I arrived in Bangkok at 7:30 PM. I generally do not like to arrive in cities after dark and especially did not want to in Bangkok, but this was the only Star Alliance flight from Kathmandu. I paid $2 to take the airport shuttle to the city. After 3 stops at other airport terminals to pick up other passengers and pack them into the bus, it took a total of two hours to get to the end of the line in the city.... and I still had to find my way to the Thai International Youth Hostel. Luckily, a Taxi driver who understood English was nearby and took me there (5 minutes). The room I had booked was air conditioned, which was good because by the time I'm climbed to two flights of stairs to it, sweat was running off me like a faucet. Unfortunately, the room was also on the street and noisy. I went back to reception and requested another room but they said no others were available.

The next morning there was a room available with no windows but it was quiet when the AC was running so I switched. Later that night I found that the AC worked too well and there was no way to regulate it, as the plastic control knob had broken off the metal potentiometer rod and the hostel did not have a pair of pliers I could use to turn it. The rest of the day I spent re-arranging my other Thai flights. First, I contacted Bangkok Air and Thai Air to re-arrange my four other flights to and from Bangkok so that I did not have to spend any more time getting to and from the airport between destinations (or spend another day in Bangkok than I needed to). I rescheduled the flight days so that the flight to Bangkok from Ko Samui (my next destination) would connect on the same day with my flight to Chiang Mai (northern Thailand)..... and my flight from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok would connect on the same day with my flight to Hong Kong. I also arranged a round trip flight with Lao Aviation to Luang Prahbang on the day my 30-day Thai visa would expire so that it could be renewed on my return from Laos (a common practice).

I was also having serious doubts about staying in Thailand that long anyway, as the weather in Bangkok was 95 degrees with 95% humidity and 100% uncomfortable. The next day in Bangkok I did some sightseeing and shopping for warm weather gear and Lonely Planet's "Tramping in New Zealand" book - reading and trip prep material for the nights of the three weeks I would spend on the islands off the southeast coast of Thailand.

The following day I flew to the island of Ko Samui, hoping to make it in time to catch the noon ferry to Ko Tao. I did make it there in time but there was no noon ferry to Ko Tao and so I had to spend the night in a beachfront bungalow on Ko Samui and wait for the only ferry to Ko Tao, at 8AM the next morning. It was still very hot and humid and I was still wondering how long I could put up with it.

The ferry to Ko Tao was on a 25 foot speed boat loaded with 25 passengers and five crew. It took two and a half hours.

At Ko Tao's main port on Hat Ao Mae beach I found my dive resort's retail shop and got a ride from it to the dive shop in the Sai Ri beach front area about 2 miles away. From there it was another 10 minute ride away from the beach area, up into the hills to the dive resort's bungalows . I knew that I would be going back and forth from the beach front area with stores, internet cafes, the dive shop and restaurants...and my bungalow at least 2 or 3 times a day and that each way would take about 25 minutes. That was at least a couple hours of hot walking. I resolved to rent a scooter for at least 10 days until after New Years, when I would move down to the beach area after the parties and holiday crowds left.

I was more than a little leery of using the scooter. Everybody on the island used them, from small children to old ladies, but the roads were serious biking hazards with sand on cement, potholes, dirt on cement, sand on dirt, ruts the all over the place. And because it was so hot, wearing a helmet or long pants was out. And because you are expected to take off your shoes when entering a restaurant or shop or post office or internet cafe, sandals were the only practical footwear. At first I thought anyone riding on these roads, in this attire, was crazy. I had over 20 years experience riding motorcycles and mountain bikes in a wide variety of terrain and knew that road conditions like these were totally unsafe.... but still it was better than spending two hours walking a day.... so I tried to ride slowly and safely.

The beach front was about a half mile long. All along the walkway/road stretching down the beach were restaurants connected with sets of bungalows and dive shops. The beach was on the western side of the island and all dinners came with a sunset. Each restaurant also seemed to have a set of dogs that hung around it as well. They would spend the day wrestling with one another, lying in the shade or out on the sand or going for a swim to cool off. Not too different than the humans. There were, however, a lot of female dogs that had recently been pregnant. The disturbing thing about this was that the ratio between puppies and available mammary glands was not what one would expect. I eventually came to suspect that the beef dishes I had been ordering weren't.... and switched to chicken from then on.

