I’m sitting here waiting for my taxi to Krabi airport to get my flight to Bangkok. I then have a few hours to kill before catching a very early morning flight to Manila, two days there then off to Malapascua for a few days.

It’s pretty hard leaving here! I’ve been here long enough but there are plenty more islands to explore. It almost feels like ‘home’ though after spending more than a month in the area. The guesthouse owners recognise me, the guy at the wifi cafe recognises me (and said goodbye on the beach this morning), the tailor I walk past every day stops to chat, and the motorbike guy at the end of the road always says hello. The only person that pretends he doesn’t recognise me is the jobsworth security guard as I trot home every night (I always try and tease him to get his metal stick out like he did once, but he’s never done it again!).

Anyway, it is goodbye to the Andaman Sea, with a nice chill in this morning as John left to head to Koh Lanta. Last thing I heard he has successfully found ‘Tong’ at the peir, and was on the back of his pickup to sample the Lanta Family Resort I relaxed at for many hours recently! Jealous!

Although I’m heading to the Philippines I’m not ready to leave Asia for Australia – the though of heading to such a western society doesn’t really appeal just now. I was looking at Myanmar and Laos pictures last night and it reminded me how enjoyable those places were!

Anyway, needs must! Kapun Kap Thailand!

I’ve updated some pictures from Koh Phi Phi and my liveaboard trip…
Have a look at the Wandering Scotsman gallery.

Oh dear, Thailand has made me start to blow budgets like mad! I convince myself that it’s a good investment long term…as I have booked a 4 day trip to Malapascua next week to do more diving – half the price of diving in Thailand, and only £35 return flights (plus taxi and boat) to get there, and $28 a dive. Have a look at Exotic Dive Resort as that’s where I’m heading. Super helpful folk via email and phoe enquiries. I may do a Nitrox and Deep Diver certification there as it doesn’t add so much onto the costs of the dives I’d do anyway. With a bit of luck I’ll see Thresher and Hammerhead sharks as well.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll gladly be leaving the Krabi area of Thailand – great area, great activities, and many islands I’d still like to see, but I’ve been here too long relaxing and blowing cash…although the diving has been worth it. It’s just a shame when I think I’ve spent longer here than Laos and Cambodia put together – largely due to meeting various people who happened to be in the area.

Sunday morning will see me in my sister’s pad in Manila for a couple of days before heading to Malapascua for 4 days, 2 days diving, then it’s over to Singapore for a night then Australia.

This one’s for you Dave! Sorry for the texts Dave – here’s a shot of John and I on Tonsai beach just after we sent you the picture message!

Yes I’ve met John, and it’s been relatively tame so far – however we were up at 7am to dive around Koh Phi Phi today, bringing my total to 50 dives. The dive’s were a bit, erm, ‘bland’ with poor visibility, and luckily saved by seeing a 6cm yellow seahorse, and a Leopard Shark, and a blue spotted stingray (oooh, so common last week ;-> ). Not really worth the cash today, however there was a pretty ‘cool’ incident with my mask that’s been bugging me rotton for a while….

I pulled my crap mask strap like I always do (Mare’s quick release thing, just it always released a bit when I breathe!), and it went ping! It stayed on, but I warned the divemaster and john just incase the expected happened as there was only a tiny bit left on the left hand side…. and 2 mins later it did – it started to go, I pushed my mask with my hand….got john’s attention, handed him my camera, pulled the spare out of my BCD pocket, noticed the strap on that had detached…which the divemaster put back on….. and once I took a few seconds, I swapped them over with little fuss. Job well done. Yaaah! We were 2/3rds through the dive so the divemaster signalled we would go up….after a few repeated OK signs (in the unspoken manner of ’sod that, this day cost us 50 quid, lets dive’), the dive continued like nothing happened. Sweeet – a justification of me always diving with two masks since I bought one.

I’m off to check out the possibility of diving in Malapascua in the Philippines next week! Budget blower that I am….

Here’s another few pics from the day.
John pre-dive :

John and I mid-dive :

John post-dive (tired, but still not lost the knack – no way was he spilling 2/3rds bottle of beer mid sleep!)

Well I’m back in Ao Nang for the thirdtime since the mid December, just having arrived from Krabi. It’s not a new place for me, but it’s new faces. I left Rachel for her slow trip home and am waiting for John aka ‘Johnny Jazz’ to arrive in town. The first and probably only chance visitor from my mates at home. Could be boozy!

