Day 93- I Need To Work On My Disguise Skills.

With Colleen out on her final diving expedition, I was left yet again on my own to try and entertain myself.  Shockingly, I actually managed to get up before 9:30am, which for me with no real commitments is a minor miracle.  After attacking the breakfast buffet solo, I decided the punishing walk I had subjected myself to the previous day was not torturous enough and I thus ventured out on another solo hike.  This time I opted to head north instead of south and made my way up to the Nang Yuan lookout.  All-in-all it was an  hour and a half round trip, and like my previous trip it was full of perspiration and panting galore.  It was a solid reminder of why all the smart people were driving mopeds, and only IDIOTS(!) like myself would dare to walk such hilly routes in these extreme temperatures. 

Around lunch time I headed up to the Roctopus headquarters to round up my amphibious girlfriend.  This turned in to me sitting around for over an hour waiting for her as their dive boat was having technical difficulties.  When she finally did show up, we celebrated the fact that she had not drowned by having one last lunch at the adjoining restaurant, Mint Kitchen.  While I'm sure Colleen was going to miss the diving when we departed Koh Tao the next day, I was going to miss the deep fried chicken with cashew nut that they served there.  I'm not a huge Thai food fan, but this shit was Deadly.  And yes, that is deadly with a capital "D". 



The end of diving...and underwater selfies.



 

That afternoon we met up with Colleen's friend Ashley from Kamloops and her boyfriend Joel.  Since Colleen and I are both gluttons we decided to go out for a second lunch with them complimented by some adult beverages.  By this point in the day I was already starting to reach my "outdoor quota" and after our second lunch we retreated back to the hotel to enjoy the splendors of air conditioning before our final night on this beautiful island.

Once we gathered ourselves and decided we had abused our air conditioning enough, Colleen and I sauntered down to Chopper's for the last time.  It was a safe assumption that it was going to win the award on our vacation for the "most visited bar".  It would probably win in a landslide come to think of it.  After meeting up with our old buddy Prat, and Ashley and Joel, it was time to take advantage of the two-for-one beers and two-for-one daiquiris.  My father always told me that half price beers taste twice as good; and I can't say I can argue with him on this point.  Shortly thereafter we said our teary goodbyes to Prat and headed out into the night with Ashley and Joel.

Before we checked out the nightlife, I got Ashley to take us by their accommodations to show Colleen the kind of places I had thought we would be staying when we first landed in Bangkok a couple of months ago.  For 300 baht a night ($10 Canadian) they had a private room.  Mind you, they had a shared bathroom, no A/C, a mattress on the floor, no TV and probably an assortment of creepy crawlers; but hey it was 1/10th the price of what we were paying!  Needless to say the words "budget accommodations" are not a part of Colleen's vocabulary. 

After our sightseeing of how "real backpackers" travel, the four of us decided to do a tour of some of the local beach bars.  A couple of the places were offering promotions like "ladies night" and "one free drink".  Wisely, Colleen and Ashley were able to exploit one of the bars' "one free drink ticket per customer" policy by reentering the bar a second time with disguises on.  And by disguises I mean they slightly altered their hairstyles.  But hey, whatever works.  Not surprisingly, this same strategy did not bode so well for Joel and I, and alas the men were made to pay for their drinks.

 On our way back to our hotel we stopped and had what would probably be our last "street pancakes" of our vacation and some pad Thai.  On an unrelated note: we also saw a dude almost get run over by a moped.  While we were walking home, a heavily intoxicated guy on a scooter hit the guy walking in front of us on the footpath and proceeded to just keep driving.  I'm not sure what the drinking and driving mopeds on pedestrian walkways law is, but I'm sure it can't be legal!

