Zipadee Do Dah
Now that you are familiar with Underpants Man let me tell you a little bit about his village. What was supposed to be a 7 hour hike wound up being just over 5 hours, and while it was pretty grueling, I lost my breath as much from the scenery as the hike. 5 hours of tromping in the mud lead to one of the most beautiful sights yet. It was one of those moments the camera simply could never capture.
The village was pure. Horses, buffalo, dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, and children all running wild-together. No thing seemed at odds with another, that is of course besides the farang (foreigners). Fortunately I was well prepared for the staring after my time in China. The land also seemed pure. In the fields grew corn, next to rice, next to bannana trees, etc. It really was a beautiful picture. Well worth the 5 hour trek.
We only stayed for a moment though because we still had another 1.5 hours hike to get to the tree huts. Then finally we were there. We were welcomed with some fresh cut pinapple and each treker given a harness. Currently there are a total of 4 operational tree houses. Each house can only be accessed by zip line. My tree house (3) was the furthest from the others and was 4-5 zips and a 20 minute walk from tree house 1.
The ziplines were fantastic. I'm still a little bit baffled at how they set up 400 meters of line accross a valley maybe 200 meters above the ground and forest canopy. Our first zips were in the dark. While zipping in the pitch with wind blowing through your hair and not know where you are going was very cool, I think the day light brought a whole new appreciation for it.
The tree houses were also a work of art. Every hut was fitted with a toilet and shower. Though users should beware that both drain directly onto the jungle floor and should not be used when there is a hut full of people have lunch on the other side of a curtain. You're gonna have to trust me on this one, because there's also no "sneaking" out of a tree house toilet. Another interesting thing is how loud the jungle is at night with a chorus of locusts, frogs and barking deer (I swear it was the deer). Throw in some ants around your bed and mice (or some type of tree critter) scurryin about all night, it's not the best sleep. However when you wake to Gibbons singing and an amazing view of the jungle, the lack of sleep is the last thing on your mind.
We stayed two nights, the second day was consumed by zipping and trecking, and on the third morning hiked back to the village. I never saw any gibbons, and I really don't think a spotting is very common. Our guide, Marion-who resembled Claudia Scheffer, said she had seen them a lot, but also seemed able to list them off. I still have to chalk this one up as an adventure of a lifetime.
Luckily it hadn't rained much since the hike in which meant once we got to the village, we would be trucked out. Before I tell you about the ride out, I want you to know how much I love you. For example, when the rest of the group is marching ahead to the truck, Derek is lagging behind to take pictures so that his friends and family back home can share in all his adventures. And then Derek has to run to catch the truck and then there are no seats so self-sacrificing Derek climbs on top with some bags of rice and 2 villagers.
True, it hasn't rained much in the past two days; however, the road was unbeleivable. So much so that the first 10 minutes of the trip I spent planning out in my mind just how I would discard my backpack, and jump or roll from the car when it rolled. Overly precatious? As it turns out no. No, the car did not actually roll, but it was on two wheels and I and a villager did have to jump as the truck started to tip. Whether it was the foresight, two days of zip line dismounting or simply my jungle cat reflexes, I don't know. In the end I was alright though, and even won the admiration of a few who saw me flying by in the window.
I know this is going to sound a little bit funny. But for moment... When I was flying through the air... Even if just for one second, I felt like I, myself was Underpants Man.
Long Live UM.
Adventures of Underpants Man
It's called "The Gibbon Experience" because you stay in tree huts with hopes of spotting the once believed extinct gibbon monkey. But really I think they call it that because if they called it the "Underpants Man Experience" there would be an overwhelming and unmanageable response. I'll explain in a moment.
There is one small office, in a small border town of Laos, and the only true form of marketing is word of mouth. Really that's all they need. I heard of it from a guy from South Africa that I met my first week in Thailand. He warned me they fill up quick so you need to book at least a week in advance. But he said it was an amazing experience and now having done it myself, I have to agree. The goal of the organization is to build a system of tree houses and zip lines. Then the profits raised will be used to employ forest guards to protect the Bokeo Nature Reserve from poachers, many of which were once poachers themselves. Everybody wins.