The food I had since arriving in Thailand was excellent (even the "beef" dishes). I didn't think I'd ever get tired of Pad Thai (a peanut noodle dish) but I eventually did.

My dive shop was recommended to me by my dentist's assistant when we were discussing my upcoming trip waiting for Novocain to work. She strongly suggested finding one that had a non-Thai owner because they were probably safer. I happened to have had already found the one she recommended on the internet and decided to go with it. It turned out that this was the best dive shop on the island. All the staff and instructors were top notch. Andy, the instructor for my first course, was especially good. You could tell he had been a teacher before - his presence and presentation were outstanding. He also showed sincere interest and concern for his students' well being, making them feel at home and comfortable.

On Dec 22nd, I started my Open Water certification lessons with lecture and video in the morning and afternoon and then a test swim 1/2 mile in the late afternoon with a 10 minute surface float. That evening I had my dinner at one of the many open air restaurants along the beach...watching a beautiful sunset. The next day we had more class time and our first two underwater sessions. In morning session we were down under about 10 or 12 feet of water doing exercises one by one, in turn, when signaled by Andy. Even though we were not very deep, it was way cool and I was a little disappointed when Andy said later that the afternoon sessions we would be mostly on the surface.

The next day, Christmas Eve day, we had more classroom time and then some sessions diving from one of the shop's two dive boats that was anchored a little way out, above the reef. The first of these dives went good for me, but the second one I had a lot of trouble staying at the depth I wanted. I was under the impression that I should regulate my depth by the amount of air I let into, or out of, my BCD (inflatable vest/tank holder). I didn't realize that the control I wanted could and should be acquired by the amount of air I let into or out of my lungs. I felt like such a klutz and a couple of times I would have landed on coral or worse, on sea urchins with their very painful array of 10 inch needles...had Andy not intervened. Later that day, back at the dive shop, Kevin theowener had a dinner for his staff and current clients - way cool and delicious.

The dive shop was closed on Christmas day so Christmas Eve I was looking forward to going dancing at the local club - a Ko Tao tradition. I was coming down to the beach area to eat dinner and just after I rode across an intersection, I hit a patch of sand on cement and went down and slid on the cement. After getting up and checking myself and the scooter out, I found that I had a scraped left forearm, a bloody laceration of some sort on the tip of my left big toe and a slight back pull. Immediately, my mind raced ahead to the ramifications of a cut toe: If it needed stitches, that would take a long time to heal and diving might be out. I had read in several sources that cuts in tropical climates get infected easily and that would be a problem too, with having to wear sandals all the time.

There was a pharmacy/nurse station about a hundred feet away, which was not as lucky as it sounds because there were several along the beach. The nurse cleaned my wounds and sold me the first aid supplies I would need to take care of them. The toe did not need stitches but I did sand the skin off an area about the size of a dime, exposing raw flesh. I knew that this would be as problematic as a cut to care for and heal, as the skin would have to grow in from the sides to slowly close over the raw flesh gap and I would have to keep antibiotic ointment on it so that it would not dry and crack as it healed. Keeping it clean would also be a problem. Diving would be problematic as well and I'd have to wait until the day after Christmas to see how that would go. My plans to go dancing later that night also were in question. I rode on to the restaurant and finally did go dancing but quit after ten minutes when I looked down and saw the bandaging had come off the toe.... deciding to get back to the bungalow ASAP to clean and re-dress it.

That night I realized that the least worrisome injury of the accident, my back, would be the most painful. I had torn rib cartilage and getting into and out of bed was very very painful, as well as just turning over in bed. The day after Christmas, I put waterproof bandaging on my cuts and some extra padding on the toe that would be in the fin and might rub. I wasn't too worried about the ribs because there would be little pressure and weight on them in the water. The diving went well. The only difficulty I had was getting into and out of the gear in the water (for an exercise) and hauling myself up the ladder on the boat - due to my ribs. Later in the afternoon, after Andy had seen me wincing every time I got up from my chair, he said he would have to think about it, and may not let me dive the next day, as one of the risk factors getting the bends was an injury. I was a little upset about this and wished I had concealed my pain better because I did not want to miss out on the last day of the class (and a dive).

