Koh Tao Thailand is known for one thing: some of the cheapest SCUBA diving in the world.
It also helps that it also happens to be a tropical island paradise in the middle of the Gulf of Thailand, so combine that with cheap SCUBA diving, and you have Koh Tao.
I arrived to Koh Tao the afternoon after the Full Moon party. So unless you count the hour or so nap that I took on someone's porch, I hadn't slept in quite some time.
I get off of the boat and grab a taxi to the main Koh Tao beach. There are hundreds and hundreds of dive shops on this tiny island. Some are cheaper than others. Some offer accommodation, and others do not. So after shopping around for half an hour, I was afraid my body was going to give up on me.
Completely exhausted, I stumble into a big dive shop called Ban's Diving Resort.
For the 4 day PADI open water certification, including 4 nights accommodation, it was 9,000 baht ($300ish).
The lady at the reception asked me if I wanted to start tonight, or the following night.
I told her that if I started tonight, I would bring a pillow and sleep at the bottom of the ocean.
Seeing that she didn't have a clue as to what I was saying, I told her I'd rather start the next night.
They put me in a 15 bed dorm room, but I had the whole place to myself.
I went to bed early and slept 12 hours.
Waking up refreshed the next day, I decided to go check out the island before starting the first class.
So grabbing a map and walking south along the coast, I would stop to drink water and jump in the crystal clear blue-ish green water.
At one point, I came across a sign written in awfully translated English. From what I understood, it was telling people that the secluded beach down the path was private. In order to access the beach, they wanted toursists to purchase a ticket from the hotel lobby. The after a whole bunch more confusing English grammer, the last phrase says that the beach is non-paying. Thouroughly confused, I decided that beaches weren't allowed to charge me to use their sand, and I walked through some extremely fancy resort, all the way to their "exclusive" beach.
I layed down my sarong towel, and posted up on top of a sort of sun-roof thing. No one asked me for any money. Victorious and vindicated, I stayed there a few hours, alternating between reading my Napoleon Bonaparte biography and taking a sweet dip in the water.
Man, do the rich know how to live.
After leaving the private beach wonderland, I started to head back to my resort.
Except, I was feeling adventurous and stupid, so instead of backtracking, I thought "I'm sure I can just go around this huge cliff thing."
So instead of the 45 minutes it took me to get to the beach, I got completely lost and it took me 3 hours to make it back.
At one point, sweating profusely on jungle cliffs and completely out of water, I was sure I was gonna die of exposure.
Then I reached a dead-end. It was a 12 foot tall bamboo fence. Through the tiny slits I could see a private villa on the other side. I think a raccoon had made a tiny hole at the bottom of one of the bamboo poles so, running out of options, I squeezed my whole body through this opening and made it into this uber private backyard of some cliff-front mansion. Realizing I was trespassing, I walked up the path to the front gate, nodded at the gardener, and finally made it back to the main road.
My phone died and therefore I have no pictures of this epic adventure. I was so dehydrated and hot that I'm no longer even sure any of this actually happened.
That first night of SCUBA training was just to introduce the 3 instructors (Steve, some Irish dude who's name I completely forgot and a Canadian chick) and watch a 2 hour video of the first two chapters. Both male instructors were extremely experienced and had been teaching for over 15 years. The woman instructor was brand new. They were being assisted by 2 "divemasters" who are pretty much instructors in training.
The dorm room I was in, previously empty, was now jam-packed with the people from my class. It was easy to make friends, because we were all together, all day. None of us went out to party the nights before we had class, because alcohol and SCUBA diving don't mix well. In fact the 2 rules the instructors told us on the first night were:
1. No buckets
2. No speedos
Diving has a buddy system. So very early on, each person needs to be paired up with a "buddy" and those two people are supposed to be within arms reach of each other at all times when in the water. They also serve as the person who conducts your equipment check before entering the water.
My buddy was Steve, an awesome canadian dude who was on a South-East asia tour for about a month. We drank a Big Chang or two after every dive.
The second day we had class in the morning, with super easy dive exams. Then in the afternoon, we geared up for the first time and went diving in the pool, to practice our skills.
