i keep a diary

thailand part nine: koh tao to bangkok to nyc

august 29, 2007


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:boat diving boat


...and we set out for our first diving site!   tags:boat diving boat flag


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.
   tags:scuba


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:diver scuba


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:best diver scuba


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:best gray reef shark koh tao scuba shark video


Right after my shark experience, I reunited with another group of divers we were with and we came across a school of batfish!   tags:batfish diver scuba


Soooo cool!    tags:batfish diver scuba


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


See you later, batfishes!   tags:batfish scuba


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:diver scuba


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:best green turtle scuba turtle


...swam REALLY close to us to check us out. And after he made a few laps, he took off.   tags:best green turtle scuba turtle


Here's a vid I shot of him swimming off into the blue. Goodbye, Mr. Turtle!   tags:green turtle scuba turtle video


This guy again!   tags:scuba


Not sure what kind these guys are!   tags:scuba


Butterflyfish!   tags:butterflyfish scuba


A free-swimming clownfish! It's rare to see these guys out of the anemones that they usually hide out in.   tags:clownfish scuba


Pretty coral.   tags:coral scuba


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:anemone pink skunk clownfish scuba


...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:scuba titan triggerfish triggerfish

meredith silverman
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:meredith food


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:box packaging

meredith silverman
We got back to the dive center around 2pm and brought all of our stuff down to the lobby to check out.    tags:meredith asia 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

meredith silverman
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:meredith asleep


It rained most of the ferry ride, but as we neared the Chumphon Ferry terminal, the rain stopped...   tags:boat clouds flag


...and there was a huge rainbow!   tags:rainbow


The waterway on the way to the ferry terminal was filled with all sorts of really cool, wooden, hand-painted fishing boats.    tags:boat rainbow


See?   tags:boat rainbow


Gratuitous use of repetition with a rainbow!   tags:best boat rainbow


Rainbow!   tags:boat rainbow


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

brian battjer
After we got off the ferry, we had couple of hours to kill...   tags:me crossword

brian battjer
...and then we went to the Chumphon train station to catch an overnight sleeper train to Bangkok!   tags:me sign train station

meredith silverman
Waiting for the 12:30am train!   tags:meredith smoke train 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

meredith silverman
As soon as we got on the train, we converted the seats in our train car into bunk beds!    tags:meredith bunk bed train

brian battjer
Meredith thought she was the cat's meow for calling "top bunk!" But then the next morning...   tags:me train


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:pee train


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.


The logo of the Thai Railroad.   tags:train station


We got into Bangkok a little after 9am.   tags:train station


Tracks 3 & 4.   tags:train station


We wasted no time grabbing a tuktuk and heading back to Khao San Road to get a cheap hotel!   tags:tuktuk

, meredith silverman
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 kaidee meredith food thai food


After lunch, more reading and relaxing!   tags:book

meredith silverman
Later that night, we got dressed up all nice (well, Meredith did at least)...   tags:meredith pretty

brian battjer, meredith silverman
...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:me meredith strangers tuktuk


...the Asia Hotel's world famous Ladyboy Caberet Show!   tags:caberet ladyboy


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:caberet ladyboy

meredith silverman
Meredith and our friend (sorry, forgot your name) posing with the gorgeous ladyboys!   tags:meredith ladyboy

brian battjer
Me with one of the main performers.   tags:me ladyboy


Durians are so stinky that a lot of hotel's that cater to foreigners forbid them from the premises!   tags:durian sign


Friday, August 31st
meredith silverman
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:meredith bed hotel


We decided to take trains downtown!   tags:bangkok


Waiting on the platform.   tags:train station


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:mall siam paragon


...check out the huge aquarium that's in the mall! Spider Crab! Ew, I can't believe most people that hate the fact that some people eat insects think it's totally ok to eat this freaking thing. Ew! Ew! Ew! It's basically a giant spider that lives underwater (and in my nightmares). Talk about cognitive dissonance! Blech!   tags:aquarium crab siam 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:aquarium nutria siam paragon

meredith silverman
Nom nom nom!   tags:meredith aquarium shark jaws siam 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

meredith silverman
For dinner, we went to an Italian place to prepare our taste buds for home.   tags:meredith food italian food

brian battjer
We got to the airport around 10:30pm.   tags:me flag

meredith silverman
Our first flight was from Bangkok...   tags:meredith airplane


...back to Dubai!   tags:airplane map tv


We got to deplane...   tags:airplane airport


...but we only had an hour or so before our next flight. So we wandered around the huge Dubai airport.   tags:airport

brian battjer, meredith silverman
Flight number two! Dubai to JFK.   tags:me meredith airplane us


Loooong ass flight. Lots of books.   tags:book


Airplane dinner!    tags:airline food airplane food

meredith silverman
Here's what Meredith's hair looked like after she took it down after almost 20 hours of airplane time.   tags:meredith airplane messy hair

brian battjer
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:me airplane messy hair


Still more time to go! One more book.   tags:book


Twenty six hours after we boarded a plane in Bangkok, we found ourselves in cab leaving JFK.    tags:airport clouds


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:clouds trees


Beautiful end-of-summer NYC weather!   tags:clouds driving highway

meredith silverman
Happy to be home!   tags:meredith sunglasses taxi

brian battjer
Happy to be home!   tags:me sunglasses taxi


Home!   tags:best clouds driving nyc skyline


The view of our neighborhood (the Lower East Side and the East Village) while crossing over the Williamsburg Bridge. Almost home!   tags:driving nyc skyline taxi

meredith silverman
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:meredith rats taxi


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

4 people tagged in this entry
mai kaidee me meredith scuba. batfish

71 other tags in this entry
239 e 7th airline food airplane airport anemone aquarium asia divers asleep bangkok batfish bed best boat book box bunk bed butterflyfish caberet clouds clownfish coral crab crossword diver diving boat driving durian flag food gray reef shark green turtle highway hotel italian food koh tao ladyboy mall map messy hair nutria nyc packaging pee pink skunk clownfish pool pretty rainbow rats scuba shark shark jaws siam paragon sign skyline smoke songthaew strangers sunglasses taxi thai food titan triggerfish train train station trees triggerfish tuktuk turtle tv us video whiteboard

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