That night I had to sneeze once and the pain was so intense I bounced out of my chair and staggered across the room somehow feeling that movement would lessen it. It didn't, and lasted a minute or so. I remembered having to cough a little during one of the exercises underwater that day, where we had to share regulators, and I had gotten some water in mine before clearing it well. I had some pain then, when I coughed just a little. After the big sneeze, I tested myself and tried to cough hard and couldn't. Every time I was just about to expel air in a cough, when the chest is fully expanded, the pain was so intense it paralyzed my chest - like having the wind knocked out of me. This was very upsetting to me. I knew that maybe a diver, this diver, might not have to cough underwater.... but if I did it would be because I was in trouble and HAD to cough.... and if I couldn't I would be in much bigger trouble. I slowly came to realize (and decide) that I would not dive the next day.... or the next four days as well, until I could cough.

I missed out on the last day with my graduating class (of 4) and would have to finish with another instructor, but I was playing it safe. Three days later I was sitting in a restaurant watching the movie "Triple X" on video (many restaurants played videos in the evening to attract customers). It was towards the end of the movie in the final action scenes that I realized that I had not taken my malaria pill which I put in my pocket to take with my meal...so I got it out, put it in my mouth and inhaled it AND .......had to cough....and could, but not well enough to dislodge it. I could still feel it going up and down my windpipe with each inhale and exhale. I was considering the option interrupting the movie and asking for someone to Heimlich me but I was worried that the maneuver would re-injure my ribs and put me back to square one with more days of not diving. In the end, I decided to get up, go out in the street, put my hands up in the air (as my parents had taught me) and giving coughing another very good try. It worked and the pill flew out into the street and I knew it was safe to go back into the water.

During these four days of non-diving, I made the move down to the beach area and stopped riding the scooter altogether. December 28 it rained some during the day and I knew if it rained longer or harder, riding into town when I wanted to could present problems: The dirt roads would become even more eroded, flooding streams and gutters would make keeping the toe dry and clean difficult.

The following day I found a bungalow down along the beach, with windows all around for $8 a night. The next day and a half it rained almost constantly with about 8 hours of rain so hard that 5 seconds in it would completely soak you. The main intersection between my previous dive shop bungalows and the beach area was flooded for three days with a couple of feet of very dirty water.

Unfortunately, the new bungalow, had a box spring for the mattress and dirty brown water from the tap. I think it was just rust from its water tower, but I still didn't like to shower in it. I moved after three days to another set of bungalows that I had my eye on from day one (they weren't vacant then). Unfortunately, the owners of this group also had some roosters that liked to begin their crowing a 4:30 AM. After two nights of this I moved again to my fourth set of bungalows. The one I initially chose that was away from the beach walkway/road was also close to this group of bungalows' power generator (which was only turned on at night). I was, however, able to move to another bungalow nearby that was shielded from the generator shack noise. This, the fifth bungalow, was the final place I stayed in on Ko Tao - 8 days.

After the Open Water course I took the Advanced Open Water course. I knew from what I had seen underwater, during sessions in the first course, that I wanted to see so much more and the advanced course would give me more experience and skill to be able to.

I was the only student that Annette had for three days of the Advanced class. In one of the dives where I was to practice my buoyancy skills (moving up and down) she chose a small sandy area about twelve feet in diameter surrounded by sharp coral and sharper urchins and their needles. It was here I was to practice minute movements up and down. But the fact that there was a small current I had to contend with as well made the exercises extremely challenging.

I had another difficult dive with Annettte the next day. We were doing the "deep" dive to 30 meters (100 ft.). After following the buoy line down we headed out over a somewhat flat and barren sandy bottom as it sloped down and way from the dive site's rocky reef area. When we got away about 150 meters and at a depth of 30 meters we stopped and she gave me some word and math problems she had written on the slate to illustrate the mental limiting effects of nitrogen narcosis during deep diving. I wasn't effected though, and went through the problems pretty quickly. On the way back up and across the flat bottom she stopped and pointed to something small on the bottom. I couldn't immediately control my buoyancy to get down close enough to see what she was pointing at. By the time I did get down and look and then look up, she had gone.... completely from sight. I had assumed she would have seen and watched me as I got down to take a look and would be there when I looked up. But she wasn't.