Skills involve things that are likely to happen to a diver under water. Some of these skills involved, taking the mouthpiece out of our mouths, and replacing it with your buddy's emergency "octopus" mouthpiece, or completely removing our mask underwater, replacing it and clearing the water from it. We also had to practice fake "out-of air" scenarios and how to do controlled emergency ascents to the surface.
As open water certified divers, we would be able to dive to 18m or 59 ft. The theory being, if you can do these skills in a pool only 10 feet deep, it should be the same thing at 59 feet. And it was, for most of us...
After successfully completing the pool day, we were all anxiously awaiting the next day so we could do the first 2 of our 4 open water dives!
I asked one of the dive masters if we'd be seeing any sharks.
He said no, for 2 reasons. The first one is that most sharks are spooked by the air bubbles coming out of our mouths from SCUBA diving, and so tend to stay away. The second, and more important reason is that due to the practice of shark finning (for shark fin soup) there are practically no sharks left in the area.
Shark finning is simple. Boats bait sharks, catch them, cut off their fins and then throw the live, bloody sharks back in the water. They can't swim without fins, and they're losing blood, so they die a horrible painful death. This is all because in asia Shark-fin soup is considered a delicacy. Our instructors told us that over 10 million sharks each year are killed this way.
I asked the dive-master what the best way for me to see a shark was.
He told me that on the southern most tip of the island, there is a place called shark bay.
One can snorkle out there from the shore and usually see many of them.
"But," he added, "they only feed at dawn or dusk, so if you want to see some, be there around 6am before sunrise."
I was determined to see a shark. I tried to recruit people from my class to come with me. Everyone said no. Some claimed it was because I was going to get up at 5am.
A guy in our dorm who had been living on the island for over a month told me that it was really hard to find and that it took about 45 minutes on foot to get there.
So I set my alarm for 5am. Waking up, I grab my bag with my underwater camera, mask and snorkel and start jogging to shark bay.
I don't jog. I'm not a jogger. But this was kind of nice, because the temperature was cool.
Jogging past a nightclub packed with party people still partying I thoiught, "What a bunch of idiots, I'm gonna go swim with sharks and they're still up partying."
I had to remind myself that just 2 days earlier, I was the one partying till 8am. I convinced myself it wasn't the same, and kept going.
I found shark bay without any difficulties, and it was much closer than the 45 minutes I expected.
But here, I encountered 3 problems.
1. Since I got there so early, it was still completely pitch black, long before sunrise.
2. Shark bay was not a beach like I expected, but instead sharp slick rocks that gave way to very turbulent waters.
3. The third reason is maybe the most important, it was creepy as f$%&!
Holy s%$t. When I got there, at 5:25am, pitch darkness, all alone, getting to a place called shark point that is infested with animals we have been brainwashed to fear, I couldn't help but get nervous and scared.
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| I realize you can't see anything...that's the point. It's the picture I took when I arrived to Shark bay. |
So I jump, in total darkness, from rock to rock, until I reach the further-most rock. Then I sat down and stared at the waves hit the rocks. The water looked black. And silver, from the sliver of moon that was in the night sky. Every time a wave broke the surface, I was convinced it was a huge man-eating shark.
Then I started reasoning with myself: "Paul, it's not that you're scared, no. You shouldn't go in there because of the current. Yeah the current. Look at those waves. Even if the current doesn't carry you out to open water, the waves will slam you onto the sharp rocks. Yeah that's it, the rocks and the current"
I started to believe myself. "You can get hurt and then you won't even be able to SCUBA dive this afternoon. It's not worth it, go home."
Satisfied that the reason for which I was turning around wasn't because I was afraid of swimming in dark, shark infested waters, I started to pack my bag.
There really is no reason to be courageous when there's no one around to see you do the courageous act.
As I'm packing my bag, my Zune mp3 player falls out and onto my foot.
Then, in a surge of adrenaline, I stick the ear-buds in and start blasting the songs Lose Yourself and Till I Collapse by Eminem.
