Our time on land in Thailand was punctuated with a lot of time underwater. When we left Bangkok, we headed south to spend four days aboard a live aboard dive boat. We almost didn’t make it- the traffic was so bad that we made it to the bus just in time to go to the bathroom and get in our seats. It was a little anxiety provoking, especially because our taxi driver didn’t speak any English, so we had a hard time communicating with him that our bus was leaving at 7:00. However, we made it and slept more or less soundly until we reached Khao Lak, which is near Phuket.
When we got off the bus, we couldn’t figure out where our hotel was and no one who was out at 6:00am knew either, so we called them on a street vendor’s cell phone and one of the women came to pick us up on a motorbike. We had all of our luggage with us, so there was no way that both of us were going at the same time. But, it turned out it was just around the corner so she was able to quickly shuttle back and forth to get both of us there. For both of us, it was our first time on a motorbike. We were a bit challenged to balance ourselves with all of our luggage, but we are proud to say we didn’t cause an accident.
We had a day to explore Khao Lak before we got on the boat. We walked on the beach, ate seafood and that was about it. Khao Lak isn’t really a town- it is more a launching site for dive trips than anything else. We got to the dive shop nice and early to get ready for the boat and we were treated to quite the show. The videographer and owner got into a big row right in front of everyone that involved crying and swearing and storming off. It was like being on an episode of the Kardashians or something. Fortunately, the rest of the trip was much calmer by comparison. We finally got on the boat and were shown to the ‘honeymoon suite’. This means we had our own room with one bed, as opposed to sharing bunk beds with others. It was small, because after all we were on a boat, but it was very nice and comfy. With the rocking from the ocean, we fell right asleep. The food on the boat was amazing- fish straight out of the water and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. And all of the nutella we could eat! We had it on pancakes, on bananas, on a spoon. It was delicious.
And so what about the diving you ask- weren’t we supposed to be underwater? We sure were- we did three day dives and one night dive every day. Our schedule was dive eat sleep and repeat for the whole trip. Mike was getting his advanced certification, so he had some learning to do above water and some practicing to do underwater. The diving itself was pretty good. There were lots of neat fish and other creatures. However, almost everything was on the smaller side – most of the big life had been fished out. Out of all of the dives, only one of the groups saw a shark, once. The rest had been killed for their fins. We could see fishing and squiding boats working illegally all night. So, as beautiful as things were, it was also saddening. Especially when we saw the amount of coral bleaching from the El Niño event that had come through during the summer.
We did get to go on land a few times to enjoy the beautiful white sand beaches that Thailand is famous for and play in the waves.
All in all, it was a great time. Mike is now an advanced diver and has “peak performance buoyancy” (which helps him flail around a lot less). Kristen got to see new types of underwater life and brushed up on recognizing the fish types that also live in the Caribbean. And we both got to spend a lot of time underwater with the fishies. And we felt like we were still with them for several days afterwards until our inner ears decided to join us back on land.
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