The depth at this spot was about 25 meters. There was ample light but visibility was limited to about 15 feet due to particles in the water. The terrain was uniform. I looked for a while in the direction we had been heading. Nothing. Then I turned and scanned the sea for 360 degrees, or was it 375 or 330. I was lost. I had no compass. And because of my rotation, I had know idea which way we had been heading.

The standard procedure in the event that you and your dive buddy get separated is to stay put and look and wait 60 seconds and if you still don't see your buddy, surface and meet there. It was already, what I thought were, a couple of minutes since I last saw her. I was thinking she was on her way up. I panicked a little and began my ascent after about what probably was only 15 seconds. This also would be my first ascent without visual reference of underwater rock formations (too deep) or a buoy line. I knew that it would be difficult.

I had to watch my dive computer which was strapped to my wrist to make sure that I did not ascend too fast and that I stopped for a safety stop at 5 meters for 3 minutes. Within the first ten meters going up, the computer warned me twice to slow. At 11 meters depth, either because Annette was retracing her route or because the visibility was better, I saw her bubbles about 20 feet out. I followed them down and found her.

This was the scariest time I ever had while diving, but I learned a lot in those couple minutes. Number one: Never assume your buddy is watching you at all times. Two: Don't panic and surface too early if separated (if I had waited a full minute she would have come back by then). Three: Always carry a compass and keep taking bearings even if you are not the navigator. Four: Before turning and scanning 360, take compass bearings or take note of features or, if there are no features, make one.

I ended up doing my last advanced course dive, a night dive, with Andy. At night you have a chance to see a lot more wildlife. We saw a small octopus and a Moray eel. A 4 foot long Giant Barracuda lurked just outside our light area as we moved around the dive site. Apparently this is common practice for them, as they hunt off the lights that tend to freeze the other fish and temporarily blind them.

After the advanced course I started fun diving, going out on the dive boat either in the morning for two dives or the afternoon for two dives, taking a day off here and there to help with a small but nagging ear infection I had. The reefs and the life underwater is just so amazing. And moving around underwater with just your legs and feet and the air you let into or out of your lungs is so fun.

The first day of fun diving I was plagued with equipment problems - an old mask strap that would not hold and a faulty primary regulator.

The regulator problem I discovered on the first dive that morning. As I reached the depth of about 7 meters I could feel resistance in the regulator and vibration like flapping valves or water. I tried clearing the regulator several ways but it got worse as we got deeper. I could still get all the air I wanted, but the feel of it was not quite right. I signaled my dive buddy and told him (with hand gestures) about the problem. We then went to the dive master and told him. He motioned for us (my buddy and I) to surface. As we rose it got better and so I thought it went away and signaled such to my buddy and we went back down to the rest of the group. The regulator behavior came back, but by this time I had checked my alternative regulator and it worked fine - so I decided if worse came to worse and the primary failed, I would be OK using the alternate...and so continued the dive. I also had observed my dive buddy during all of this and came to realize that he was experienced and capable of assisting me should I need it.

The visibility conditions were very bad that day - only about 15 feet. When the group neared the wall of a pinnacle we stumbled upon two Triggerfish that attacked and sent us all scattering in different directions (Triggerfish are about a foot to two feet long and are not life threatening but can bite hard enough for stitches ). Luckily, my buddy and I stayed together and eventually found the backup dive master who promptly led us back to the Triggerfish which we again had to flee. Finally, we did find the rest of the group and eventually did some site seeing.

A few dive days later I had more equipment problems.... We start each dive out with about 200 Bar of air or the amount equivalent to 200 atmospheres. About 20 minutes into each dive the dive master signals each diver and asks how much air they have left. When the first diver gets to about 60 or 70 bar we surface, especially if we are diving deep and need a 3 minute safety stop at 5 meters to decompress. On this dive, about 15 minutes in, I looked at my air gauge and saw I had 40 bar. I asked my buddy how much he had and he had - 110 bar. I signaled to him that I would inform the dive master way up ahead. We swam to her and I signaled. I unfortunately signaled wrong, indicating 90, and she was not concerned after checking everyone else's level...and motioned for us all to continue the dive. Both, my buddy, and I realized she could not have gotten the right information and I signaled again, this time handing her the gauge. She motioned for me to share her alternative regulator and we swam in tandem like a shark and lamprey along the bottom to the buoy line. She then buddied me up with another of the divers who was also lower on air and told us to go up the buoy line and surface. We reached the 5 meter safety stop when I just 30 bar in my tank and we stayed for twenty bar and two minutes until I only had 10 left. When we got on the boat I checked over my gear and heard the leak at the tank's "o" ring.