So there I am, 6am, pacing back in forth on this little rock, waving my hands like a maniac trying to pump myself up to jump into the water. I even put my flippers and mask on. Right as the sun is rising, I have nearly pumped myself up enough to jump into the water.
At this point I'm hysterical, "I'll punch every shark in the face, if they try to come at me!" I scream, quoting Dane Cook.
The songs end, and I am still hesitant. Then on another rock, about 100 feet away, I see a man. He is staring curiously at me, trying to figure out what the hell my problem was, pacing back and forth in flippers and yelling at the water.
So I jump. SPLASH!
Panicking and doggy paddling like an idiot, I started swimming as fast as I could.
Within minutes I was surrounded by 3 sharks!
Actually, no I wasn't. Not even close. The water was so rough that day, that the visibility under water was maybe 2 feet. At most. That means that when I extended my arms out in front of my head, I could barely see my finger tips. So, I swam around for 25 minutes and didn't see anything except for the occasional fish. But this actually made it somewhat scarier because I was just swimming blind.
After a while, I decided I had had enough, and went back to my rock.
I had failed at sharks and at life.
Disappointed, I walked back to the hotel with my tail between my legs.
DIVING
That afternoon was awesome.
We went out on a dive boat to some coral reef a few minutes away from the island.
After doing our buddy check, we all entered the water.
The plan was (to drink until the pain's over, but what's worse, the pain or the hangover?), to descend to 40 feet, and once at the bottom, we would do a couple skills.
When descending, the pressure increases dramatically. But the only place you can really feel it is your ears. So as the pressure increases, it is important to equalize, similar to what one would do on an airplane. Some people had a lot of trouble with this, and so it took about 10 minutes for everybody to get to the bottom.
I had been there sitting at the bottom of the ocean floor for about 10 minutes, watching the beautiful colorful fish going by.
Once we all made it, the instructors and 2 divemasters made us get in a big circle.
They all went to each of us, one by one and had us take out our mouthpieces and ask our buddy for theirs.
Now, the average person could very easily hold their breath for over 30 seconds...
Unless panic sets in, at which point, the logical part of the brain shuts down and instinct takes over. Problem is, human instinct doesn't work under water since, you know, we live on land with air and stuff.
My Buddy Steve and I are last in the circle. So as I'm watching everyone do their skills, I was witness to something terrifying.
One of the girls from our class, is standing on the ocean floor directly in front of me.
The female instructor with very little experience, approaches her and does the hand signal for her to take out her mouthpiece regulator and borrow her buddy's.
The student takes the regulator out of her mouth, and then instead of calmly asking her buddy for his, panic sets in.
Her eyes grow WIDE and she immediately starts flailing her arms.
"No problem" I think, "the instructor is literally right there with her, holding her."
Except the student is now drowning.
And when a person is drowning, everything they do is counter productive.
So as the instructor is trying to get the student's regulator back in her mouth, the student rips off her mask.
Then, since the instructor is trying to jam the regulator in her closed mouth, the student panics and punches the instructor!
Now the instructor's mask is off too!
We are 40 feet (12 meters) under water at this point!
The instructor is now starting to lose control, and though not panicking entirely, she is no help at all to the drowning girl.
One of the dive masters, was nearby and quickly swims over to help.
At this point, all of this has happened in about 5 seconds.
Realizing that there are now 0 instructors helping the student, I turn to the Irish instructor teaching the guys next to me, tap his shoulder and point to the mayhem.
His eyes grow wide with concern as he rockets over to the student.
As she is trying with all her might to swim to the surface, the divemaster is pulling her down.
The student, a classic drowning victim, has completely jammed her jaws shut.
The divemaster is trying with all his strength to pry the girl's jaw open with his hands, but she won't budge.
Watching all of this, I remember thinking "Wow, I'm actually going to see someone drown and die before my very eyes, and there is nothing I can do about it."
The experienced Irish instructor, knows exactly what to do.
The second he gets to the student, he punches her hard in the stomach.
Instinctively, the punch knocks the wind out of her and forces her to open her mouth, and the instructor jams her regulator mouthpiece back in, and swims her up.