Needless to say living in tree huts, flying on zip lines and watching monkeys in the wild sounded pretty good to me. Before my elephant trek in Thailand I sent an email asking to be put on. When I returned from my trek I had received an email informing they were full until the end of July. Unfortunately, I had already managed to really get myself pumped up for it. So The day my visa expired in Thailand I crossed the border to Laos and checked in at the office. Still full. "Do you ever have cancellations?" Not likely. Well I'm a world traveler. I mean I ride elephants and get lost in the jungle just for fun, so that just wasn't cutting it. The group left at 8 in the morning, I showed up at the office at 7. No luck-still full. OK! Ok, I get the point. I'll just have breakfast next door an be on my way. It's a stupid idea anyway. (These are just thoughts, I didn't actually tell anyone this.)
So I have breakfast and am watching everyone load up the truck while I wait for the rain to stop so I can tuck my tail and walk home. Then 15 minutes before they leave a girl tells me someone has not showed and I can go... if I want. Heck, yes I want! And my luck kept getting better. Since I was the last one the back of the truck was full which meant I had to squeeze into the front, and not sit in the rain... shucks. They warned of two things. First that the ride would be a rough 3 hours. And second, because of the rain we might have to hike in on another road to the trail making the 1.5 hour hike more like a 7 hour hike. Both were spot on.
I found myself at every turn saying to myself, "Not a chance. We will never get through that with a car. Time to walk." To my amazement, we made it. Now for the 7 hour hike and the introduction of "Underpants Man". Not 5 minutes into the projected 7 hour hike we come to strong flowing river with a downed tree across about 80% before disappearing into the water. A medium sized Laos man with a strange resemblance to Jackie Chan works to the front of the line and proceeds to declothe down to his sea blue briefs. Then pulling a machete out of his pack he walks to the edge of the river where I can only assume he is about to kill a crocodile for tonight's meal. To my knowledge he did not kill anything but crossed the river bean to hack a path through the jungle brush, for the others. In 10 minutes flat he had a fine trail worked out and came back stood waist deep in the flowing river and helped the humans cross.
Everyone began our hike leaving Undie Man behind, or so we thought. 2-3 hours later coming down the trail we were hiking up we were met by a majestic fellow sporting the same elastic uniform. Underpants Man somehow transported himself ahead of us. Frozen in amazement, he asked almost supernaturally if anyone needed water. 3 or 4 surrendered their water bottles to this briefed man who disappeared and 5 minutes later reappeared with each bottle filled. "It's rain water," proclaimed our hero in very broken english. After we hydrated and gained our composure, U-Man escorted his humble followers the rest of the trip to the village.
I realize I haven't told you at all about the tree huts or zip lines, but I hope you'll understand there is no easy way to summarize U-Man. And rather than trying to test everyone's time and patience I think it might be best to speak more in another entry (Sorry, Alison). And look at that just enough time to share one last Undie Man story.
U-Man spottings were more rare as time went on. However, one morning after a jungle trek and zip line adventure, we returned to our tree house(3). I got to the house, all hyped up from the zippin, pulled off my shoes and climbed up to the main area of the tree house. As sudden as lightning I heard someone proclaim something in Laos behind me. There standing behind me already in my house was Underpants Man, though it took me a second to recognize him in his civilian clothes. He must have seen I was shocked so he slowed his speech and repeated: "Leeeeech!" I looked down to my ankle to find a fat slug trying to make his way to my heart.
I ripped it off and no matter what I did could not stop the bleeding (see pic). Not to fear. Undie Man called for a cigarette, casually lit it and puffed a cool couple drags. Then he took the ash from the fag in his fingers and applied it to my lesion. In moments the bleeding stopped... With little need for words U-man extinguished the cig, closed his eyes and rested in the tree house bean bag like it were his own super human throne.
God bless you Underpants Man.
From Elephants to Ziplines
First of all, a quick thanks to everyone who has dropped me a message or an email. I just got back from and exciting 5 days in the jungle. No, not because I got lost. That has only and will only happen once, thank you very much. Rather I have been on two different treks, and it sure is great to come back to a handful of messages and emails when you've been mostly talking to mice and skeeters over the past week.
