After a reasonable lie in Bev and I packed our bags and headed to the airport. From previous peoples experience we have learnt that there are two Bangkok International airports and made sure we headed to the correct one (the new one).
The new Bangkok airport was very impressive and looks very similar to Gatwick. We arrived 2 hours before our flight only to be told the flight was delayed for another 2 hours. Not that this bothered us greatly as the only other option to Phuket was an 18 hour bus ride. We quickly found the food lounge and had some tasty and cheap Thai food. Bev followed her lunch with the most enormous piece of lemon meringue pie that not even she could finish!!
We arrived in Phuket after an hour long flight and got a taxi to the Pa Tong area of Phuket. Having dropped of our bags we headed straight out to have a look around. Having been to Bangkok I had already experienced the strange sensation of lady boys. To see a young women in front of you, with a lovely figure and pretty face offering you free drinks is what most men like. But when they uncross their legs (Sharon Stone style) and you are greeted by a pair of hairy clangers you're not sure whether to scream, head butt them or be flattered. Pa Tong seems to have their fair sure of lady boys in all shapes and sizes. We were in seven eleven getting some water when a lady boy walks in with his boob hanging out. I tried to get a picture but get busted, s/he comes over taps my bum and tells I am a naughty boy and must pay to take a picture. With a shop full of people I put a masculine arm round Bev and strolled out.
We wandered up and down Bangla Road which is the main bar section of Pa Tong and frequented a few of the bars trying their local beverages.
The following day we decided to go on an elephant trek. This was something we had both wanted to do very much since we'd been in Asia. The trek was through rivers and jungles and was very enjoyable. We were both saddened by the conditions of the elephants as the owners did not seem to treat them very well. We bought our elephant a huge bunch of bananas to say thanks!
Bev and I had decided that we were going to learn to Scuba dive in Pa Tong. With over 30 dive shops we were having trouble deciding which one we should go to. We strolled into one and I saw the brother of someone I used to go to school with many years go (hello Mark) and decided that we would dive here. Everybody was English and they seemed very professional so we signed up to take out PADI open water.
Our first day was in the pool and the classroom and not very exciting. It was cold and you practice putting your gear together, practicing to remain buoyant under water, taking tests and various other techniques for breathing underwater. One of the biggest concerns for divers is air space in your body. These are areas of your body that have air in and will need to equalize with the surrounding pressure the deeper you go. The main areas are your sinuses and ears but some people also have problems with air in their bowels. At this point I thought I would have to give the diving up with the amount of air in my bowels. Anyway the first day is completed and we look forward to heading out to see the next morning.
After arriving at the dive centre early we put our equipment together and head out to sea. After putting out gear on we roll backwards into the sea and descend to about 12m where we practice many more exercises before having a fun dive where our instructors lead us round the reef. We do a second dive that morning practicing more skills before heading back to the classroom.
Day 3 we are back out at the reef for a couple more dives, again learning more exercises and perfecting what we had already learned. On these dives we saw a very rare Frog fish. The Frog fish cannot swim and has legs, looks a bit like a coral and is a very strange looking fish but very cool! We see many more colorful fish before heading back to the classroom for our final test. I struggled through this day somewhat as I have slowly been increasing the strength of the curries I have been eating. On more than one occasion I thought I was going to ruin my wet suit!
Having both successfully completed the course we decided to sign up to the advanced course. The advanced allows us to dive 30m instead of the 18m the open water offers. We also decide to take the Nitrox course. Nitrox is a gas you breathe which has more oxygen content than the normal gas cylinders and allows you to stay underwater for longer without getting Nitrogen poising. This comes in handy when diving at deeper depths.
Day 4 was more classroom and more underwater techniques. We learnt to navigate underwater, search and rescue people and perfect other things we had already learned.
Day 5 was what all our training and money had been about. They took us to three new destinations. The first being a ship wreck off the coast of Phi Phi which sat 30m underwater. The wreck is a car ferry that sank 10 years ago 1 month before its insurance policy ran out. Nobody died as there just so happened to be plenty of fisherman in that exact spot that day. Descending to 30m was a very strange experience. At about 20m down, even though very light and clear you could not see the bottom and could not see the top. Left and right also looked the same as up and down, blue and watery! Starting to feel very disoriented and unsure which way is up, down, left or right I remember my training and blow some bubbles to see which way they go. I could have just looked at Bev and to see she was heading down though. At the bottom (30.2m) we start to investigate the wreck and see many thousands of fish, turtles, crabs, eels, squids and many other sea creatures. The toilets on the deck had been exposed and created a hiding hole for the resident turtle. It was an unbelievable experience, if some what eerie.
Our second dive was to shark point where we hoped to see, leopard sharks, black fin sharks and sometimes whale sharks. Unfortunately none of the sharks were around today but plenty of other sea creatures and amazing colorful corals were.
The final dive was a wall dive. They took us to a small island where the island wall went straight down to 25m. There was a strong current that pulls you round the island so we did not even need to swim for this one. You let the current pull you round and you just watch everything go by in front of you, again an amazing dive.
Finally we head back to take our final exam, which we both passed. Bev got 1 mark knocked off my paper as our instructor had marked it wrong, I got 92% instead of the 94% he originally gave me, Bev still beat me on her 96%
Feeling pleased with ourselves we go out celebrating with our dive instructors and everyone from our course till the early hours.
Our alarm goes off at 6am the following morning as we are due to head to Phi Phi on the 7.30am ferry. As we had only been in bed a few hours we decide to knock this idea on the head and try and get a later ferry.
Luckily there was a 1pm ferry that we managed to get, just! We head to Phi Phi where we will be meeting some of Bevs friends for more partying. Right now though neither of us feel like partying or drinking ever again and we vow that we should never drink before we have to travel the next day!!
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