Travel diary
23rd July 2002
The transition from Tom Time to Thai time was without a hitch and I've now spent 9 days on an island I was only planning on spending half that on! Eight dives and an Open Water diving qualification later, I'm going to be sad to leave this paradise this evening. So, the last couple of weeks...
Went to Kanchanburi for a few days - stayed in a room floating on the river, really cool, well until boats go past then you're swaying for a few minutes, but apart from that! Was great to walk out of my room and jump into the river if you omit the fact that the first time I did it some b*&$%# fish decided that I was good to nibble on, and nibble it did, well slightly more than that - it managed to draw blood!
Did a tour thing around Kanchanburi, the transport was, erm, interesting. More like a game of see-how-many-people-can-fit-in-the-back-of-a-truck, combined with how-wet-can-you-get-when-its-pouring-down-with-no-sides-on-the-truck! Went to a great waterfall, where we had a little dip and slide off the rock slides there, great fun! Then went to Hellfire pass, a railway cutting built by PoWs, followed by a train ride through Death Valley.
Was going to head up to the north, but instead decided to wander down to the little island of Ko Tao in the Gulf of Thailand, off the east coast. Had a fun 6 hour train journey, with streams of people wandering up and down selling food, could have an entire meal, was great! Met a Dutch couple, Kees and Daphne, who were also coming down here for diving, so I hooked up with them and did my diving course with them as well.
Diving is amazing fun! After initially getting used to breathing under water, it was all quite straighforward. The course lasted 4 days, with some boring theory and 4 cool dives. Then I've done 4 dives since then - seen loads of fish, blue-spotted stingrays have to be my favourite I think, seen a couple of them. Also got trigger fish which are about a metre long and ahve a habit of attacking you if you get in their territory. Luckily we managed to avoid getting in their territory! Had a little "incident" on my first dive after getting my qualification - ran out of air! I had a dodgy pressure guage, which as well as giving the wrong pressure was also leaking! Wasn't a problem though as I was only about 2 metres from the surface, and my buddy was right next to me so I just used his air. Quite fun though on my first proper dive!
Had lots of fun with uninvited guests in my room as well; Bob the gecko and friends, who I had no problem with until this morning when at 6am he decided to have a conversation with one of his comrades, cheers...; an entire troop of ants - I was brushing my teeth eysterday when the shell of a cockroach went past me on a vertical wall! They obviously decided that the quickest route from dead cockroach to nest involved my bathroom.
My birthday was really good - the morning was the last 2 dives of my Open Water course, then spent the afternoon relaxing on a picture-postcard perfect beach. Kees and Daphne bought me a birhtday cake which was really nice of them, and in the evening had a couple of beers in some restaurants along the beach, followed by a club also on the beach!
Finally dragging myself from here tonight, when I'm heading down to the border - not looking forward to it though - after 10 days of amazing sunshine a storm's just broken in the last 10 minutes, so I wonder how much fun the 8 hour boat journey will be, hmm...