Wednesday, August 29th
Wednesday was our last day out on the islands before we had to start making our way back to Bangkok. I got up super early on Wednesday morning to get two more dives in. Here's the parking lot rendezvous spot! tags:songthaew
Made it onto the diving boat around 7:30am... tags:boatdiving boat
Chumphon Pinnacle - which is one of the highest rated dive sites in all of Souteast Asia! And then a second dive later in the morning at White rock. tags:whiteboard
Dive #7: Chumphon Pinnacle
I had high expectations for Chumphon Pinnacle, and the site did not disappoint! The site gets its name from a huge mountain that rises up out of the depths. The mountain's "peak" starts about 15m (~45" feet) below the surface and continues down to 40m (~120" feet) and the mountain sits right on the edge of a continental shelf that drops off thousands of feet! tags:scuba
Beyond having an underwater mountain, the dive site is most famous for its water visibility - you can see up to 60 meters in the water there! - and for its teeming underwater life. According to one dive site I was reading:
You can find bull sharks, groupers, remoras, grey reef sharks, leopard sharks and other large fish in the deeper areas. Gamefish such as sailfish, swordfish and cobias are regularly spotted as well. The shallower areas of the pinnacle is covered in purple, pink and red anemones. Clownfish, schools of bannerfish, yellow box fish and surgeonfish will greet you when you are doing your safety stop at eight meters deep.
I followed this fish all along the shallow reefs as I made my descent towards the pinnacle... tags:scuba
...and like I said before, the pinnacle did not disappoint. Here's a picture of me following one of the divemasters in a descending spiral around the mountain. Check out how many fishes there are! And if you look into the background you can see thousands more! tags:diverscuba
This is one of my favorite photos - we're down about 45m (~150" feet) and the two divers are floating above the dropoff of the continental shelf and staring down into what looks like an endless blue abyss. Every time I swim over an edge and look down into the deep, I get vertigo for a couple of seconds. One of the craziest feelings in the world. Scuba diving moments like this are the closest you can come to feeling like you're in space without leaving the planet.
After our max depth, we slowly started making our ascent back up around the mountain. I was feeling peaceful and relaxed, slowly swimming next to the reef admiring all the colors and fishes and then when I looked down, I saw my first "real" shark. And by "real" I mean a shark that looks just like a shark that you see on a National Geographic special that's big enough to harm you in the unlikely event it decided to bite you. Trying to calm my shaking hands, I descended to get a little closer and busted out my camera to try to get a movie! tags:bestdiverscuba
No matter how many times you tell your rational brain that a shark doesn't really pose all that much of a risk, there's no stopping your limbic system from reacting. I'm surprised you can't hear the sound of my heart pounding against my ribcage in this video. The shark is a gray reef shark. And he was probably about 5' or 6' feet long. tags:bestgray reef sharkkoh taoscubasharkvideo
Right after my shark experience, I reunited with another group of divers we were with and we came across a school of batfish! tags:batfishdiverscuba
I love this photo because it give you an idea of how amazing the visibility was that day. If you look above the batfish's head, you'll see a bunch of divers waaaay in the distance floating upright. Those are divers doing safety stops around 30m (~90" feet) above me! And you can still totally see them clearly. Incredible. tags:scuba. batfish
Here's me with my diving buddy. He's signaling that he's got to remain at 5m for two more minutes before his safety stop is over. tags:diverscuba
Dive #8: White Rock
For our second dive, we went to White Rock, which is a much shallower reef that's closer to Koh Tao. The visibility wasn't anywhere near as clear as Chumphon Pinnacle, but it was still pretty great. On my way down, I swam by the same exact fish I saw on my first dive! tags:scuba
A couple minutes later, while swimming over a sleepy reef, we ran into this guy! A beautiful green turtle! He popped up over the edge of the reef... tags:bestgreen turtlescubaturtle
...swam REALLY close to us to check us out. And after he made a few laps, he took off. tags:bestgreen turtlescubaturtle
I spent my safety stop swimming around on top of a shallow reef. Found another pink skunk clownfish hanging out in an anemone! As I swam around, in the distance I spotted... tags:anemonepink skunk clownfishscuba
...another very large Titan triggerfish! This is what they look like when they're not about to attack. See his top dorsal fin in the back? That's always up in the air like that, but when they're hostile, they have another little fin that appears in front of that fin that pops up! And when you see that, you better get away lest you want to part with a quarter-sized chunk of flesh! tags:scubatitan triggerfishtriggerfish
I got back from my trip around 1pm and met up with Meredith. We walked down the road and go some lunch at a sleepy Thai restaurant. tags:meredithfood
On the walk home, we saw this raft and wanted to buy it just for the awesome packaging. At first glance, you think to yourself "Why is this guy partying so hard? It seems like he's just floating on a run-of-the-mill inflatable pool raft. Then, after a minute or two, you realize that the man isn't just floating on any inflatable pool toy! Oh, no! He's floating on FAIRYLAND ON THE WATER, and then his euphoric state suddenly makes total sense. tags:boxpackaging
