Krabi

Hey, Sua (I think you are the only one who reads this anyway. Sua, depending on how you say it in Thai, can mean tiger (or shirt I think)). I left Phuket early this morning on a minibus (van) for Krabi. Krabi is much more relaxed little town with many less tourists.

Upon my arrival, I of course took off walking in the opposite direction I wanted to go to get to soem of the guesthouses in my guidebook and consequently started melting in the heat with my pack on. I decided to get a cab, which meant a motorbike, since they were all that was available. The driver of course did not speak English, nor did he understand where I wanted to go when I pointed at the map. He flagged down another driver to help, to little avail. I wound up climbing on the motorbike, with my pack on, in addition to some other bags of souvenirs I was hoping to mail home today. I was scared that I would fall off, but it was pretty hilarious nonetheless. He drove to the big department store/shopping district, where one of the dispatchers who spoke English guided him in a direction toward a guesthouse. It wasn't one of the ones I was looking at, but I did get a very nice room. I probably paid a little too much, but at that point, I didn't really care.

I didn't sleep well last night, after having too many coffees, and having downgraded rooms to a budget hotel which was fan-cooled and had a crappy mattress, so I was just happy that I had airconditioning and a nice bed. I showered, got some food, and took a nap for a couple of hours. I then wandered out toward the river and pier, where I finally accepted one of the offers to go on a boat ride (songthaew boat, I think they're called. I will post a picture later). He took me along the river, which is surrounded by mangrove trees (I saw some monkeys in the mangroves), went to a cave that was supposedly in the movie The Beach and is going to be in some upcoming movie called Mysterious Cave or something, and then to a small fishing village. The man at the fishing village has all these fish in little pools with nets, which was really sad. He'd take the boxfish, pufferfish, and porcupinefish out and harrass them til they blew up, which made me very sad, and I kept telling him to throw them back in (not that their beign all caged up like that is any better).

I managed to book my travel to Bangkok tomorrow, but I have to leave kinda early (and it will take forever for me to actually get into Bangkok, but oh well), which means I can't go to the Tiger Cave Buddhist monastery that's in a limestone cave in the forest around here :(...perhaps next time. I will be travelling for pretty much the next two days; I will post again once I get into Hanoi.

scuba, scuba, scuba

My liveaboard boat to the Similans was amazing, to say the least. The reefs are absolutely teeming with fish, and in some cases, there are walls of glass fish you have to sort of wave away in order to see the crevices in the rock. I did 4 dives per day, saw many lionfish, scorpionfish, triggerfish, clownfish, 2 manta rays, 2 leopard sharks, some ghost pipefish, a seahorse, some banded cleaning shrimp, lots and lots of coral and seafans, moray eels, parrotfish, three turtles, many kinds of anemone, wrasse, surgeonfish, Moorish Idols, Bannerfish, big eyes, etc. The first turtle (and my first turtle sighting!) appeared right after I had gotten back on the boat; I grabbed my mask and jumped back in. He was very friendly and almost bit off Rickard's fingers thinking he had food. Mama Lek, the cook on board, handed us bananas, which we fed the turtle :).

As I mentioned before, I got my PADI Advanced Open Water Certification while onboard. Another girl, Christina, had signed up for the course, so I decided to take it too. The course includes fish identification (Project AWARE), so it was really nice actually being able to know which fish I was seeing. We also watched Finding Nemo onboard to help us with this. I plan on buying a fish ID tablet thing of Southeast Asia so I can show you guys all the stuff I saw (I saw pretty much everything on the list (except a whale shark...next time).

Richelieu Rock, the northernmost dive point, is covered in soft purple and red corals, and was where we saw the two mantas. It is the spot where one is most likely to see mantas and whale sharks. We stayed almost and entire day there and did three dives. There was supposedly a small whale shark in the water--other groups coming up around our boat said they saw it, but I unfortunately did not :(. On the last trip, they saw a small whale shark (they think it's the same one hanging around).

I officially only did 2 night dives (2 were twilight dives), since some of the currents were really strong and we had to adjust our itinerary slightly. They were a little eery, but mostly I saw sleeping fish and shrimp at night.

I know I'm a really huge nerd for saying this, but it totally looks like Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker out here--the game design must have been based on the islands of Thailand.

Everyone on the boat was really nice. We had a full tour of 15 people, and I was by far the least experienced person aboard. There were three other instructors as guests, as well as probably about 5 dive masters. Ann and Barry, a couple from England, had logged over 900 dives in their lives. But, I am now more experienced, and am apparently a natural--my instructor said he couldn't tell that I only had like 10 dives before. I have perfect buoyancy :).

I met a very nice couple, Jeff and Christina, on the boat, who I've been tagging along with the last couple days. Jeff is Canadian; Christina is Taiwanese (born in US but spent most of her life in Taiwan). They are currently teaching English in Japan. After leaving the boat, I went with them to their guest house in Patong. Patong is on the west coast of Koh Phuket (Phuket Island) and is very very touristy. The area we are staying in has a lot of gay bars, massage parlors, and guest houses, so I feel right at home.

We all got a very nice 2.75 hour foot refexology and Thai herbal massage when coming back. Two days on land was killing us, so we all went on a day SCUBA trip yesterday. We did three dives (one wreck dive and two reef dives), which were in the bay, and were a bit disappointing. We definitely spoiled ourselves by doing some of the best diving in the world first. The visibility was much worse, and the wildlife was not as good. The current was pretty strong on the last two dives, and I wound up getting a lot of water in my left ear, which was hurting most of last night--I think 23 dives in 7 days is my limit. I am completly addicted now, though, and can't wait to go back to California and buy some gear and dive the kelp forests around Monterey (not to mention plan my next trip on a Similan liveaboard boat!). I did, however, see two banded sea snakes on the third dive, which were very cool (and some ghost pipefish, which I think are really cool-looking).

It is incredibly hot here; on the boat, there was at least a nice breeze. Phuket is only about 8 degrees from the equator (the constellations at night (on the boat) are flipped around since we're so close to the southern hemisphere--you can see the Southern Cross and everything). Jeff and Christina leave to go back to Japan soon--I am going to stay one more night here and then probably head out for Krabi tomorrow (maybe...I still need to decide) before heading back up to Bangkok to catch my flight to Hanoi.

I've posted some pictures. I realize there are zero pictures of me right now (mostly just rocks and islands and stuff). I will take more. Here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/70883827@N00/sets/72057594094837171/

Please let me know if that link doesn't work. bye bye for now.

SCUBA!!

I'm back from my SCUBA trip, which was FANTASTIC!! I don't have the time to share too many details right now, as I have land-sickness (everything is rocking) and need to get some food. I promise to share more about Thailand, since i haven't really written much and make you all horribly jealous :). I didn't see any whale sharks (boo!), but i did see two manta rays, as well as lots of other cool stuff. I logged 20 dives this trip, which about triples my total number, and completed my Advanced Open Water certification. My instructor/dive master was a very hot Swedish man, which of course made the trip that much more enjoyable :). Miss you all!