Paradise. As much as I love big cities, I am a beach bum at heart and had been anxious to get to the Thai islands. Koh Tao is one of the 3 major islands off the east coast of Thailand. Ferries run between Koh Tao, Koh Phangan (famous for the Full Moon party), and Koh Samui at all hours of the day so it is common for travelers to island hop. We started off on Tao, but I never actually made it to the other islands as I intended because I fell in love...I will get to that more later.
Tao is renowned for it´s world class scuba diving. Not only is the water crystal clear and the acquatic life incredible, but it is one of the most inexpensive places in the world to dive. So naturally people come from all over for their Open Water, Advanced, and Dive Master licenses. I had been looking forward to getting my Open Water certification since Plan B was born, so as soon as I arrived on the island I signed up for classes at Buddha View Dive Resort. Unfortunately, Sarah would not be able to join me...she hurt her eardrum while tubing in Vang Vieng and could not dive because of the under water pressure. I was bummed that I would not be able to buddy up with my partner in crime, but she kept her spirits up and enjoyed the many beaches Tao has to offer while I was taking my classes.
I started off in the classroom for a day, learning all about how depth affects water pressure, air density, and heat. One of the first things you learn is that you always dive with a buddy and since Sarah couldn´t join me, I buddied up with one of the guys in my dive class, Steve - Steve, Matt, and Jake are from Seattle and were traveling through Thailand and Cambodia for a month. We immediately hit it off, shared travel stories and Sarah, Hari, and I were able to give them tons of advice on Cambodia since that was their next stop. After our classroom sessions were complete and we passed all of our written tests, our Fab 4 dive team (Steve, Matt, Jake, and I) hit the water.
Day 1 was pool sessions which are not the most exciting things in the world, but you have to ease into it and learn the way the equipment works and get used to the concept of breathing under water. It. Was. So. Cool. At first it does feel a little unnatural (especially with all the heavy equipment on), but after just a few minutes I kind of forgot that I was under water and was having the best time. We learned how to clear our masks, read our gauges, use our regulators, and went through emergency training if something were to happen to our air tanks under water and we needed to share air tanks with our buddy. It was all the technical stuff, but it is absolutely mandatory for any diver to know so even though we weren´t yet seeing anything exciting, we were learning necessary skills.
Day 2 my dive team finally got into the ocean. We took the dive boat out to the site, wet suited up (that one is for you, Lis and NPH), and hit the water. It was amazing: 26°C, 20m+ visibility in the tropical blue ocean. As soon as we descended just a few meters I could see beautiful coral and brilliantly colorful tropical fish - butterfly fish, angel fish, moray eels, trigger fish (keep your distance - they are territorial, temperamental, and just plain mean), blue-spotted sting rays, clown fish (Nemos), nudi branches, batfish, barracudas, and so many more. It was simply beautiful. My eyes remained wide open the whole time, every time I turned my head I saw another amazing fish or coral formation. After we completed our underwater skills tests in the ocean, Steve, Matt, Jake, and I were officially Open Water (OW) certified divers.
On day 3 the real diving began. Since we had passed all of our tests it was time to fun dive. We descended to 15 meters and followed our dive master around the dive site to explore. Again, so many tropical fish everywhere and got to get really close to the coral to see all of the tiny fish and nudi branches that lived inside. Everything was just beautiful. Since I was now OW certified, I could finally dive with Hari who got his OW certification earlier in Vietnam. We were both very quickly addicted to diving and got in the water at any opportunity that we could. While I was getting my OW license, Hari completed his Advanced course and he convinced me to do the same. So only one day after I had my OW certification, I decided to keep diving and signed up for and started my Advanced classes.
During my Advanced OW course, I learned peak performance buoyancy skills, under water navigation (using an under water compass to navigate dive sites), completed my first deep dive (30 meters) and went on my first night dive with Hari as my buddy. Night diving is so cool, at first I was a little freaked out to go down 20 meters in the pitch black with nothing but a small torch to find my way around; but as soon as I got in the water and started swimming around I loved it. At night many fish that you cannot see during the day are out and we even got to watch barracuda hunting. We shone our torches on their prey and once I was lucky enough to watch a barracuda swallow a small fish in one quick bite, it was very exciting. When we ascended to the surface there were millions of brilliant stars shining above us, it was kind of a surreal experience and one that I will never forget.
Aside from diving, Koh Tao has tons of tiny beaches off small dirt roads and trails. Sarah rented a motorbike and checked out many of the beaches during the day and got in some snorkeling at the shallower dive sites. When I wasn´t diving I was soaking up the rays, relaxing, and enjoying the peaceful scenes. At sunset everyone seemed to congregate at Eazy Bar, oh how we loved Eazy Bar. It was right on the beach and had a small deck with pillows to lounge on while enjoying a Tiger beer and listening to excellent classic rock/reggae music - everything from Bob Marley to Pink Floyd to Pearl Jam. Every night, one of the guys who worked at the bar would practice poi, the Thai art of fire juggling/dancing. This guy was mesmerizing, he so gracefully twirled around lit fireballs on the ends of approx. 1 meter long chains for hours. He is a poi master. Everyone at the bar just watched in awe, he made it look so easy to be playing with fire.
Now earlier I said that I fell in love. This has multiple meanings - I fell in love with the island; I fell in love with scuba diving; and I fell in love with Hari. We had been close friends through good old Citigroup in NY for 3 years, but we were always ¨just friends¨. After we started traveling together in Vietnam, something happened along the way and we both started looking at each other differently. It is kind of cliché, but there was something magical about Koh Tao that made us realize that love was staring us right in the face for 3 years. Sparks flew. We finally ended up together and it felt so natural and just so right. I had intended on going to Koh Samui but we were so content on Tao and with diving that we stayed put. Sarah witnessed everything develop first-hand and knew that this wasn´t just some little fling, so she went to Samui for a few days while Hari and I stayed behind to spend more time together. In those few days, things intensified and we decided that we weren´t yet ready to part ways as we originally had planned. We stayed on Tao a bit longer and then sadly left our island paradise to head west to Phuket to reunite with Sarah and check out the west coast.
The beaches of Phuket were beautiful but overall none of us were really fans of Phuket - in my personal opinion, it is too developed, too touristy, and lacked any sort of real Thai culture. It is really just a crowded tourist beach. But we still made the best of it and found one really cool beach, Karon, away from the crowds. It was really interesting to see Phuket post-tsunami, there were evacuation signs and routes posted everywhere. We only stayed a few days and after that the 3 of us discussed future travel plans and routes. Being dive addicts, Hari and I really wanted to go out to the Similan Islands off the west coast of Thailand and Sarah decided to head south to Malaysia, so again we temporarily parted ways. Of course none of this was expected, but all these surprises are just part of the adventure...
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