We got back to the dive center around 2pm and brought all of our stuff down to the lobby to check out. tags:meredithasia divers
Last view of the Asia Divers resort. Pretty amazing, right? tags:asia divers
Then we hopped in the back of a songthaew (a pickup truck with bench seats in the back) and headed to the port to catch the high speed fairy that goes from Ko Tao to Chumphon (on the mainland). tags:songthaew
Twenty minutes into the ferry ride, and Meredith was totally sleeping. (I don't know how in the world she can fall asleep in the pretzelly shapes she does - but it never fails to amaze me) tags:meredithasleep
It rained most of the ferry ride, but as we neared the Chumphon Ferry terminal, the rain stopped... tags:boatcloudsflag
Another shot of the cool rickety boats. The place totally looked like a shipyard from the movie-version of Popeye starring Robin Williams and Shelly Long. (Does anybody else remember that movie? It used to be on HBO ALL THE TIME when I was little. I think I watched it pretty much every single afternoon I stayed home sick). tags:boat
After we got off the ferry, we had couple of hours to kill... tags:mecrossword
...and then we went to the Chumphon train station to catch an overnight sleeper train to Bangkok! tags:mesigntrain station
I started a new book that I'd bought at one of the rest stops on the way to the train station. tags:book
As soon as we got on the train, we converted the seats in our train car into bunk beds! tags:meredithbunk bedtrain
Meredith thought she was the cat's meow for calling "top bunk!" But then the next morning... tags:metrain
Thursday, August 30th
...when we converted the bunk beds back into a seat, Meredith remarked that the top bunk "reeked like pee." tags:train
I flipped over the cushion that had been her mattress and...BLAMO...giant piss stain! Mystery solved! tags:peetrain
Eight hours into the train ride and we still had about 90 minutes to go. So I started another book. (Fuck yeah, trade fiction! Nelson DeMille in the house!) tags:book
As we got closer to Bangkok, more and more little towns started appearing next to the railroad tracks.
We wasted no time grabbing a tuktuk and heading back to Khao San Road to get a cheap hotel! tags:tuktuk
After checking in and catching a quick nap, we headed over to Mai Kaidee's for some lunch. Here's the bananas and black rice covered in coconut milk that we got for dessert! Yum! tags:mai kaideemeredithfoodthai food
Later that night, we got dressed up all nice (well, Meredith did at least)... tags:meredithpretty
...and met up with a girl we'd met earlier in the afternoon that was traveling alone. We hailed a tuk tuk and headed to... tags:memeredithstrangerstuktuk
...the Asia Hotel's world famous Ladyboy Caberet Show! tags:caberetladyboy
I won't post too many pics, because I posted a whole bunch from when I went to see the show back in 2005 when I was traveling through Thailand by myself. tags:caberetladyboy
Meredith and our friend (sorry, forgot your name) posing with the gorgeous ladyboys! tags:meredithladyboy
Me with one of the main performers. tags:meladyboy
Durians are so stinky that a lot of hotel's that cater to foreigners forbid them from the premises! tags:duriansign
Friday, August 31st
Friday was our last day in Thailand! We packed up our bags, checked them into our hotel's storage closet, and set out to do some sightseeing before catching our plane home later that night! tags:meredithbedhotel
We started out at the huge Siam Paragon Mall looking for deals, but it was a really fancy mall that catered to foreigners and the prices weren't much cheaper than the US! So ten minutes later we decided to... tags:mallsiam paragon
After going through all the underwater tank sections, we spent a ton of time watching the coypu (more commonly known as nutria in the US) play. Their cuteness helped my crab-induced heebie-jeebies go away. tags:aquariumnutriasiam paragon
Later that night we went back to the hotel with plans to take a late night swim before heading to the airport, but the pool had been drained for repairs! Booo! tags:pool
For dinner, we went to an Italian place to prepare our taste buds for home. tags:meredithfooditalian food
Here's what Meredith's hair looked like after she took it down after almost 20 hours of airplane time. tags:meredithairplanemessy hair
Here's my greasy-ass hair. (And if you look closely, you'll see the beginnings of my mustache coming in that makes it look like I need someone to clean my top lip with a hot washcloth). tags:meairplanemessy hair
Twenty six hours after we boarded a plane in Bangkok, we found ourselves in cab leaving JFK. tags:airportclouds
After spending a month between the Dubai desert and the tropics of Thailand, coniferous trees looked strange. It's always surprising how little time away it takes to make the familiar seem foreign. tags:cloudstrees
The view of our neighborhood (the Lower East Side and the East Village) while crossing over the Williamsburg Bridge. Almost home! tags:drivingnycskylinetaxi
We dropped off our bags and immediately went uptown to Mandy's apartment to pick up our two rat ladies that she was nice enough to take care of in our absence. (Thanks again, Mandy!) tags:meredithratstaxi
Then after that, we headed back to our apartment to get settled back in! 35 days and 900 photos later, it was great to be back in our good ol' New York City apartment. Home sweet home, indeed! tags:239 e 7th
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