Catching-up, as the diving begins

It's been a busy time: and this post begins busily with lots of links to little blog entries about it - most with photos now. Use the back button to return to this entry if you click a link.

After our Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai trips, Diane left us to head off into Laos (jealous, us?) to buy even more lovely things for the shop, and we flew back to Bangkok to meet Jo, my mum, who arrived the day before my birthday. It was great to see her, and holidaying with her gave us a chance to tour around more of Bangkok, including the Grand Palace, and to go and be tourists on the beautiful, if somewhat boring, Ko Tao. Here we snorkelled (again, for three of us) - this time losing our breakfasts rather than skipping them - and it was very, very beautiful. But no underwater camera, so no pictures ...

Meanwhile, lots of people have been helping H and me, via email, with our application to job-share being Visionaries for a Just and Peaceful World for five years from this summer - which would be pretty great timing. Thanks to all who commented - small sub-edits, queries about key concepts, and general encouragement and enthusiasm were all invaluable - the application is now sent off (glad to see the back of it!) and our fingers are crossed. Particular thanks to mum, who took the girls off our hands so that we could work on it, as well as couriering our signatures home, printing and posting the final thing and commenting usefully too.

We saw mum off from Ko Samui - crowded, big, expensive. Bo Phut was pretty though, and is near the only disc golf course in SE Asia - I was gutted not to have time or money to play ...

While the journey to Samui was nauseating, the ferry to Surat Thani on the mainland was much smoother, so we changed our plan to stay over in Surat and looked for a bus leaving to Phuket - but we'd missed the last one. There was a bus to Krabi going in ten minutes, though, if we were interested ...? So here, perhaps, we became true travellers, jumping on the first bus to wherever was available, changing plans at the drop of a hat, pausing only to pee and buy pineapples.

"Krabi: lively town, lovely people," says the slogan, and the second is true, but Tsunami Fear has emptied the place of tourists this year - which means it's quite and hugely cheap. We've come to the Andaman coast to claim my reward to myself for wrestling with the job application - a four-day open water PADI scuba diving course. This turns out to have been a dumb move - the courses are still lots cheaper on Ko Tao, tsunami or no tsunami.

I liked Krabi - it's not really a tourist town (though it has its tourist streets), more of a supply town for a large rural population. We saw children on their way out of school being catered for by eight or ten food stalls, selling sweet pancakes with sausages in them, tiny portions of chicken and chips, squash drinks and so on. But Ao Nang, half an hour's drive away, got a higher rating from the non-dive students (now just Heather and Mo, as Rosa is going for it too), who after all have to hang about in it much more, so we're here. Our huge air-conditioned rooms with hot shower, TV and fridge cost less than our cold water, fan rooms in Ko Tao - last night we even rented a DVD player to check out some of the many available pirate DVDs.

If you're looking for a spring holiday, the Andaman coast is definitely open for business. Most tourist places were clean (and free of bodies) within a week of the big wave, many within a day or two - only Ko Phi Phi and Khao Lak are still a bit of a mess, and there are posters asking for volunteers on Phi Phi, so we may check that out. There are low season numbers of tourists, with high season weather and facilities, and a mixture of high season and real bargain prices - I would guess that there are still cheap packages here to be bought from the UK, too. It's very first world stylee just here in Ao Nang - smooth clean new pavements and roads, MacDonalds, no rubbish, lots of Italian food, no shack dwellings, no loose animals, no beggars - but there are lots of other options up and down the coast.

We started our dive course yesterday: three hours of video to watch, going over the three chapters in the book we've already read, and then quizzes and chatting about all the same stuff. Today should be less boring - only two hours of video this morning, and then five hour-long pool sessions this afternoon, putting it all into practice. We'll let you know how it goes ...

- Mark

Diving course begins!

Today we have been and booked Mark and Rosa onto a four day diving course - this qualifies them to dive after we leave Thailand too - but will they ever be able to afford it?! Me, Rosa and Melissa decided that we didn't want to dive - me and Rosa because of the sea sickness issue and Melissa because she is scared. Mark has wanted to do it though and we thought it would be a nice reward for him for finishing the job application that we have just done (hooray it's finished!!!).

