Thailand - again!

We opted for the cheaper night bus to Bangkok from Vientiene. It cost $20 each, which included a meal. The problem with these night buses to the Thai capital is that they inevitably drop you off somewhere near Khao San Rd at some ungodly hour when all but the most desperate prostitutes and drunken leering farang's (Westerners) are hanging around. I've detailed my disgust with Khao San before - on my travels to find somehere to sleep I was offered sex 8 times. There's no subtlety, no humour about it, just a cold plea for a transaction. Eventually we found a nondescript but relatively clean room (apart from an ecstasy tab and condom wrapper under bed).

I arranged another night bus/boat combo down to Koh Tao and slept until we checked out again at 11am. The bus wasn't to leave until 6pm so we hopped in a tuk tuk and made it to Siam Square. I sat in a Starbucks catching up with the papers (and the details of the PAD protests that were ongoing only a few kilometers from my comfy seat) and reading Stephen Fry's autobiography (brilliant) for a few hours while S shopped.

I also hatched a future business plan for a chain of cafe/bars situated in shopping centres called 'Mansitters'. This wee establishment will offer the poor misguided and bullied spouse/boyfriend of credit card toting shopaholics a welcome alternative to following his partner on a leash through the Next's/ M&S's/Coast's/other nightmarish moneyholes of this world. It will have large screens with live sports, a bookie and booze licence, all the days papers and business magazines, wireless internet access, and sister taxi company called 'Manshifters' which can ferry bubbly hubby home if he chooses to get too pissed to drive. Oh and X-Boxes....and sexy waitresses. It will in fact be such a draw that the lads will be dragging the girls to fecking Liffey Valley for the Sunday afternoon ritualised torture. This is all detailed in the contents of a registered post envelope to Mr J T Morrin, Fishery Lane, Naas by the by -so any potential copycats beware. Any potential investors however are most welcome!(;

The bus southward was more comfortable than our previous one, and we managed some sleep before at 3am being dropped off at Chumphon. I couldn't sleep, so got stuck into the book again lying on a bench at the dockfront until the boat left at 8am. I popped some seasick tablets, which are glorified sleeping pills and slipped into the semi coma that is drug induced slumber. I woke up in time to the majestic site of Koh Tao getting incrementally bigger on the horizon. The water was so blue, I wanted to jump in immediately and swim the rest of the way, but then remembered the sharks..God it was good to be back here though. True island paradise.

The minute we landed onto the marina it started to rain. Shitecakes. We settled on Bans Diving Resort - I wasn't leaving here this time without my PADI, and Bans seemed like a good option. If you register to do a dive course you can get hefty discounts on accommodation, so we signed up immediately. That evening we did a bit of classroom stuff... 'remember to breathe under water now' ...'don't give the fingers to a shark if you see one' etc etc all that kind of revalating stuff. The rakish Swedish fella who was to be our instructor for the next four days cried off with a flu, and just as we were finishing watching the drivel that is the PADI dvd, in bounded a floppy haired Brit introducing himself as Guy. I was fairly sure he had been an extra in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves at some point...but he was very friendly and seemed to know what he was on about.

An early start the next morning and into the pool to get the hang of the gear. Our group was nice and small - just five of us with Guy - a German couple and a Yank. The pool was fun - the sensation of having the tank and weights on is great, you can just hang out at the bottom making obscene gestures to each other (no sharks yet) and well..remembering to breathe of course. A two hour session in the classroom after breaking for lunch, and we were sufficiently wrecked to have a fish dinner and call it a day.

The next two days were fantastic. The weather had continued to reside in the realms of total shite, and the view on the choppy speedboat ride to the dive boat was of sheet lightning off the coast. Not great on the already jittery nerves. Our first sea dive at was to about 12m just to get used to the environment and the equipment. We went through a series of basic skills (clearing masks, hovering, safety ascents etc). I loved it. After an hour out of the water to decompress our second dive was to 18m. We saw a big titan triger fish, some blue ringed angel fish and a blue spotted stingray. I was in heaven, like a big kid in a sweet shop pointing and gurlging and exclaiming to no one but myself about all this wildlife.

Sarah was characteristically shitting herself about the prospect of seeing sharks. Guy was brilliant, and gave a masterclass in that most elusive art of "calming Sarah down" or CSD for short. Fears of mask filling, blood thirsty sharks/barracuda/rare sub aqua giant mosquito's biting and decompression sickness were all dispelled with a magic shrug of the shoulder and toothy grin. 'It'll be fiiiiiiine' (winks to me). Genius. Wouldn't have happened without him.
The next day was our last of the open water course and consisted of two more dives to 18m. Unfortunatley the visibility wasn't that great, but I still loved every minute. The highlight for me was hanging out over the nest of a Clarks anemonefish - watching the parents in their brilliant yellow black and white birthday suits challenge us in little forayed darts. Little agressive Nemo's!