~Brentski~

Day 72- Brent Has A Panic Attack 18 Meters Below The Surface. (What Not To Do When Scuba DIving)

Feeling flush with confidence after making it through the previous days' dives with relatively few problems, Colleen and I made our way to the Roctopus shop for the ungodly (at least on vacation) time of 7am.  This morning we were to complete our final two dives of our Open Water Certification course.  Not even two weeks earlier I would have thought this to be an impossible goal as Colleen was adamantly against ever trying scuba diving.  Thanks to a chance encounter with some strangers and the conversation that ensued, here we were on the Gulf of Thailand about to feed ourselves to Poseidon and all of his creatures.  The best part is that Colleen was loving diving, and admittedly better at it than me.  Funny how things work sometimes. 

With her new found love for diving, we loaded up the gear and got ready for our big morning.  Our instructor Amber, Colleen, and I were going to be joined on our dives by a videographer by the name of Prat.  Prat was a laidback Indian dude, who had actually spent time living in Vancouver and had even been to Churchill, Manitoba.  I'm not sure, what percentage of the population of India has been to Churchill, Manitoba, but if I had to bang out a guess, I would peg it at under 0.000000001%. And that's probably being generous.  Prat was there to film Colleen and I for a DVD that he would edit. If we wanted to purchase it, we would be given the option later that evening.  But let's be real, I'm dating Colleen.  That DVD was as good as sold before he even started shooting.

On our first of two dives that morning we were fortunate to have amazing visibility and saw a ton of fish.  We were also lucky enough to have a huge school of barracuda, numbering in the thousands, that was present for most of our dive and seemed to follow us wherever we went.  Colleen was in love and knowing how much she could care about most sports (see: not at all), it was great to see her enjoying herself.  But alas, I had to go and ruin the fun on our second dive.  Yup, Brent just had to go on trying to die!



Come back land, I need you!!!!



 

While the first dive went smooth as can be, things quickly turned bad for myself on what was to be our final dive before receiving our certification.  While Colleen, Prat, Amber, and I were descending to the bottom of the ocean to practice some skills on the ocean floor I started to experience some problems with water leaking into my face mask.  At the time I did not realize it, but the side flap on my mask was folded over and was thus allowing water to get in.  Warning: DO NOT EVER DO WHAT I AM ABOUT TO DO IN THIS STORY UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE.  So, as we were descending, I started to freak out as my eyes were getting super irritated.  For some reason (it all happened so fast), I then proceeded to take my mask off and spit my regulator out of my mouth.  By this time, Amber has now thankfully seen what is going on.  I am in full on panic mode at a depth of 18 meters (over 50 feet) and am trying to semi-consciously swim to the surface as fast as I can.  At this point I was inhaling massive amounts of water into my lungs and was almost certain I was going to die.  Thankfully, Amber was there and as I was trying to swim away to my frantic and certain death she kept holding onto my vest and trying to jam my regulator back in my mouth.  I responded by trying to push her away and swim to the surface as my heart was now beating out of my chest and my instinct to surface was taking over.  Believe me, am I ever thankful that she was there to save my ass, cause the likelihood of me making it to the surface were slim to none! Eventually, after a ton of flailing around and me assaulting her semi-consciously, Amber was able to jam the regulator into my mouth and calm was somewhat restored.  Not to be forgotten is the fact that Colleen was watching this whole incident play out and was having a freak out of her own as she watched me.  Oh, and Prat was filming the whole damn thing!  I'm sure it would make great footage if he ever had to teach an underwater rescue course! Somehow, despite all the chaos I had inflicted on everyone, and all the salt water I had ingested, we managed to finish completing our exercises at the bottom of the ocean and we even completed an underwater kiss for the camera! On a positive note, I think I achieved my desired sodium intake for the day.



Roctopus saved my life.  Literally, its employee, saved my life!



