First time for everything…

I realized that on this trip I have experienced my first for quite a few things. My first Full Moon party, first time scuba diving, first time drinking a bucket of alcohol (maybe not that one), and probably most important, my first time travelling alone. I fulfilled my Advanced diving course and can now dive anywhere in the world! One of the dives was called a navigation dive and we actually had to figure out where the hell we were via our compasses. Throw in a bunch of aggressive trigger fish and it was damn easy to get lost. The last dive we did was the night dive which was probably the one I was most nervous about. All we had was our little torch and if we let it go its negative buoyancy would force it to the top of the ocean, leaving poor little Adam (or insert other victim) without a means of seeing or communicating 100 feet underwater. The best part about the night dive (besides the fact that I managed not to drop my torch) was about halfway through our group stopped and we all sank to the ocean bottom, turned off our flashlights, and danced. Of course we could not see ourselves dancing, but what we could see were all the particles around us that started to glow because of our motion. Just a sea of phosphorescent particles lighting up the bottom of the ocean…made me feel like I was on drugs.

So I received my Advanced certification wooo! I was also lucky enough to meet a great group of people that I ended up travelling with for the next week. There were 7 of us in total: Will, Nick, Tom, and Steve (from England), Lisa (from Germany), and Carly (from Canada) and we all developed quite a connection. When you travel, relationships are put into hyperdrive and even though you may only know people for a couple of days or weeks you feel as if you have known them forever. 

One of the more memorable (if not absolutely terrible) moments of the trip was the night boat to go from Koh Tao to Surat Thani. Now I have heard quite a bit about night boats in Thailand and how awful they are, but literally nothing could have prepared me for what the next 8 hours were going to be like once I stepped on that boat. It looked like I was boarding a refugee boat fleeing a war-torn country. Like I was a pilgrim travelling to the New World on a scurvy infested vessel. A prisoner being transported to Guantonomo. It was insane. Beds lined the floor as far as the eye could see. Now I say beds, but that is quite a generous word, they were more like padded sheets. They looked like they had been dropped down an oil well and they smelled like urine. The bathrooms were mere holes in the ground and people had to pretty much step on you to get to them. The worst part about this all was that our group was sitting on the engine…I repeat, ON THE ENGINE. I never realized how loud a boat engine was until I was ON ONE. The volume was so deafening that I actually could not hear my iPod no matter how loud I turned it up. Throw in my sleeping problems that require complete darkness and silence and I managed to toss and turn and moan for 8 hours to the rocking, blasting boat. Also keep in mind that I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep the night before because I woke up at 630 in the morning to watch the Super Bowl (with 2 Englishmen in tow).

It was all worth it once we got to Railay Beach. The funny part about our arrival was that after about 11 and a half hours of travelling, no sleep, no food, and so on we got dropped off my a longtail boat on a pile of rocks. After finding bungalows in the middle of the jungle, we decided to go kayaking. Eveywhere in Railay reminds me of that song from the movie The Beach, “Porcelain” by Moby. I know it may sound weird but it’s so true. Giant limestone rocks cutting through the surface of the ocean. Turquoise water. Sandy, beautiful beaches. Slightly creepy, but still awesome caves (which we kayaked through).

After a night “relaxing” in the Rasta bar in Railay, we woke up to do some rock climbing: another first. After learning how to tie my rope, Nan, our Thai rock climbing teacher, called me over the cliffs. Expecting to receive some sort of explanation on how to begin climbing the rock, I was met with a highly accented “You climb.” Shit. So I did. It feels so weird at first. As if you are going to die if you lose your grip. After a while I began getting the hang of it. Find a little hole or ledge to grab onto, even if it is just a few fingers, and most importantly find higher ground to place your feet and just keep pushing up. I got so into it that when I finally did look down it freaked me out quite a bit how high I was. Of course I lost my concentration and could not find anywhere to continue going up. I yelled down to Nan, “I want to go down.” Nan’s simple reply, “No!” So I held on for dear life for what felt like an hour (it was really only about 3 minutes) until I gained the courage to keep going and made it to the top! WOO! I managed to do one more climb and than my arms and upper body gave out and I had to stop. I told Nan about how my weak upper body strength kept me from climbing more and his retort, “Not weak strength…weak heart.” Alright, Nan. Take it easy.

The next island we went to was Koh Phi Phi which is where they filmed The Beach. All 7 of us hung out on the beach and experienced the intense nightlife which took me by surprise. There was this one bar that gave you a free bucket and t-shirt if you got into the boxing ring and fought someone. One of the guys I am travelling with, Tom, did it, won, and got a free bucket and t-shirt! I also managed to teach a whole group of people Fuck the Dealer which was pretty awesome. The last night in Phi Phi, Nick, Will, and I climbed up to the viewpoint and were able to see the whole island under the sunset. It looked absolutely unreal. You could look out onto the ocean for miles at all the rising rocks skimming the smooth orange surface.  They also had pictures of what Phi Phi looked like after the tsunami of 2004 which was pretty sad.

Another sad note is that our group of 7 split up as Will and I went off to Khao Sok to get away from the beaches for a bit, while the rest of them went off to Koh Lanta. We ended up meeting 2 Canadian guys who we hung out with since we have been here. Khao Sok looks like Jurassic Park. I would not be surprised at all if a dinosaur walked by (ok, maybe a little) and any minute now I expect to see that old Colonel Sanders looking guy to walk by with his mosquito cane.  Yesterday we went for a hike which ended up being about 6 miles to some awesome waterfall. Now we are getting ready to take a night train towards Bangkok to go to a town called Kannachaburi. Let’s hope this night train isn’t anything like the night boat…

Until next time!