I have way too many cool things to share in this email, but I'll try to hit some highlights and fill you in more later. I'll begin with the first trek:
Elephant Trekking in Chang Mai:
The morning after my last entry I got up, enjoyed a hot shower like never before, and went downstairs to sign up for the overnight elephant trek. Enter Ms. Thailand. No she's, or should I say he's not quite what you would expect. Since I am never quite sure whether to call a lady boy "he" or "she" I will compromise and call it they. They asked me what my name was. "Derek", I said. "Dehleh?", they said (Thai often have a hard time with "r"'s ). "Derek," I repeated. "Ah, I'm Ms.Thailand," they said extending their soft hand. "Excuse me?" (Derek sometimes has a hard time understanding lady boys.) "Ms. Thailand." "Ahh." I said, "Pleasure to meet you."
Halfway through Ms. Thailand's crash course on the Eletrek, I realized I couldn't look at them. Not because it was awkward but because my vision was going out. AKA-Migraine. Those of you who get them understand, but migraines can really suck, even to the point of puking. And the last thing you want to do is hurl on the 3 ton animal that has you on it's back. So I tried to explain, went and laid down and after about an hour decided, there was no way a freaking headache was going to keep me from riding an elephant, through the jungle. My decision was affirmed when I rushed down, pack in hand to find my group would be comprised of 9 girls and a total of 2 guys. Feeling better already.
The trek was awesome. When they say (not lady boys, just whoever "they" really is) 2 day-1 night Elephant Trek, what that really mean is about 1 hour riding an elephant. But I have to say, despite the downpour and it only being an hour, I was on a friggin elephant in the jungle. That's hard to beat. After the elephant we hiked 3 hours up a trail with one waterfall stop to swim, before arriving at an authentic village where we would be staying in someone's house...I mean hut. This was great too. No electricity. Dinner cooked on a fire. Candle light. And me sitting around with 9 girls and French guy with his guitar, made for a really fantastic night.
The next day after, very little sleep (partly due to the roosters crowing non-stop from 4 am on) we did another 3-4 hour trek to do some rafting on bamboo rafts constructed right in front of us. The rafting started off slow, but turned into raft wars and cliff jumping. A perfect way to wrap up another sweet adventure.
As is my never ending problem, I seemed to have written about 3 times what I planned. So I'm going to wait until the next entry to tell you about the "Gibbon Experience". I know, it's not fair. All this build up and then I just leave you hanging like seductive soap opera...or should I say leave you hanging like me on a zip line 4 hundred feet above ground on my way to my next adventure... Stay tuned to find out!
Or else just Google it and stop your whining!
Bus vs. Jungle
Pop quiz, which is worse getting lost in the jungle at dusk or taking two back to back overnight 11+ hour bus rides? This is a harder question than you think. Had I actually stayed the night in the jungle then we might have a clear winner... MIGHT.
Since I had my fill of Koh Phangan with the full moon party and jungle adventure, I decided it was time to head myself north. First stop: Bangkok. Things work a little bit different in Thailand when you want to travel. I think it's because everyone wants a piece of the action and the only way to do that is to have each person, going to the same place, go to a different place. Step one you have to pick a travel agency. This is the easy part because there is at least one probably more on every block. The travel agency will then give you a ticket that you exchange for a sticker at the boat dock.
You'll start the trip together, everyone gets on the same boat off the island. When you reach the mainland, there is a mob of tuk-tuk drivers (motorcycle taxis) waiting. As soon as you grab your bag, you just have to start walking and the taxi drivers come to you. They will read your sticker and put you with a five others in a specific truck. Then the truck takes each person to a different destination, which is another travel agency. Out you get and wait until the next departure in which a taxi picks you up and takes you to a central location, where you see everyone you saw on the boat. Then everyone onto the bus.
My ultimate destination was Chang Mai. However this requires an overnight bus to Bagkok then another overnight bus to Chang Mai.
Overnight Bus 1: This one seemed to be ok, initially. Not real comfortable, and not very easy to sleep but the ac was cranking and they provided each seat a blanket, so that's good. No, actually it isn't. Because when I finally got to Bangkok, had my backpack on and started wandering I noticed I was especially itchy. I lift my shirt to find I had been struck with a localized case of the chicken pox. However, I have already had chicken pox, which leads me to believe that someone mixed up the stray dog's blanket with mine and gave me the blankie with fleas. That's the only thing I can come up with. I'm not sure if it's related but I also got a mystery rash on my legs and felt a bit nauseous all day.