We enjoyed these few days so much, and seeing as the weather continued to be drizzly and overcast which ruled out beach activity (that should be inactivity in fairness..!)we decided to do the 2 day advanced course which started bright and early the next morning and consisted of five more dives. The first two were a multilevel dive concentrated on getting the hang of ascending and descending to depths of up to 30m safely, spotting a few moray eels, puffer fish and trigger fish en route. Then the navigation dive, which I was fairly nervous about - it's daunting to be let off on your own after having just gotten used to following an instructor around! You are given a dive computer and a compass, both strapped to your wrist, a map and a few basic instructions. We saw a 5 foot barracuda and what looked like the outline of a bull shark after only a few minutes down there - had to do a quick CSD session there!

Sarah was suffering from a rare ailment for divers - the pain of trapped air in a tooth expanding upon ascent. God love her she was in bits after the second dive. With a bit of cajoling, a few cups of tea and promises of medals of valour she bravely got into the water the next day for our remaining three dives. The first two of these were off Chumphon Pinnacle - a scattering of large rocks about 4km to the north of Sairee Beach. The current was very strong at the surface, and it was a bit of a struggle to make our way down the guide rope to a calmer depth. We undertook these on our own - no instructor (although he was in the water for some of it). The second dive was a 40 minute fish identification dive.

The highlight of the whole PADI experience awaited us that night though. We chugged back to Sairee Beach for about 4pm, with just enough time to rinse the gear and grab a bite to eat before heading out to White Rocks for the final dive - the night dive. Equipped with torches and shitting ourselves in the twilight of dusk, a couple of kilometres off the coast, like flippin navy seals we jumped into the still bath like 30 degree water and kicked until exhasted against the current to get to the guide rope which was the length of two boats away.

Pausing for a quick breather and after a couple of final instructions on how to use the torches (mine kept knocking off by itself! nightmare!) we slowly slipped into the murky darkness. After adjusting to the light I found it surprisingly relaxing. Generally I don't have a fear of enclosed spaces (like Sarah) and tend to feel more comfortable and almost cozy in them. I've always felt safe and comfortable in thick forests for example, whereas to Sarah that density and sense of being surrounded gives rise to an uncertainty over what is lurking in all those spaces you can't see, and ultimately a panicked fear.

We all stuck close together though and Guy was soon flashing an extra strong light at poor unsuspecting reef fish in the hope of luring a barracuda out for an easy meal. Sure enough within a couple of minutes we had attracted a few 5-6 foot chevron barracuda's who were delighted to have their usually elusive dinner lit up and stunned for them.

The next target would be chosen and illuminated, unsuspectingly sunning itself in the electrolight..and then ...WAMMO - all you saw were those big barracuda jaws and a glassy eye - then dark nothingness and the cacophony of ecstatic giggling from us as Guy flicked and twirled the torches like aquatic six-shooters with glee. We had spoken about the bioluminescence during our briefing on the boat.

The tiny micro organisms that meant nothing to us on the daylight dives were now a sourse of supreme amusement. We turned all the lights off, hovered quietly for a few moments and then started swirling our hands and fingers through the water. Like cartoonesque wizards with sparks flying off our fingers we thrashed about with unbridled joy - it was amazing, an experience I will never forget. One of those memories I have stored away in a box in the back of my head to take out on some pissy Tuesday morning in February in the future when I'm stuck in a damp office somewhere in Dublin when I'll need it to keep my sanity!

So the course had ended, and it was time to party. We drank in the bar at Bans until the wee hours with all our new mates congratulating each other on our 'heroics'. Our flight to Singapore left us with three days to kill on the island, which we relished as our last in the sleepiness of the island. We rented a scooter and hit of few of the northern beaches one day, finding a bar with an infinity pool by the beachfront.

The diving experience has been one of the most worthwhile of our time in SE Asia I think, and we will both be keen to do as much of it as possible in the future.

To paraphrase Josh Ritter, you know something's perfect when you have to leave. We packed our bulging bags, clung to the back of a truck that bumped its way to the harbour front, and caught the ferry to Koh Samui, the location of the most chilled out airport on the planet. From there we flew to Bangkok and caught our connecting flight to what Paul Theroux calls the "social bubble" - Singapore.