Seeing as how we couldn't talk underwater, upon surfacing I could just tell that everyone was like "what the fuck just happened!?".  I explained the situation with my mask and that one thing led to another and before I knew it I was in the throes of a full on panic attack.  I was not sure if Amber was going to pass me, and I was suddenly having flashbacks to when I was 16 years old and ran a red light due to nervousness while taking my final Young Drivers of Canada exam.  I am pretty sure I was the only student to ever fail driving school (Sidenote: I passed all three of my government driving tests on the first try).  Thankfully, not only did Amber save my life, but she also passed me after I promised her I had learned my lesson.  I like to think that it was good for her as an instructor, as she had never had anyone pull a stunt like that on her before.  Yup, I was a real life First Aid Course.  Despite my brush with death, Colleen was not deterred and before I could say "drowning" she had enrolled us for the Advanced Adventurer diving course that was starting the next day.  Yup, looks like my diving days weren't behind me quite yet.



Captain's cool. He don't give a fuck about no drowning white boys.



With our newly minted status as "Open Water Divers", Colleen and I headed back to our bungalow to rest before sauntering over to one of the local bars, Chopper's, to meet up with Amber, Prat, and a bunch of other people who had been out diving with Roctopus that day.  As is customary with people who finish their course, they played Prat's video of Colleen and I on the big screen in the bar for all to see.  Sadly, the footage of me going all Helen Keller was left on the floor of the editing room, but the video was awesome nonetheless.  Of note in the video was the fact that Colleen and I both like to flap our arms under the water which made us both look like a couple of newbies tools.  Aside from that, the video was awesome and Colleen most definitely bought a copy.  To further celebrate the successful completion of our course, and me still being alive, we indulged in some drop shots and a few rounds of beverages before heading over to some other "diver's bar".   At bar number two we were fortunate enough to introduce some of the others to the fine world of Canadian culinary delights aka poutine.  Throw in witnessing a lesbo make-out session  between a newlywed (we'll just call her bi-curious) and her friend, and you my friends have the recipe for a perfect night.  French fries, gravy, cheese, and girl-on-girl.  What more could a guy who stared down death that day ask for?  Heaven.

~Brentski~

Day 70- I'm A Bigger Baby Than Colleen. There, I Admitted It.

As a general rule of thumb, I generally do not enjoy waking up early on vacation (or ever for that matter!).  I would have to make an adjustment to my usual practice of sleeping in until lunch time for the next few days, as Colleen and I were officially scuba students.  With that being said we packed up our homework and marched on over to Roctopus to begin our in-classroom training with our instructor Amber.  As I mentioned in my previous blog post, Colleen and I were the only students in our class as the Full Moon Party on the adjacent island of Koh Phangan had left Koh Tao in a rather quiet state for a couple of days.  The morning was spent with the two of us learning the basics in the classroom by watching videos and napping getting educated like the super students we are.  With the morning classroom work out of the way, we received our homework assignments for that evening and were given time to grab some lunch.  Yup, now all I needed was my parents' minivan and a bunch of my friends and it would feel like the year 2000 and high school lunches all over again.



Colleen is apparently not a fan of homework.



With our bellies amply full, it was now time for us to take the proverbial "plunge" and start actually practicing what we had been dreaming about for years a couple of days.  Normally the school we are with does all of their training right in the ocean, but because their boat was in the shop for the day, Amber would be teaching Colleen and I the basic skills in a swimming pool.  This was actually probably a blessing in disguise as Colleen and I are both wimps and  this minimized the risk of one of us quitting on the first day.  So, we got suited up and Amber spent the better part of her afternoon being overly patient with Colleen and I as she taught us some of the basics, such as breathing under water (fairly key I imagine!), mask retrieval and cleaning, regulator retrieval, etc.  The feeling of breathing under water was unlike anything I have ever experienced and I'd be lying if I didn't say that I had a couple of minor panic attacks on my first couple of attempts (this would be a sign of things to come in the days ahead).  Thankfully, I was only in a resort pool, so the odds of me drowning were greatly minimized.  We ended up making it through our first afternoon and ironically it was Colleen, the one who was SOOOO hesitant (see: scared) to try scuba diving who was actually the one who appeared more comfortable under the water.  The one downside of doing our training in the pool was the fact that the only wildlife we saw all afternoon was some baby wearing nothing but his birthday suit who kept bobbing in and out of the pool.  Look a baby sea snake!  Nope, definitely not a infantile sea snake.