Overnight Bus 2: This one was the opposite of bus 1. We started off really bad, but ended ok. I was the last pickup on this particular bus which means Derek goes to the back of the bus for the available seat...next to the drunk fellow. He seemed harmless enough because he was literally passed out. The first sign of life was Drunk Johny(DJ) shivering in a fetal position. I don't think he noticed every ac vent was open and pointed at him. I being the gentleman I am was more than happy to offer him my blanket. DJ worked extremely hard for the next couple of minutes to do or say something but was never quite able to find the... well any words really. Instead he leaned over into the space between us in the vomit position. Don't worry, thankfully nothing happened. In the end the only real issue was DJ's tendency to stretch and settle his legs deep within my personal bubble. There were a couple other highlights to this trip like the bus driver stopping the bus for about an hour in the streets of Bankok yelling at someone or something. I was a little distracted at the time so I never really found out what was going on there.
I am happy to say I am now in Chang Mai-Northern Thailand. Tomorrow I will give the jungle a second go, except this time on the back of an elephant. Still have about 50 bumps on the right side of my torso (which is sure to impress the ladies at the waterfall swim), and traces of a mystery rash. However, I have my own bed tonight, and decided to go ahead and spend extra $2.50 for room with a hot shower. Needless to say I won't be able to blog for a couple of days, but I might have a story or two when I get back Ele-treckin. Until then...
Lost in the Jungle
Oh man, have I got an entry tonight. And please excuse any mispelling or gramatical error, you'll understand by the end of this that I'm a little bit tired. First let's get you up to speed. I am still on Koh Phangan (full moon island) however, last night I relocated to a quiet little beach next to an island that has a sand bar conecting it when the tide is low. Nice.
My number one objective in the move was to get away from so many people. After a Full Moon Party it's amazing how done with people you are. Today after breakfast and a tenderly stroll on the beach, I decided I would go do a little bit of exploring I was looking at a map and found the next decent city was only a few kilometers away and from there was a trail to Bottle Beach, which according to the little island brochure I had was well worth the trouble. There are only two ways to reach Bottle Beach, by water taxi (boat) or by hiking the 2ish hour hike through the jungle.
Because I am cheap, hate spending money like on a water taxi, and because a little jungle hike sounded pretty fun to me, I decided on the later. I stop and ask a couple of guys workin the water taxi area and they say "Oh no you don't want to walk that's like 4 hours of walking..." Yeah yeah, I know-"Take the Water Taxi!" Right? Thanks but no thanks I can do this on my own. I start to walk up a steep trail and gaze back to see a wall of rain coming accross the sea. Ok, let's do this later. I backtrack to the closet set of bungalos where I will have a cup of instant coffee and wait this out. Problem is I sit next to a couple lovely ladies from Italy who invite me to play Yahtzee. No, I don't know how to play, but I'm a quick learner.
The rain stops. I finish up my game and decide I'll go for Bottle Beach. It is now about 4:40 pm. I ask the guy working, and am glad I did because I learn the trail I was taking was the wrong one. And I'm off.
I don't know for sure, but I think it might be called bottle beach because as you walk the trail through the jungle you start seeing empty water bottles hangin on braches to mark the ever decreasing path. Oh I forgot to mention the one piece of advice Bungalo Guy told me: "You'll come to a spit in the path. Stay to the right because the other path leads to some abandoned bungalos, the other to Bottle Beach." Good to know.
I am walking throught this great jungle trail, where at certain parts you are required to hang on to vines so as not to lose your footing on the slopes. The trail is rather mountainous. Well just after an hour I come to, what else? Abandoned bungalos. No problem, should make for some good pics and then I'll find the other trail. I take pics (which I'll post later) and start back. It is now 6-ish. It is dark in Koh Phangan at 7.
And now my mind starts working. You see I don't ever remember a split, the sun's going down and it's much darker in the jungle sooner than outside of the jungle. My plan was to get to Bottle Beach and catch that water taxi back. I search for a bit, go down some wrong paths and come back. Now a decision. Do I go back to the abandoned bungalos on the water, and try to flag down one of those friggin water taxis or do I just double time it back on the trail, and forget Bottle Beach all together. Since I don't have any idea whether the water taxi's would see me much less stop I decide to head back.