The entire thing probably lasted 10 seconds, but my god, I felt like I had just watched a 2 hour movie.
I somehow ended up with one of the girl's flippers.
All of the students awkwardly stayed at the bottom of the ocean, not knowing what to do. After a few minutes, the instructors and divemasters return, give us the "OK" sign and we go on our first dive.
The two dives that day were certainly amazing and beautiful, but the drowning story kind of overshadows all of it.
The next day, diving was even better. We went all the way down to 59 feet (18 meters) and saw all sorts of marine life. Though not certified to go cave diving, our instructor was badass and took us through one anyways. Diving in caves is incredible. Feels like you're floating through a house.
The night of the second dive day, we had completed all 4 dives! We had our graduation celebration by watching a video of us all diving and getting drinks.
That night, we did have buckets. No speedos.
There are fire performers everywhere on the Thai islands, and though impressive, I think the young kids in training are even better.
I now had a couple extra days to lay back and enjoy the island before meeting with my aunt, uncle and cousins in the Khao Sok national park.
One of the dudes from our dorm, Kirk, knew of an abandoned resort on the east side of the island.
Pretty much, someone built this huge great resort on the deserted side of the island and built this road to it. The road goes up a huge mountain/hill thing before coming down on the resort.
One day, it rained. A lot. And the washoff caused by the rain completely destroyed the road. The price to rebuild the road, was more than the price to rebuild the resort. So it was abandoned.
They made the best nutella banana crepes on the island. I must have eaten 2 a day. Erday.
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| You can't tell because the person taking the picture sucked, but we're riding a very funny rocking horse. |
While on the island, the winter olympics were happening. And, I don't know why, but Koh Tao was absolutely filled with nothing but Canadians and Swedes. When America played Canada in the semi-finals I lost 2,500 baht betting on the game. You broke my heart team America.
It was fun though, seeing the Swedes and the Canadians yell back and forth at the TV when they played each other in the finals.
It's funny because Canadians are even polite when they're trash talking!
On our last day with everyone from the class still there, we wanted to rent kayaks and paddle to an awesome island with a land bridge.
Half of the people opted for the boat taxi option, while the other half (including myself) were absolute retards and decided that it was close enough to kayak.
Well the trip there wasn't aweful, we were paddling with the current and it only took us about 35 minutes to get there.
Landing on the island, completely exhausted, we were approached by an offiial looking Thai man. He said it cost 100 baht to come on the island. I looked at him, angry, exhausted and slightly seasick from the kayak and glared at him.
I said "No."
He looks at me, completely confused, stutters and asks "Uh why? Yes 100 baht."
I say "No, I don't have money." I leave my kayak parked on the beach in front of him and walk away.
Unfortunately not only did I not bring money, but I also didn't bring a camera. So the only pictures I have of that day are the ones that people I was with posted online.
The very first picture on this blog, with me on top of a mountain looking down at an awesome island, is also from that day.
The kayak ride back nearly killed me.
I'm not exhagerating.
For some idiotic reason, we all left for the island at around 11am, between breakfast and lunch.
I didn't eat breakfast.
And I had no money on the island to buy lunch.
So when we left at 4, I was running on fumes.
It took me about 1.5 hours to get back.
Halfway there, I was starting to get lightheaded and actually stopped on some jagged rocks.
Whu\ile I was catching my breath and trying not to pass out and drown, these crabs kept taunting me with there crab ways.
I actually tried to kill one to eat it, fresh Sushi style, but those suckers are fast and the rocks are slippery.
Tapping into some superhuman survival factor, I somehow made it back to the beach, drug my kayak onto the sand and fell flat on my face into the sand like the do in the movies.
I woke up 10 minutes later, feeling hungry.
After eating a burger, some pad thai, a whole pizza and a nutella banana pancake, I felt normal again.
After 2 months of traveling alone, I was going to meet up with some of my mom's side of the family who coincidentaly happeend to be on a family vacation in Thailand while I was there. Then, Jabo would meet up with us and him and I would go on a 4 country Asian tour.
Remember the 4 D's of Koh Tao:
Diving
Drowning
DeezNuts
and Buckets
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