We trecked off to Ao Nang - the nearest beach resort to Krabi town - to look for a cheap diving course and some nice accomodation for us to stay in whilst Mark did it. Well cheap dive courses there were not - apparantly the cheapest and best place to learn to dive is on Ko Tao, where we've just come from! - but we did find a place that gave very nice free accomodation with the price of the dive and at the last minute Rosa decided to go for it and so she and Mark start tomorrow. They have their little books to study and tomorrow is just theory but then they will practise in a swimming pool and then two days of diving in the sea. Meanwhile Melissa and me will live in the lap of luxury with air con, TV, fridge, lovely beach and more shops than fleas on a dog! - oh yes and the highlight for her - a Macdonalds just up the road - well we haven't been in one for at least three months so maybe we'll have to try it.

On the subject of food (one of my favorite subjects in case you hadn't noticed) we ate in a really nice Indian resterant tonight - Thai foood is good but it's nice to have a change now and again - nice guy from Bangalore and really good food - much nicer than the one in Bangkok - yum!!!

It is high season here but very quiet as a result of the tsunami - people are struggling to make a living, doesn't seem to be resulting in cheaper prices though - sadly for us - but at least it's not packed out - which is very nice for us - but not for them!

We hear it's snowing in England - enjoy it, the temperature here was 32 degrees today and that's well hot!- Heather

Hi from Krabi

Hi all,

Thailand's great - I haven't blogged or emailed so much as I might recently because Heather and me have been working on a job application (believe it or not!) for when we get back, and my mum's been with us for a week and a bit, so I've been spending lots of time catching up with her. We've been North, now South - we were over in the Gulf of Thailand, and now we've just arrived on the Andaman Coast (quiet, because the tourists all think its a disaster scene, but actually all cleared up and very much open for business in many places - being here we get cheap prices for things, and we're helping them get back on their feet too by spending our cash here).

We'll be here for four days to a week while I do a diving course (I tried to get the others interested, but they're all happier snorkelling apparently), then back up to the cheap and cool north until the end of March, when we're heading to Australia for ten days, then New Zealand for ten days, California for a week, Mexico for six weeks, Cuba for a fortnight, Jamaica for a fortnight and then home! Can't believe we're so far through already. Off to bed now - we left Ko Samui at 1:30 this afternoon and got to Krabi at 9pm will blog more again v soon.

- Mark

Goodbye Jo!

Today Jo has left and we all should be leaving with her to go to Ko Samui to see her off, but Rosa is sick so her and me have stayed behind and Mark and Melissa have gone.

It's been really lovely having Jo with us and of course it wasn't long enough (I said that all along!). We had a lovely and horrible day yesterday - we went on a snorkelling day and had some great times snorkelling around the island, seeing incredible fish and coral and getting more tanned (and red) than we have to date. Horrible because me, Rosa and Mark were all extremely sea sick at times and Rosa got very sick when we got back - also we all acquired some painful coral cuts, very small but sore and prone to infection.

It was a shame that Jo's last night with us was a low key affair as me and Mark took turns to sit with Rosa and we couldn't venture away from our hotel. It was great to have another friendly person around and we had some very good times together and also good to have someone else around to talk about our 'job application' with. We've almost finished it now and are looking forward to signing it off in the next week so that we can get back to wholeheartedly relaxing! Mark, Jo and Melissa took some fantastic photos and they will go up in due course.

Jo says that snow is predicted in the UK on Tuesday - enjoy it! We're enjoying tropical sunshine and finally getting a little tanned!- Heather

Ko Tao photos

On Ko Tao we stayed in clean, new rooms near a pretty beach:

Jo caught a plane back to Bangkok from Ko Samui - which wasn't our favourite place, but had it's compensations:

Jo joins the trippers

It is amazing - amazing to be with the family and amazing to be in Thailand. The family are great - well and very together, brilliant at planning and moving forwards, enjoying their experiences around the world, talking with the extra dimensions of people who have a wider world view, thinking creatively about the future. The girls are poised and relaxed, very good at relating to people and making conversation. (Except when engrossed in a book - they have both gobbled up new books I brought with me) It is a delight to be with them all.