Remember I'm over an hour down this trail and I've got just that before it starts really getting difficult to see. So I'm bookin along swinging from vine to vine when, "Wait a second. I don't see any bottles..." I cannot for the life of me (literally) figure out which way the trail is. So I do what any person would do when lost in the jungle. Pray. And pray fervently.
I head one direction aand literally get held by a vine. "Ok", I think "an answer to prayer." Stop, go a different direction. Again a vine holds me. Nice. Turn a different direction. And yes, again a vine grabs me. Except this time I think, "Ok this is stupid, I've already gone three directions and have been "stopped" each time. I need to just start moving." So I do. Ripping through the clinging vines and clinging to the ripping vines for my footing.
Then I see some bottles and start thanking the Lord with each bottle I pass. Back on track. But that doesn't last very long again I'm lost this time worse than before and now it's getting dark. Oh and did I mention it's begining to down pour again. At this point I'm mentally preparing myself for what looks like the night I'm going to spend in the jungle. Then survial mode kicks in. I have no idea where I am, but I do know that the ocean is north. My thoughts now are if I'm going to have to sleep in here I'm going to be near the ocean on some rock instead of in the jungle. But which way is North? Good question, but the one thing I do know is that water runs to the ocean. so I start heading where the water is going.
Let's wrap this up. Obviously I'm posting a blog, and they don't have internet in the jungle, so you know how this thing ends up. Eventually as I'm beating my way through the jungle I run into what looks slightly like a trail. Pause. Heat skips a beat. Continue. Bingo-bottle. The next 20 minutes was me praising the good Lord as I partially held my breath until I reached the top of the hill where I could see lights below.
Finally with just a hint of light in the sky I bumble back into the bungalo where I played Yahtzee and where I realized during my jungle stay I forgot to pay for my coffee. I paid for the coffee. Got a taxi to my bungalo still several miles away and felt the my body adjust as the adrenaline faded back to normality.
Honestly, I'm on an island so the reality is I couldn't have gotten TOO lost. I mean worst case scenario I sleep one night in the jungle and find my way back the following morning. Not so bad, I mean minus the cobra bites, millipieds, and spiders laying eggs in my ear. But other than that, no sweat.
Well, my friends, I'm going to bed. Ahhh that sounds nice doesn't it? Oh and I love you guys... you know sometimes we just don't say that enough... Man I love you guys... Ok, ok. Good night.
Full Moons and Underwater Rescue
I'll go ahead and appologize that it's been a few days since my last entry. These past few days have been fairly busy including two underwater rescues, a 10 hour overnight ferry to the port of departure, and the famous full moon party.
Let's begin with the underwater rescues. I mentioned that I had decided to continue my diving in Koh Phi Phi. Initially I thought I would get my advanced diver certificate in Koh Tao, but once I got to P.P. it seemed to make more sense (despite a few extra bucks) to continue my diving there. Which means I needed to do 5 more dives including navigation, deep, and 3 of choice. The first dive was the deep dive, going down to 30 meters, doing some skills and finishing up with a swim around. By chance it was just my instructor and myself diving.
After a short boat ride to small beatiful island we suited up and dove down to 30m. No sooner had we reached the bottom when we spotted what looked like a huge cage with loads of tropical fish. Sweet huh? Yeah I thought so too, and then I realized by the frantic pissed off look of my instructor that in fact it was not sweet. Simple truth, divers hate fishermen and fishermen hate divers, and from what I understood (later) these fish were being caught illegally to be sold. My instructor tried cutting through the metal with her knife. Nothing. Then I realized there was an opening tied shut with some rope and after a little finageling we had the cage open and schools of imprisoned fish set free. Lesson one- Deep dive/Underwater rescue :Success.
The next rescue came on my final dive but did not envolve creatures of scale, rather one ignorant American diver. There are two basic things you need to remember when diving. 1.Breath-never hold your breath. And 2. Watch your air so you don't run out. Well breathing came naturally for me so didn't really have any problems there, however, the second one(I learned) can sneak right up on you.