This random dog won't judge me for being a pussy.

 Our evening was pretty uneventful as we were both wiped out from the first day of schooling either of us had been privy too in quite a few years.  We spent the night doing our homework and grabbing some dinner at one of the many local restaurants.  Tomorrow awaited, with our final classroom tests and some diving in the Gulf of Thailand!

~Brentski~

Day 69- Journey To Koh Tao. Home Of Fantastic Diving And The World's Most Aggressive Cabbies.

With four straight days of what seemed like nothing but eating, drinking, and sweating, it was time for us to leave Koh Samui.  For the first time in the history of the great kingdom of Thailand, a cab actually showed up early.  We had become so used to waiting for everything, that we were actually caught off guard when someone showed up at the time they said they would.  Thankfully, the hotel also did not charge us for the room card that the guy working the previous night said we would have to pay for.  This was a good thing for the lady working, because I am sure if she had attempted to charge us Colleen would have ripped her face off (or at the very least given her a mean titty-twister)!

With our luggage in tow, we headed down to the pier and loaded up onto the super packed ferry.  Because the Full Moon Party was forthcoming, there were thousands of people making their way to Koh Phangan.  Colleen and I on the other hand were headed to the diving Mecca of Koh Tao (the third island in the chain that makes up the big three in the Gulf of Thailand), which was just a wee bit further by boat. 



Geography lesson. Free of charge.



 

Thankfully, our ferry ride was not as violent as some of the ones we had been subjected to in the recent past and we were able to make it to Koh Tao with all of our digested food staying digested.  While Koh Tao is billed as the quietest and smallest of the three islands, the same cannot be said for its fleet of taxi drivers.  The second we got off the ferry the two of us, and everyone else onboard for that matter, were swarmed by hundreds of cab drivers.  All of them were shouting and screaming and trying to get your attention, all in the name of a car ride!  We were told the previous day by our diving school (Roctopus Dive) that they would pick us up, so we headed to the designated waiting spot.  And waited. And waited. And waited some more.  Eventually we gave up and had to catch a ride from one of the overly zealous cab drivers who scooted us across the island to the Roctopus Dive Shop. 

Colleen psyching herself up for the ferry ride.

There are literally dozens of dive operators and shops on Koh Tao all offering very similar packages and pricing when it comes to learning how to dive. Colleen and I had done a bit of research the previous day and after scouring Trip Advisor reviews, we decided on Roctopus.  They were one of the top-ranked (if not the top-ranked shop) on the island and many of the reviews raved about the small class sizes and personable instructors.  Shortly after we arrived the guy who was supposed to meet us at the pier arrived and apologized for the mix-up in picking us up.  Mix-ups aside, after filling out some paperwork, meeting our instructor Amber, and getting our homework assignment(!) we were informed that due to the Full Moon Party (many people go there before coming diving) on the next island over, we would be the only two people in our class commencing the next day! This made Colleen especially happy, as she was nervous about diving and felt that having a small class would make her feel more comfortable.  Little did we know it would end up being me who just about died.  But more on that later!

The Thailand you don't read about in the guidebooks.

With everything sorted at the dive shop for our course beginning the next day, we were driven over to our bungalow accommodations that were being included as part of the all-inclusive price with our diving certification course.  We had no TV and had to pay some guy to come deliver us a code for internet access (not sketchy at all), but hey we were here to learn to dive.   That evening we went out for dinner and explored the island a bit before heading back to our room to do our homework which was due the following morning.  I must say that Colleen was much more expedient at finding answers in her books than I was.  Must have something to do with my old age.  It was clear who was going to be the teacher's pet in class.

The real fun starts the next day...scuba here we come!

~Brentski~