Bangkok (May 5-8th)

I left the karst mountains of Khao Sok at midday on the 5th of May.




My overnight bus to Bangkok, arrived even earlier than its scheduled 5am time, so I had even longer to sit on the stoop of my hostel until 5:30am when security arrived and let me in. I fell asleep on the couch in the lounge area for a while and it wasn't until I awoke at eight that I realized that someone had robbed me of 800 baht, equivalent to approximately $250.
I had separated my money into two wallets, placing one in my small bag and one in my large, in case of thievery. But I had expected to keep my big bag with me rather than in the luggage compartment and, when that changed last second, I forgot to retrieve the wallet. The thief had somehow managed to undo my lock, find my wallet in its secret compartment, take the cash, throw the wallet haphazardly back in my pack, reclose my bag, and lock it back up. But I was too relieved at the fact that my passport and credit cards were all there to get overly upset about the cash.
In any case, Simon, my Kiwi buddy from Phuket arrived later that morning, and the two of us set off to explore the city, wandering in and out of niche markets-- like the one of nothing but good luck medallions. We sought refuge from the heat in the sprawling Bangkok National Museum, which featured all manner of Thai artifacts, from full-sized pagodas...




... to tiny, intricately-decorated theater puppets,




... from the outlandishly ornate royal funereal carriages (painted rather messily, upon close inspection, I might add)...




... to the bizarre novelty weapons collected by former kings.




We returned to the lovely Niras Bangkoc Cultural Hostel and were finally able to check in, at which point we each passed out for a nap in our bunks. Upon waking, we headed out for a bite to eat on Khao San Road, the bustling backpacker mecca of Bangkok. Touts lined every inch of the road, selling ironic t-shirts and other traveler duds; barkers (and whisperers) proffered tickets for lady-boy and ping-pong shows-- the former featuring the titular drag queens and the latter spotlighting women shooting ping pong balls at each other in the least ladylike way imaginable. And from seemingly every doorway came the call of "Massage?" There were even outdoor parlors.




Vendors pushed food carts up and down past seemingly innumerable outdoor bars serving the ubiquitous Singha and Chang beers to the ubiquitous falangs (white people) sitting on the ubiquitous tiny red chaifs at the ubiquitous tiny red plastic tables. I sampled as much fare as I could stand and my mouth watered over what I couldn't fit in my belly: mangos with sweet sticky rice covered in coconut milk, fresh fruit shakes, pad thai cooked in the wok right before your eyes, fresh tom yum soup, and savory seafood salad. When I had thoroughly stuffed myself and we'd both had a couple beers, we left and hit the hay.
The next day we tackled the most well-trodden of the notable tourist sites, starting with the Grand Palace.




Admittance depended on covered shoulders and knees, which guards monitored strictly, admonishing offenders with bullhorns and attitude, so we dressed accordingly despite the stifling heat.




The palace complex stretched over blocks and included buildings of all shapes and sizes, but I most enjoyed the details, like the masterful-- and minute!-- tile and gild work...




... the delightfully expressive statues we discovered around every bend...




... and the pots of bonsai trees and floating lily pads setting off the garish gold paint used on so many of its structures.




Worshippers kneeled beside outdoor shrines...




... and bowed to the fabled Emerald Buddha (actually made of jade).




As we exited the ancient palace, we passed by the modern estate that succeeded it, an unexpectedly harmonious structure comprising a french base and a Thai roof, complete with the traditional stupas.




Because if there's anything the Thais insist upon, it's a lot of stupas!




Personally, I preferred the (very) slightly more subdued modern buildings, with their tempered use of gold set off against bright white foundations.




After we'd left the grounds and peeled off our long layers, we hopped on a river ferry and headed south to see the giant reclining buddha in Wat Pho.