My final dive I chose to do underwater photography (which by the way I suck at). But the thing is I'm not a guy that likes to focus on many things at one time. I've always felt you should put all your energy into one thing then move on to the next. In this case, the thing was photography, and what didn't get my attention was my air gages. When you are working so hard to a bunch of crappy undecernable pictures, you tend to use a lot of air. We approached the end of the dive and I look down to see I have one bar of air left. The problem is you have to decompress for a short amount of time at 5 m down so as not to get the bends. So in this rescue the fish was Derek and the cage was stupidity. Anyway, it may sound worse than it was. I shared the air of my instructor to decompress as we had learned previously and proceeded to the surface.
Both rescues were a first for my instructor. Needless to say she was more excited about one than the other. Other highlights included swimming with baracuda on a night dive, and the plankton (or whatever) that lights up at night when stired--very cool like a bunch of tiny stars sparkeling in the pitch black ocean.
Moving on. Next was the return to Phangnan Island (which I had already broken in with some sick dance moves) for the full moon party. But to get there I was scheduled for a 10 hour overnight ferry. I had done the ferry once before and any transportation you are expected to sleep on is ok with me. We board the boat, business as usual and set sail. The next morning we pull up to the dock where things are looking oddly familiar. Things tend to look familair when you are returning to the exact dock you left from some 10 hours earlier. I guess overnight our boat broke down and had to be taxied back to the dock. Several hours later, after a bus ride to a different town we left on a 3 hour ferry. This time we made it.
And now one final note on the full moon party. As soon as you arrive to Thailand you start hearing of people planning their trips for this party. I had been to the island before so had a pretty good idea of what to expect, or so I thought. I have never seen anything like it. Imagine 10-20,000 people dancing on a beach about 2-300 yards long until 7 in the morning when the sun rose. It was unbelievable. I met up Christina (my friend from Flagstaff), and then later she left with her Italian friend from Phuket, and I found some Spaniards (who are in some history books credited with the creation of dance) that I met the day before. I would tell you more about it but I've already written way too much, something I commited not to do in a previous blog. And besides that it was unbelievable, so why even talk about it? I mean if your not going to believe me anyway. Maybe when you're older and we've work through some of these trust issues we can talk about it more. But right now it's time for one young sir to go to bed.
Tsunomic Paradise
"So did you see the tsunami?" I asked the guy selling me a coffee at Look Out Point. Koh Phi Phi(pronounced like the bodily function)is one of the places that was desimated by the Tsunami. Last night I arrived to Koh Phi Phi from Phuket. It is an island made of limestone mountains, coconut trees and turquoise water. The town is located entirely on a strip of beach that connects two mountainous islands. The Thai man had walked down from his home at the top of one of these mountains to town to work on the beach. He saw the water awkwardly receding, and knew enough to run.
"I told a guy (tourist) to 'run!', that there was a tsunami coming. He called me a liar and walked out on the beach to take a picture of some stranded beached fish." The guy went on to tell me that he ran for higher land and as he approached tripped as he saw the wave coming. When he got up he held on the water rushed waist deep by. "Did you ever see the guy you warned?" No.
You can't help but think every person here has some big story just like that. I also asked a girl at a dive shop who was diving at the time. She simply told me you can't really talk about it or then you start remembering and then you feel down all day. That's the sad part. The upside is this place is friggin amazing!
You'll remember from an earlier entry Marco Polo calling China's West Lake the most beautiful place on earth. That leaves me with one of three options. Either: A. Marco had never been to Koh Phi Phi, B. He was maybe trying opium for the first time, or C. Polo was full of crap! There is a good chance I have found the absolute most beautiful place on Earth.
It's stunning as you arrive on the boat and I haven't snapped out of it yet. By far today's highlight was renting a kayak for $2.50 and taking to the open sea in search for monkey beach. I did eventually find monkey beach which is supposed to be littered with monkeys but they and everyone else were nowhere to be found. Sad, yes, but not bad being the only person on a little tropical beach as the sun is setting.
I've also decided that it is important I do a little diving here as well so as not to have all of my diving experience in one place. Important to be well rounded, you see? That starts tomorrow at 8. There's a wreck somewhere around here and two days ago some divers spotted a whale shark. Either of which I would be just tickled to witness.
And if I'm lucky, I'll bump into some monkeys too along the way.