As for Thailand, I am not well-travelled and I am finding it all astonishing and wonderful. The journey to Bangkok was effortless and I didn't have any problem with jet-lag - partly because I was so thrilled to see the folks, but it really didn't seem an issue for me. I loved Bangkok, smelly, noisy, busy, with street stalls everywhere preparing and selling food and garlands of flowers, markets day and night with anything you could desire and outlets for many desires you haven't thought of yet. We saw a puppet theatre on Mark's birthday after a fabulous meal, did too much shopping (irresistible), saw the Grand Palace and the temple of the Emerald Buddha (made of jade with 3 changes of clothes which are changed by the king for the rainy, hot and cool seasons), had a great Indian meal and sat 5 in a row having a foot massage (divine, lasted 50 minutes and included the leg and back).

After an epic journey - 9 hours on a train, lots of waiting, then a short bus journey and 3 hours on a boat - we are on the island of Ko Tao in a resort that is very lovely and very quiet because all the young folk are off celebrating a moon party, which goes on for days up until the full moon. The sea is shallow in our bay, and really warm, great for lolling in but your knees touch the bottom if you try to swim. More exploration needed. 'Our' cafe looks onto the beach and we can watch the light at sun set lolling on cushions and sipping delicious drinks. The Burmese waiter, missing his home, has adopted us as his family and calls me 'my mother'. It's all heavenly and I am mellowing out wonderfully

- Jo

Two Weeks in Thailand

We have now been in Thailand for just over two weeks and we have done so much it seems like we've been here for ages. First my sister Diane and her son Seamus joined us in Bangkok and we travelled with them - and Seamus's friend Xander - upto the north - Chang Rai and Chang Mai - we had a great time with them and were sad when it was time to say goodbye (there's more about that time on the blog). We travelled back down to Bangkok to meet Mark's mum Jo who has joined us for about 10 days. We stayed at the Atlanta - Sex tourists not welcome - hotel again and met up with another friend - Ahmed, for a meal. So we have been very sociable recently and its been great to see our family.

We have now travelled down to a lovely island - Ko Tao - a divers paradise, clear seas and lots of tropical fish. We plan to go snorkelling and Mark wants to do a four day diving course, he also wants us to want to do it with him, but we don't!

We travelled down on a night train from Bangkok and arrived at the station we had to get off at at 4am. There we sat for 2 hours with about 60 other Europeans waiting for our bus to take us to the boat to bring us to the island. At that point I looked around and found that we were about the only people either over 30 or under 18 in sight and got very nervous that we were heading straight for 18-30 hell! We spent the two hours desperately scanning the guide book for other destinations that could be easily reached from where we were. Luckily we opted to come anyway and it has turned out to be lovely, warm sea, beautiful tropical island and actually not too crowded and noisy at all. We've got great rooms, friendly place to stay, delicious food to eat, fast internet connection PLUS yoga classes next door - what more could we ask for?

We sat down on floor cushions, watching the sun set over the sea, trying to decide what to order from the amazing array on offer and who should walk by but Seamus and Xander who have also arrived today!

Thailand hasn't replaced India in my heart but the food is sure good (I daren't say better but certainly a lot quicker to prepare and so much fresh fresh vegatables - yum...). I'm intrigued by the country and want to get to know more about it, how the buddism and the politics interact (plenty of military coups in the near past). We are also meeting a lot of Burmese - most of the staff here seem to be Burmese and I heard that a lot of Burmese (mostly illegal immigrants, working in the resorts) were killed by the tsunami, but not recorded, also that the Thai government were very harsh about letting those Burmese relatives of potential victims try to find out whether their loved ones were alive or not.

Lots to find out, lots to enjoy, lots to think about.- Heather

Street Food

Back in the Atlanta

For our few days in Bangkok with Jo, we'd booked back in to the Atlanta, where we enjoyed the pool and the food (as before) and met the resident terrapins, as well as a Foreign Office friend who'd been helping organise things at the British Consulate, post-Tsunami. Jo caught me and Rosa packing (apparently we two always pack last) just before we left for Ko Tao.

- Mark

The Grand Palace

Skyway and river boat (with a seasick Rosa) took us to the King's Grand Palace, much of which is open to the public - including the Wat of the Emerald Buddha, where we spent most of our visit.

The big demoness above was one detail among many of the enormously long wall paintings in the 'cloisters' of the Wat - my favourite part of the Palace.

After-Dinner Massage

The sky-lands of Hotland

From above Bangkok the views are spectacular:

This is how we didn't get to see the city from up so high:

- and this is how we did: