Category: Musings

Blown away

Blimey. Almost a week back in England and I’m still waking up stoopidly early. I hate jet lag sometimes… On the plus side the clocks go forward in a week or so, which means I’m ahead of the game – huzah!

Being back home is strange, it’s even harder when you had a really good last few weeks on your holiday and the last thing you want to do is give up the floating bambo huts, diving with manta rays and lying in the gorgeous, warm sun. Being back home is even stranger when home isn’t home anymore! Yep, my folks moved while I was away in Thailand so instead of the usual home of 25 years I’m now in a house near Norwich, Norfolk listening to the howling of the 80 mph wind across the fields. All very scenic, but not home! Ah well. Luckily having not had the same bed for longer than a few days over the last few months means that one more new bed isn’t much of a change.

Highlight of being home so far is, of course, seeing my nephew again (and the rest of my family)! He is now one year old and walking around (with help) in between running the full emotional range in 10 seconds – from laughing, to crying and back again. He is so cute!! He’s also a complete tart for the camera bless him which makes a change from the whole rest of my family and great for a camera addict like me who has 10 months of no photos to make up for.. hee hee. Next week I get to see my four month old niece for the first time which will be super cool as well. My siblings have been busy while I’ve been off enjoying myself round the world…

To soften the blow of being back out of the sun I’ve gotten myself a new mobile – a Nokia 6600. Great little toy, about the same length as my old phone but a 1/3 wider and half as heavy – but for all that you get a camera built in, organiser and bluetooth. Toys! Decided to stay with Orange but have a new phone number – +44 (07870) 560.325, they have this cool add-on where you can call Orange mobiles and landlines unlimited all weekend. Sweet! Only fly in that ointment is really bad Orange reception at the converted barn where I’m staying.. Hmm. So having great fun standing on top of a table in the conservatory to make calls. Technology, eh.

Oh, and my cat Muffin has gotten super-fat since I left so she’s now on a rigourous exercise regime… no more lounging in front of the TV for her!

Khop khom khap

Big shout out to everyone in Thailand who’s made my last two months so much fun. Yep. About to get on that big ol’ plane thang again and head back home to Heathrow. Spent the last day shopping like a maniac and stressing about weight limits (20 kg! hmm…) but now all I have to do is sit in a large metal tube and be whisked home in comfort. Not quite as much fun as diving with manta rays though….

Ishamael – daniel quinn. A cautionary tale describing how human evolution is now dominated by a group of humans called the ‘takers”, who will end up destroying the world. The author, through the story of a captive ape called Ishmael, guides out understanding to what he believes is a better way – or at least a social evolutionary seperate branch – the ‘leavers’ who were the nomadic peoples oppressed since Cain (agrarian culture) destroyed his brother (the nomads) Abel. All good stuff with a good message – makes you think, but not too hard as its written in simple American esoteric-speak.

Starcrossed – a a gill. Random book picked up at a hostel. Surprisingly good beach read with a lot of wit and insight into celebrity life and some reasonable plots and characters going on (even if one of the main plots seems to disapear halfway through the book).

The truth is out there

Been a long time since I watched the X-Files, but for some reason that title popped in my head…

In Ko Lak now after a lush few days in Khao Suk National Park. Did a two day hike (which turned out to be very fortuitous) – swimming through tiger cave, avoiding leaches (well, some of us did), scooting across a beautiful lake in a long boat and watching monkies and gibbons swing about in the trees. Awesome. Highlight of it all was spending a night on the biggest water bed ever, a bambo hut floating on the lake – with the full moon streaming in the open door as I lay on the bed watching the reflections of the moon ripple on the water. Very romantic.

Ko Luk was a bit of culture shock after being in the wilds for a few days – a fluorescent strip mall holiday resort style pervades here with something like 20 odd dive shops (half of which are new this year). Had a fun local bus with chintz curtains on the way over though – only 80 baht! More wetness forecast for tonight as I head off for a four day liveaboard out to the Similian Islands, Ko Tachai and Richelieu rock. All cutting it a bit fine for getting back to Bangkok for shopping before getting on the plane on Monday back to England (argh! reality!) but a total bargain and well worth it. In fact to celebrate how cheap it was I went out and bought a new dive watch – toys…

A new kind of hero

Down on Ko Lanta at the moment enjoying relatively quiet gorgeous white beaches, blue seas and sky. The sea is being ridiculously flat at the moment which is lovely for swimming up and down when I’m not lazing around in my hammock. It’s a hard life in paradise, init.

It’s not all fun though, oh no. Yesterday I completed my Rescue Diver qualification, the last PADI qualification before you can start the Professional ones. Apart from a few days in a classroom this also involved a day out on the reef doing fake emergencies… Now, on a normal visit to the reef I generally come across ooh, about zero emergencies a day – perhaps one a week of diving! So to have to run about and ‘save’ six people in an afternoon is completely exhausting. By the end of it I was ready to push them under and say ‘don’t dive any more’! Good fun though and very exciting giving people rescue breaths as you drag them along the water while everyone stares at you like you’re mad.