Swervin on the 4th of July
You're probably not going to believe this, but Thailand doesn't celebrate the 4th of July. I know! I couldn't believe it either. But you know me, I'm a soldier, and I wasn't about to travel halfway around the world to not celebrate America's birthday. So if Thailand wasn't gonna bring some noise, then I was gonna bring some noise to Thailand.
It just happens that the closest island to Koh Toa where I was diving is Koh Phangan, famous mostly for it's full moon parties. I figured if there was going to be a 4th of July celebration then that was the spot. Boy was I right. I arrived just before noon, which gave me enough time to find a place to stay, do a little island exporing and spend the better half of the afternoon preparing myself for the big night by soakin it up in the surf.
The night began like this. I had a nice dinner right on the beach. Still not sure what was in store I took to the streets to scope the scene and before long bumped in to a couple Swedish girls that I had met previously on Koh Toa. We had already watched a big World Cup game on the other island and they talked me into staying up (2 am) to watch Italy play Germany. Since I didn't have to work the next day, I had all kinds of time. Got juiced up on coffee at 10:30 pm and by 11:30 pm the Swedes pansed out and went to bed.
That's cool for them, but not for me. If Paul Revere could stay awake the night the British invaded then I sure as heck could stay awake on the 4th of July on Koh Phangan! I was pleased to find the beach was lined with flame twirlers (no not lady boys, the guys that twirl sticks of fire), bumpin music and big projection screens getting ready to show the game. Each bar, club or restaurant had outdoor seating on the beach for watching flamers or football. Inside dance floors. I had a couple hours to kill so naturally I went inside.
So how was it? Well, good, but I think the more appropriate question was how was I? And I, my friends, was GREAT! I know, I know, everyone always thinks they have the best moves on the floor, and I'm no different. However, at the end of the night that concluded just as the sky was turning, one person commented "You did some good work out there tonight." And he said it right, work, because it wasn't easy bringing my A-game for something like 5 hours.
You can always tell a good performance by the morning after (or maybe in this case early afternoon-after), and I can safely say last night was a success. Even as I walked the streets every once in a while I would see a familiar face from the eve before, and on that face a big Thai smile. A smile that says "Man, that guys got some crazy moves" or when translated to Thai "Hey that's the idiot from last night!".
You know, as you travel you realize that America is not the "city on the hill" it once was to the rest of the world. But after last night...America is shining a little brighter.
Koh Toa is a Dive!
And a rather good one at that! My friends, you can now refer to me as Dive Master D. Er, um, at least Open Water Certified D. Today I completed my 4-day dive traing to become a certified diver. Unfortunately, with my head still swimming my creative tank is just about empty. In fact, I was torn on whether I should post a rather boring entry or not to post at all. But since it has been a couple of days, I thought I'd better at least check in. You know if your tank is empty you don't just give up right? No, you take a deep breath and start for the surface, then you live to dive another day. And already I have begun to annoy myself, so I'm just going to get to it.
When I was a kid I had my share of interesting dreams. I think it's probably better for everyone that I don't share them, but I will share one. Many people dream of flying, but my super human dream was breathing underwater. In the dream I was able to press my lips together very tightly and filter the Oxegen out of the H20, allowing me to breath underwater. I mean it's not super human strength, or invisibility, but you gotta admit that is a pretty cool super human power. Well finally after 29 years I have made my dreams come true. Of course, I did have to change the procedure a little, but it all works the same in the end.
You would think after four days of dive training I would have loads of stories. Yeah, me too. But maybe what you wouldn't think is that half of the training is either in a classroom watching corny dive videos, or playing diver in the swimming pool. Which is why I had to make up some stupid story about a dream as a kid,(no I'm kidding the dream was real, and while not the most exciting story, trust me, it was better than describing the training videos. Which in dream terms would more fall into the bad -> nightmare category).
I have to tell you though swimming 60 feet under the surface with schools of fish swarming around you and 2 very large reef sharks swimming below is hard to top. Apparently you can go a good year without ever seeing a shark so it was a special treat. Probably not the smartest idea to flale around like mentally handicaped seal trying to get the attention of your diving buddies, but eventually I did get the attention of two other mates who spotted the shark. I also later saw the ever poisonous sea snake which wasn't quite as exciting but still pretty cool.
All in all an amazing experience. And now having typed and deleted three attempts at a clever closing. I am just going to say goodnight.