Will be heading to the Philippines on Saturday night and despite wanting to chill, I’m about to investigate a short dive trip to Malapscua…arg, I just can’t resist after the last few days diving fest. And, John has taken over an exspensive plastic box with sealed buttons on it so I can take my camera diving too….yaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Anyway, will try and catch up my stories over the next few days, including my mad visa run to spend 20 minutes in Malaysia after dashing cross country in a pickup with a manic fast driver…I try and get more pictures online. I have an absolute stunner of one of the manta rays from the other day, but it’s not my picture, so will keep it to myself.

Come on John, I’m waiting by the phone for ya…

So here I was sitting on the sundeck on the boat’s roof, doing my usual mid-dive zone out listening to some of the vast selection of new music I managed to ahem, ‘acquire’ on Koh Lanta. This time it was the turn of Aim’s Hinterland album.

Suddenly some inconsiderate bugger was stomping loudly which interrupted the chilling bass of the sounds in my ear. Then there was more thumping…too early for the dive briefing I thought, so I peeled open an eyelid to witness everyone making a commotion, pointing over the side of the boat. On our previous dive we had been with two Manta Rays circling around us, so before the next beat, the headphones were thrown on the deck and I was at my feet. I looked over to the group next to one of the other liveaboards, and as I heard everyone shouting ‘whale shark’, I saw one of the snorkellers motioning a shark sign. Without any hesitation I decided to follow the people jumping down the stairs, some of whom had already grabbed their camera, donned fins and mask and were one their way – some even decided to save time and give up on the snorkel.

It was hilarious, from zoned out to in the water within 30 seconds, and I was two stories up. I even managed to rescue one of Rachel’s fins that fell off in the hurry and was slowly making it to the seabed 25 metres below.

Everyone was making a beeline for the shark spotting point 25 metres away from our boat, when I spotted a large Manta Ray circling below us at less than 10 metres away. This proved a bit of a deviation for me and I made out from the commotion the shark had moved on. After a bit of swimming and much looking around I decided to head back to the boat.

Ten minutes later, everyone came back, grinning from ear to ear, and the digital cameras being passed around with wonderful arial shots of the whale shark……bastards. I came back too early.

Mind you though, it could have been worse. 45 minutes later we were on our second dive at Koh Hah, jumped off the boat, and had one Manta swim around 5 metres underneath us. Then the divemaster’s bells were shaken to point out the second one following. I then turned round and spotted the third one in the line come into view, trying to grab some people’s attention sticking up three fingers. Sweet. The next 55 minutes were spent with them interrupting us every few minutes, teasing us with how close they would come. Little was I to know that a day later at the same dive site, they would come close enough to almost touche.

They have to be one of the largest (these had a span of around three metres) and most graceful creatures I’ve ever came across and they absolutely mesmerised me underwater, with no space in my head to regret not being able to get a housing for my camera yet! On the next Koh Ha dive I was sitting behind a small coral pinnacle looking at the little fish when I looked up and saw a Manta cruise over it, slow down, and perform a swooping turn directly above me, leaving me and several others around me gobsmacked. That was until they did it again. And again. And again I decided I wouldn’t moan within myself at diving at the same site for three dives any more – each dive got better. What a few days.

I’ve just had the joy of being on a 4 night liveaboard to the Similan Islands and Richelieu Rock in the Northern Andaman Sea, North West of Phuket on the west coast of Thailand. There were around 20 of us on the Dive Asia boat, ready to make the most of it. Some dives were hampered with the visibility not being so great, but it had to be the most varied diving I’ve done in such a short period of time so far. We did 14 dives in 4 days, bringing my total to just short of 50.

The dives were varied from nicer long relaxed dives with no current, to strong currents where you had to go from behind one rock to another staying low, and swimthroughs. We saw a load of stuff from leopard sharks to whale sharks, manta rays to harlequin shrimps, and everything in between including many barracuda, tuna and large schools of all the ‘typical’ reef fish.

In fact we never saw the whale sharks when diving, one of the times we watched the large 3 metre plus mantas weren’t when we were diving…it was SNORKELLING! Unfortunately I had to kick myself hard as I gave up snorkelling towards the shark when it disappeared for a bit, only to curse when others still saw it. I didn’t, or the leopard shark, and it had to be one of the highlights of the trip.

Our dives took in East of Eden and Elephant Head Rock in island 7, Rocky Point, Breakfast Bend and a night dive at Mooring Bay on island 9, then we moved to Koh Bon, Koh Tachai Pinnacle, Richelieu Rock, then back via the pinnacle, Koh Bon, with our last two dives at Anita’s Reef on island 5 and Shark Fin Reef. For a short moment it looked like we may not make it to Richelieu (although we never realised that) but our lovely captain fired up the engines around 3am and took advantage of a weather window.