Oh, and eventually we got to go on a fun dive out at Ko Ha, which was really stunning. Lots of bizarre little fish like harlequin shrimps – about 1 cm long and living on an anemone. Not quite as big as the leopard shark we saw the other day at Ko Daeng. Still hoping to see some whale sharks and manta rays… fingers crossed (no luck yet Vera!).

Angela’s ashes – frank mccourt. Great story of life growing up in New York and then Limerick. Not as accomplished as Joyce’s Dubliners classic stories but a great read nonetheless. Made me feel very selfish when compared to all the generosity in the poor classes.

Going Phi Phi Again

Now down on Ko Lanta, southernmost of the touristy islands on the Andaman coast of Thailand. Here because everyone said it was the nicest, most chilled out island they’d been to on their travels and much better than the highly package touristy Ko Phi Phi… Not 100% convinced of that at the moment as it seems pretty darn package touristy here as well, although without the (often fun) drunken antics of Phi Phi town and the infamouse Tiger bar.

Staying on Long Beach, a different one to Ko Phi Phi but with similar gorgeous sand and wonderful swimming. The whole beach is chocca with guest houses ranging from upmarket bungalows to badly built bambo huts (which is where I’ve been staying). There are benefits to ill fitting bambo mesh though, the light streams through at dawn in a most beautiful manner to wake you up and it normally lets the poisonous centipedes crawl straight back out again after they crawl in… well, most of the time. Same can’t be said for the evil little red ants although only myself to blame for dropping some nut crunch on the floor there.

Also finding the people on Ko Lanta a lot more pushy than elsewhere. Everyone really tries to sell you on their service with barely a pause for breath (all the bar owners ask ‘where are you staying’ as the second question after ‘what do you want to drink’, rapidly followed by a recommendation for their guest house). This is true of the farangs as well as the locals, and can be quite off-putting. Shame in such an island paradise and apparently ’twas not the case only a year ago when half the guest houses hadn’t been built. Progress…

Had a great dive today though off Ko Bida – saw an awesome leopard shark amongst other things and, more importantly, my ears didn’t fritz out on me – so more diving ahead. Huzah!

Hint of the day: When booking your ‘ferry ticket from Krabi to Ko Lanta’ make sure you’re booking the relaxing two hour, all sea based ferry ride as opposed to the two hour cramped minibus journey broken up with two 3 minute ferry crossings.. Not quite as enjoyable.

Keep on trekkin’

A week on and I’ve been to two more countries already… busy week. Not such a big deal as it was just a trip to the infamous ‘golden triangle’ in the north of Thailand where it joins both Burma and Laos. So an extremely quick, bouncey and fun boat ride across the Mekhong river put us on a small island that is official in Laos but you don’t stamp your passport. Then a bit later a quick walk across a bridge and 250 baht for a day pass gave me a Burmese stamp and another 30 days in Thailand to enjoy. Mae Sai, the border town, was very calm compared to Poi Pet with prices in the market that made Bangkok seem ridiculously overpriced due to cheap Chinese imports.

Most of this week was spent in Chiang Mai, home of more temples than you can point a stick at, all of which are still active and stunningly beautiful. Chiang Mai is also well known as the place where lots of old, fat white men go to ‘find’ young Thai wives which made for some interesting people watching. Didn’t spend too much time on that myself, instead opting for a three day hike up north of Pai.

This hike was important on my travels as I’ve been carrying round my waterproof and hiking boots for a month now and had never used them. I can now leave them in storage feeling like I wasn’t completely stupid to have bought them in the first place – huzah! The boots certainly made the hiking a lot easier, some folk were trying it in flip flops… hmm. The Thai countryside is stunning and reminded me a lot of photos of China I’d seen. We stayed in bambo huts with floors that I constantly felt I’d fall through but never did (unlike when I got on the bambo raft). Also got to ride an elephant and pole bambo rafts down a river with some mini-rapids which was great fun and gave me flashbacks to PGL.

Now back in Bangkok again, on my way down south to Ko Lanta for some more diving and beach dwelling. Another overnight bus journey beckons which hopefully won’t be anywhere near as cramped and unnerving as the one that bought me here last night – every time we stopped the driver pulled out an arc welder and started to weld the gear shift rod back together…

Blast from the past – ben elton. Another quick and fairly satisfying read from Mr Elton. The main plot involves a beautiful, ex-hippy woman, her stalker and the only love of her life. Simple really, but with much more character development than is normal from the author, which makes it one of my favourite books of his. The one gripe is that sometimes it reads like the concept for a play rather than a book.