The next dive, with a different tank (of course,) I had another leak - this time the hose to my BCD. I could see this one under water and tried for two minutes to fix it. It really pissed me off that I would have another short dive. The dive master finally convinced me that the leak was minor and to continue the dive. We had a good tour of the site and again at the end I was shorter on air than everyone else. But this time, when I got down to 50 bar the dive master told me to take her alternative regulator and continue the dive. I guess she realized from the first dive, that I was perfectly capable of mirroring her movement and swimming close. So we finished the last 5 minutes of the site tour with me as a her shadow, exercising my 3D movement control.

For most of the surface travel to dive sites I was OK with the boat movement, but on choppier days I got a little seasick. I bought some Dramamine pills and used them on days when we were going further out or the wind was up and that helped. On one particularly long trip out to a pinnacle in the deeper ocean, I was still queasy. That day one of finnes rubber boot had a tear and the adjustable strap on the boat's spare pair was kinda broken and modified so that it wasn't adjustable. It looked like I was out of luck, but a divemaster convinced a divemaster in training to let me have his pair since I was a paying client. I felt bad that he had come so far and not dive. And then on that dive, my air lasted only 27 minutes and instead of sending me and another short person up, or sharing air, the dive master for my group took everybody up. I again felt really bad that everybody had come so far for such a short dive time. The next dive that day my air lasted a normal amount so I must have had another leak.

About the sixth day of fun diving, as I was getting off the dive boat into the longtail boat that took us to and from shore, I slipped completely and landed hard on my right butt cheek (and bottom of my pelvic bone) and on the outside right ankle bone. Both hurt so bad I thought they could be broken. I was in a lot of pain for the ride into shore and imagining how I might fly home if I could not sit or stand. It turns out they were not broken, just badly bruised and I walked and sat gingerly for a few days.

On the next to the last day for me to dive, we went out to a site called Chumpon, a pinnacle about 12 km out, in deep water where there was a possibility of seeing large schools of barracuda, reef sharks and whale sharks. The trip there was very rough and I was glad to have taken Dramamine even though I was still miserable. The swells we were hitting were 10 or 12 foot. The boat was riding them like a bucking bronco but we finally got there OK.

There were two groups going down. A dive master in training and her buddy... and my group - a dive master and three fun divers. My buddy and I were descending when we realized that the buddy of the dive master was having ear equalization problems. My buddy and I continued to descend to the bottom of the buoy line and then waited for them. After five minutes of giving it more tries, the dive master told her buddy to surface and go back to the boat. At about the time she reached us at the bottom, the other pair of divers came by and one of them made the signal for shark and pointed. We all followed him over a saddle in the ridge, looking for the shark. Finally I did see it - a 2 meter long black tip I was just barely able to make out at about 40 feet away as it swam into and out of the deep blue.

We swam along the pinnacle wall southwest and continued to look left, out at the shark and then.... sharks, that would slowly appear and then disappear. Three...... no four of them cruising just into and out of our visual range…. like ghosts. There were a couple of times I wandered out away from the wall to try to get a better look.
And then we came upon a huge school of barracuda. There must have been a thousand of them, anywhere from 1 foot to 3 feet long, swimming slowly and calmly, whole segments of the school moving and turning like a flock of birds. We swam among and through them and could have reached out and touched. It was amazing.

And then we had to return to the buoy line and surface. The sharks were still out there, this time on our right as we retraced our way back along the pinnacle wall, and I continued to wander out towards them but finally had to say goodbye. On the surface after the dive, the divemasters were raving about the number of sharks we saw. Someone told the story about another dive at Chumpon where a group divers laid down on the pinnacle which enticed the curious sharks to come in way closer to investigate. I wished we had done that.

