Justin and I had every intention of skipping full-moon-party-central Haad Rin when we got to Koh Phangan. So when we arrived we headed straight to the Northeast to a reportedly beautiful beach area known as Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi. And beautiful beach it was. Unfortunately it was also full of honeymooners and families. And while I like a honeymooning family just as much as the next girl, if I am not actually on my honeymoon or with kids I don't really want to spend all my time with them. You know? Besides Justin was overwhelmed by all of the showy heterosexuals. I mean he accepts our lifestyle, as he puts it, but he doesn't really want to watch straight people make out constantly. So after one Thai cooking class, the lamest Songkran known to man, and perhaps one of the best dinners of the trip so far we had exhausted the charms of Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi by day three, and decided to bite the bullet and make for the debauchery of Haad Rin.
We managed to find a really charming bungalow, for cheap, since we weren't in town for the full moon. Our place was on top of Mushroom Mountain, (I'll give you one guess why they call it Mushroom Mountain,) with a beautiful view overlooking the whole bay. At first we thought being at the opposite end of the beach and up on the hill away from the party zone would shield us from the all night revelry. But after the first night we realized that the only way to sleep in Haad Rin was to get blindly drunk and pass out, especially since noise travels more over water than land and we faced directly out over the bay. That first night we took it easy and were home by 2 but even with ear plugs we were up till well past 4 am. We made sure to rectify that the next two nights but not even bothering to go home until 4. We were aided in that effort by the infamous gulf island buckets. Basically childrens beach pails full of Thai whiskey, coke and red bull, a lively combination. (We skipped the red bull, because we are responsible drinkers. But didn't skip the whiskey because we're clearly not THAT responsible.)
The best thing about Haad Rin was that the beach, which was basically deserted all day since everyone is out all night. So we had the beach and the bay practically all to ourselves everyday till about 4pm. The crowd at Haad Rin are really 4pm to 4am kinds of folks. Other than that there really isn't much to write home about as far as Koh Phangan is concerned. I suppose if we had stayed for the Full Moon Party, which is tonight by the way, we might have more of a story. But instead we left Koh Phangan for Koh Tao, Koh Phangan's smaller neighbor to the North.
Koh Tao is basically a scuba divers paradise. I wasn't sure if I wanted to dive on this trip, but I brought my PADI id with me just in case. But when I got to Koh Tao I realized that not diving would be ridiculous. It would have also have been insanely expensive, since the resorts give you crazy financial incentives to dive, i.e if you dive you can stay here for free. So I decided to do the Advanced Open Water course. AOW meant I was going to do 5 dives in 3 days including a deep dive, a navigation dive and a night dive. But that wasn't enough for me, oh no. I had to go and blow the budget on getting Nitrox certified and do my first tech dive. For all of you not up on the diver lingo those are basically really bad ass.
Nitrox is when you dive with an enriched oxygen tank that lets you dive deeper longer. To get certified for that you have to take a special course and an exam, and do two Nitrox dives. On my second Nitrox dive I got buddied up with two guys from the States. Team America as we were infamously called. We got the nickname after our second dive. We were only supposed be down for 50 minutes, although I had enough air for probably twice as long. At about minute 48 I signalled the other two guys that we needed to head back. They both gave me the international/underwater signal for fuck that we're not going back yet. I figured well alright we can stay another few minutes. At about minute 68 I started to panic and signalled them that we really needed to head back, again I was poo pooed. At that point I didn't know what to do. I could a.) surface and swim back to the boat alone or b.) stick it out with my buddies (a.k.a. dudes who do what the fuck they like because that's what they learned in America.) Since I had not been the one navigating and had no idea how far from the boat we actually were, and since I had by far the most air I figured sticking with Team America was best. After all I am a nationalism right?
Once we finally began to head back to the boat, around minute 71, I freaked again because even though they tell you to trust your compass I had a sinking feeling we weren't heading anywhere near the boat. I was so disoriented that I finally decided to surface and figure out where we were. And it is a good thing I did because the dive instructors told me later that they were minutes away from putting on their gear for a search and rescue mission. But once they spotted me with the zoom lens they didn't have to come find us. It turns out that we were heading in the right direction but we were a good 70 meters from the boat, which sucked cause I had to swim on the surface to get back. We got a decent ribbing when we did eventually get back to the boat, since we were now almost 20 minutes late and the boat was expected back at Ban's (the dive school) for the night dive immediately.
I totally blamed the guys, (stupid Americans) although at least initially it was as much my fault as theirs. But I did learn a valuable lesson. You are only as strong as your weakest diver and if one diver needs to surface or head back as a buddy you are obligated to do the same. I wish the guys had listened to me in the first place because it would have saved me the panic attack. On the other hand I did get a few really massive hauls of the Nitrox which wasn't so bad, and definitely made me feel amazing later. Nitrox is addictive.
My last day in Koh Tao I decided to do my first tech dive. Well actually they up-sold me on the tech dive by buying me free beers and telling how cool I would be. It didn't hurt that Craig, from Kelowna*, was going to be my instructor. Tech diving is the ultimate as far as I am concerned. If you get certified as a tech diver you can dive with multiple tanks and in the really advanced stages you can even use recirculating air, which means you can basically live underwater. You also use tech equipment to do cave and cavern diving, and when you want to go really deep for certain wreck dives etc.
Diving in Koh Tao is awesome, but not just because the diving is good. In fact I am sure it is just ok, but the atmosphere is amazing. All of the travelers and dive instructors are really cool, and everyone just hangs out and makes new friends. And all of the bars have live bands that play acoustic music, which according to our new friend Philip is, "actually shit, but people seem to like it." It is a bit like scuba diving camp, but in Thailand and with booze and sex. (Although I guess sex is pretty standard at camp too, eh Lauren? I wouldn't know.) We made some great new friends. And I did get to met Jim who is Koh Tao legend. He's a dive instructor famous for getting all of the Swedish chicks that are NBO, (that's Next Boat Out. charming right?) Jim became quite a good joke among a few of us. In fact we met more cool people in Koh Tao than we have anywhere else so far on the trip. We also met some wackos but that's not a story for the blog. ( Read ask Justin about that one.)
We stayed in Koh Tao six days and I was genuinely depressed to go. More sad I think than anywhere else we've been so far," and at least 20 % of that is because..." ( Sorry that is an inside joke. Shameless I know.) But before we knew it it was time to up and leave. Next stop Chiang Mai in the north where Justy and I are going to become professional Thai masseurs...
*Craig is from Kelowna which means he is obviously a babe.
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