If you’ve been in Thailand before you could probably guess I am there just from this picture.

It’s great to be back to Thai food.  I realised I hadn’t had any for a while as I confidently asked for my green curry ‘quite spicy’ last night, forgetting my taste buds would have to re-adapt.   Hmmm Hmmm Hmmmmm.

I had a lazy day yesterday getting burnt by the pool and making a trip to the great little BKKer shop to get a tshirt I missed the last time (I have so many clothes from this trip!).

I hooked up with the Czech hitchhikers Petra and Martina I picked up in NZ for 30 minutes which was great.  One of them has been in Scotland for ages so was as passionate about the place as me.  They were funny, that European touch to their accent, thinking my accent was crazy, and we had to go to another 7/11 to buy beer as ‘this is not cold enough, we’re Czech, our beer has to be cold”‘.  Martina was even mad enough to stay in Knoydart in Scotland for 7 months -  one of the hardest regions to reach in Scotland, only accessible by foot or boat.

Anyway, we had a few beers and people watched in Khao San Road which is always interesting.  When we walked past their accommodation I couldn’t resist catching a glimpse at cheap Khao San Road accommodation which I’ve always avoided.  It was a nice enough place but as I walked through it the scenes from Trainspotting were being recreated in my head.   I’m sure it could have been filmed in the same place, although I didn’t put my head down the toilet to confirm if that scene was filmed there or not.

I tried to drive a tuk tuk back as I was just around the corner but the driver changed his mind when I followed through with it….he even asked if I had my driving license on me but quite rightly eventually used the excuse I probably had too much to drink.  I never helped my cause by having a freshly opened bottle of Chang in my hand at 0130.

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!

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.

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!)

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…

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.

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!