Back at the dive shop everyone wanted to go back to Chumpon ASAP. The next day's afternoon dives were to be my last. The first dive site scheduled was a bay on the north side of the island and a site I had not dived before. The second was a site called Japanese Garden that I had only been to once on my second night dive and I was eager to see it in the day. When I got to the dive shop I found that I was the only fun diver that afternoon. If the weather (wind) had been better I could had chosen to go back to Chumpon instead of the scheduled dives. There was, however, a dive the next morning scheduled to go to Chumpon and I decided that instead of taking the morning ferry back to Ko Samui, I'd dive that morning and take the afternoon one.... and signed up for it the dive.

On this day however the wind was so intense and surf so rough we could not go to the bay on the north side. The first dive site we did end up going to was a site close by that was somewhat sheltered from the weather.

It was on this dive that I was first bitten - on the leg. I felt a nibble and turned around expecting to see a big Trigger fish but the only fish there was a little 3 inch long blue, yellow and black striped fish, scurrying away. On the surface, the divemaster said this fish commonly scavenges food scraps from the mouths of bigger fish.

On the way to the second dive at the Japanese Garden we were heading into oncoming waves 10 - 12 feet high. At one point the 45 foot long dive boat reached the top of a wave, breeched it and dropped 10 feet into the trough. I was glad I had taken a Dramamine, but I was still feeling pretty bad.... and having second thoughts about riding a rough hour out and an hour back to Chumpon the next day, to dive down to where we might be able to get closer to the sharks or interest them in coming closer to us.

When we finally made it to the Japanese Garden, it was too rough to stay and we opted for a dive site inside the bay area where it was calmer. Unfortunately all the other dive shop boats were there as well. It was a real zoo down there, with more people than fish, but I enjoyed and savored the dive because I knew it might be my last. I was also nibbled here on the same spot on the same leg by the same type fish. Pretty weird.

The morning I was to leave the wind was very strong and I knew that the scheduled dive to Chumpon would be canceled anyway. I was more worried about the ferry. I had serious doubts about the safety of that speedboat in high waves, especially when fully loaded and top heavy with passengers. I had an extra day in my itinerary and did not have to be back in Ko Samui for my flight back to Bankkok for another two days, so I could stay another day on Ko Tao and try to wait out the weather if I wanted. But it could get worse and the ferries not run at all. I decided to risk it, took a pill and a half of Dramamine and put a pair of swimming goggles in my shorts pocket so that if the boat went under and I survived long enough to put them on, I might not lose my contacts and then be able to see the nearest shore to swim to.

Fortunately, the ferry turned out to be a 45 foot long, 30 foot wide catamaran complete with an enclosed deck with 15 rows of airline seats 12 across and facing forward and the two TV screens that would play a movie en-route. I was, however, glad to have taken the Dramamine and there were many other people who wished they had. Even with the size and stability of this boat, the waves played havoc with it. The movie was "Triple X" (again) and the action scenes went well with the crashing of the boat. At one point, in a scene where the hero jumps and flies over a barn on a motorcycle, the ferry bounded up a wave and dropped down into the trough just as the action on the screen did.

When I got to Ko Samui, I found the resort I had booked a room in but the rooms and bungalows were so small and close together that, after lunch, I went out in search of a nicer place and found one that had a goldfish pond and a large landscaped garden next to the beach, with rooms with a cable TV and for less money .

Later that afternoon as the sun was setting and I was sitting in the garden chair on the edge of the beach I witnessed a very large (about the size of a hippo) and well fed water buffalo and it's owner running down the beach like a westerner out for a jog. Later I was to see them running back up the beach so I guess it was out jogging.

I'm in Chiang Mai now and will fly to Luang Prabang, an old French flavored town in north Laos, the day after tomorrow. I will spend 3 days there and then return here to spend my last 3 days in Thailand before I travel to Hong Kong.

Last night I had the best pizza since I left Italy. It seems strange to say that.... to remember and realize that I was in Europe not so long ago. The time I spent trekking in Nepal and the time I've spent in Thailand and under water has put my head in a different space. But I still remember Cinque Terre, Siena, the Isle of Skye.... like they were yesterday. The places I spent the longest time at, Naxos and Ko Tao, were the hardest to leave - a kind of traveler's inertia, where a body at rest resists being a body in transit. Sitting here writing about them takes me right back, as if I never did leave. Such is the disassociative effects of prolonged travel.