The food was fantastic, the crowd were great (and from Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, USA and of course Scotland), and the crew were a sociable bunch despite some obvious language barriers. There were many digital cameras kicking around the boat which only made me frustrated not having been able to obtain a housing prior to the trip, and having an unusable strobe flash in my bag! Luckily there were a lot of fantastic photos taken and shared around.

I spent the last night on the roof of the boat, falling asleep to the lapping of the waves and the wind before getting in our earliest dive, being in the water at 0645, then 0915 before a long cruise back to Phuket.

It was an expensive few days (22500 plus gear rental and park fees), but not too bad when you consider it was 14 dives, accommodation and excellent food for fours days. So glad I did this – it will definitely be one of the year’s highlights, but it only makes me want to dive when I reach the Philippines!

Leaving Koh Phi Phi tomorrow. I did more exercise today than the last two weeks….but was blessed with a fab view of Koh Phi Phi.

I’ve added some Koh Lanta pictures to my picasa gallery.

Playing a bit of a catch up due to slow expensive internet connections, here’s a summary of Life On Lanta for the last week or so….

Alan, A geordie mate who stays in Merlbourne, flew over and met me the night after I met another mate from Aus, Rachel. We had been out for her birthday,and ended up at a thai club, so when Alan arrived, the same thing happened, even more alcohol fuelled by Alan’s ability to order drinks not stop, at a pace that seemed like a round a minute for a while! Needless to say I’ve probably spent more in Thailand in the last month than the previous three put together..!

We all headed over to Koh Lanta, where I had been the week before. Although staying at a different beach, the lifestyle ended up the same – sleep, sunbathe, eat, drink, and a big chill out. Of course I had another ‘last night’ to attend as Alan only made a brief visit before heading to Indonesia to start a job.

The last night was pretty eventful. Having had our share of time on the beach, we flagged down two ladyboys on a moto and hitched a lift to a bar down the road which was having an opening night. The kind sods took two trips to take the three of us, and wouldn’t take any cash for it. We overshot the pub, and after stopping they made a quick u-turn, which promptly threw Rachel off the bike…much to our amusement (we could laugh as we were only doing one mile and hour, and alcohol would’ve more than made up for any scratches received).

When we left we caught a minibus back, where we made some sarcastic ‘complaints’ about the cost of it back to our resort. Turns out some of the brit residents there have forgotten sarcasm, so when this was topped off with a drunken ‘you’re a wanker’ motion (not by me!) tempers soared, and toys came out the pram, as someone started attempting to throw punches in my mate’s direction. Luckily there was a friendly british driver, but when the Thai woman got involved, we were forced to walk after a pretend apology was made to calm down the situation. All in a night out we reckoned!!

After this, and Alan’s departure, we made a trip back to Lanta Family Resort, and the Chocolate Bar for a party they had organised. I felt obliged to go as some of the crowd from the previous week were still there, and after all, I made the finishing touches to the flier momnets before catching the ferry last week. It was a cracker, but we left ‘early’ after the samsong buckets came out….if they kept flowing I’d have ended up staying there.

Back at Long Beach, we made friends with Sue, from The Joyful Bar – the local beach ladyboy, but super friendly, and really liked after he started to give us free drinks – Mai Tai’s and whiskey’s – as ‘you drink a lot here’ – each one getting stronger as the week went on. The drinking was pretty much sitting in their beach hut, feet in sand, and totally chilled.

Rachel and I managed to get several dives in last week while on Lanta, visiting two sites at Koh Ha, and two at Hin Daeng and Hin Muang. Unfortunately we only saw a few reef sharks, and none of the biggies that are often there, but many many fish, shrimps, octopus and plenty of the fish I don’t think I had seen before.

Eventually we left Koh Lanta, me for the second time in two weeks, and headed back to Koh Phi Phi on the way to Phuket so we can join the liveaboard to the Similan Islands from the 18th to 22nd, which I’m really looking forward to. I wanted to do a few more dives around the area like King Cruiser Wreck, Shark Point and others, but I may get to do them when I hook up with another mate John who arrives in the area around 21st Jan.

After this I hope to book flights to go and see my sister in Manila for a week, before returning to Singapore for a mad night out with Matt, before very very sadly leaving Asia to head to Australia.