the ferry to find a place to stay. Little did we know that bunglow/hotel owners walk up and down the ailses of ferry boats, binders of photos, pamphlets, and very long energetic sales pitches ready to go. With in ten minutes of leaving the dock our laps were covered in pamplets and our heads were spinning from 20 differtent sales pitches. I thought two people were going to battle it out to see who would get our business. Scary stuff. We decided on a bungalow that sat right on the beach for 300 baht a night (about $9).

The section of the beach we stayed at had some bungalows, 4 resaraunts decked out in huge lanterns, and that's about it. It was every picture of your own beautiful tropical beach that you paint in your head. Every spot along the ocean was gorgius. We drank a lot of fruit shakes, read, went for walks, I went for a morning run everyday.

Then we suddenly came out of our beach bum fog and realized we needed to book transportaitiin to Ko Tao to start our scuba certification. We took a horrifying tuk-tuk ride into town. Horrifying, because the woman driving let her 2-year-old kid wander around in the back of the cart and climb around on to the seats. We were convinced she was going to fall out onto the road the entire time. The little girl is also crying and climbing on me. Steff and I aren't really fans of being around children as it is - that ride didn't help.

We arrived into town, booked our transportation for the next day (a truck, to a van, to a bus, to an overnight ferry), and set out to find lunch. The misadventures of Megan and Steffany strike again. We walked along a dusty road for a long while until we spotted the ocean on our left.... And then saw it was on our right too. After looking at the map we had no idea (and still don't) know how this was possible or where we were. We picked the beach to the left of us and discovered civilization once again.

We spotted a tiny island while walking along the beach.

Megan: "Neat! I just want to swim out there an befriend a talking monkey!"
Steffany: "I bet there are giant rocks..."

This pretty much summed up the differences in our travel styles.

Pizza and milkshakes for lunch = happy Megan and Steffany.

Steffany: "I suddenly had a terrible vision of us walking back on that hot dusty road: 'Milk was a bad choice... UgGgghH!'"

We took a tuk-tuk back.

But not until we went for a wonderful long swim. We were so excited to see waves again, as most of the shore lines are very calm.

It was a sad goodbye to Ko Lanta. We would have loved to have spent more time there, but more adventures awaited us.

Next stop: Ko Tao, to get our scuba on.


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