Then we went back to the hostel, where I ate a pad thai from the dirt-cheap yet super-tasty dive across the street. Since neither of us had much energy, Simon took a nap, and I caught a showing of "The Avengers" at the intimidatingly garish mega-cinema downtown, for which I had to have a reservation and assigned seating! When I got back, we were both too tired to go out, so we each plopped into bed.
The next day, I hugged Simon goodbye and reunited with Tayler my friend and dive instructor in the Gilis who had since left his post and was traveling without his best bud Nick for the first time in something like 4 years. I met him at his hotel, where we inadvertently got drunk at 11am because of the take-no-refusals hospitality of a sweet African friend he'd made earlier that day.
Once I'd moved my things into his room and we'd arranged our passage to Cambodia the next day, we went out for curry and then got side-by-side Thai massages, which Tayler insisted that I must experience. The treatment felt less like a rubdown and more like being stretched and worked like taffy. I loved it! The perfect compliment to my daily yoga regimen! That night we wandered Khao San with beers obtained from a Seven/Eleven--- a constant from my childhood that I certainly hadn't expected to see on every other block in Thailand, but there they were, Slurpees and all. And the next day, off we went to Cambodia!
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Location:Bangkok, Thailand

Khao Sok (May 2-4th)

I took a bus from Khao Lak to Khao Sok and with the change of two letters in the name and several hours on a bus, I went from beach sands to karst-peaked jungle. I hunted out a Lonely Planet-recommended guest house. Unusual for me, but I thought I'd give it a try. And as expected, a drastic price hike had shortly followed the LP recommendation, and I couldn't afford it. Since I'd walked so far, however, and since the restaurant was perched so prettily on the riverbank, I decided to stay.




From my table, I had a lovely view of the watering hole where several people, locals and foreigners alike, sought relief from the punishing heat.




After a tasty lunch, I headed back to the sole main road in the town and found a cozy collection of stilt bungalows around a charming restaurant/lobby, for a bargain basement price, and settled in.
From the porch of my little cottage, I had an excellent view of the limestone peaks less than a mile away. And from the open-air restaurant, where I could sit anytime regardless of appetite, I could take in the smells and sounds of the jungle in which I sat. I'd made a good choice.




Shortly after my arrival, I tried a short hike in the National Park-- the raison d'être of the town itself. The fact that a light thunderstorm had begun didn't deter me. I threw on my sneakers and a poncho and decided to tough it out. A small fee and my signature were all that were required to enter, and soon I was on one of the half-dozen trails open to hikers.
I use the word "trail" loosely. Beyond the first 200 meters, the way became barely discernible. Fallen leaves and trees covered the paths, where live foliage hadn't overgrown it already.




At first, the sense of adventure invigorated me. I charged ahead, a stupid grin on my face and a bounce in my step. The rain pelted my poncho and water ran down my face and bare legs. The path cut back and forth across creeks and wound through bamboo groves, and signs warned of wild elephants. If only, I thought hopefully.




I scrambled over fallen tree trunks often and balanced on slippery rocks to cross the creeks, sometimes landing with a splash in the water. I thought little of the soaked state of my feet until an hour and a half into my journey. It had been sometime since I had seen a sign confirming my route, and I needed some water anyway, so I took a quick rest. Glancing down at my foot, I saw a glistening greenish-brown lump sticking out of my sock.
Already knowing what I would find, I pulled the sock down and saw a half-sated leech affixed to my ankle. Pushing the ick factor out of my head, I racked my brain for the correct means of removing a leech in the wild, and nothing came, despite my having read up on such measures before my trip. I was fairly certain that you weren't supposed to simply rip them off, but I had no alternative, and-- handle myself calmly though I may-- I couldn't stomach the thought of walking on with it still attached. I grabbed a leaf, used it like a napkin, and tore the sucker-- pun intended-- off.
I feared that where there was one.... well, you know the saying. The thought repulsed me. I removed both shoes, and my fears were confirmed: 10 more slugs of varying degrees of engorgement clung to my feet. I removed the smaller ones in the same way I had the other, but the last one perplexed me. Clearly, he had arrived first at the party. He was huge. I couldn't believe there had been room for him in my shoe. Or that he had started out so incredibly tiny. Positively minuscule, in fact! I stared with morbid fascination. He had maneuvered his way into the space between my big and second toes and gone to town. When I finally found a leaf with which I could get a good grip on him, I yanked hard, and must have squeezed as well, because he exploded like a squib, splattering my foot and the ground with blood. So much blood!
So much blood erupting from all of the suction sites, actually! I knew that leeches secreted a blood thinner, but I had no idea how the resulting free-flow would appear when coming from 11 wounds in a limited area. I looked like I had suffered from rare tropical disease causing me to bleed from my pores or something.
As I stood marveling at the scarlet rivers running over my feet, I saw a new leech attempting to claim some of the territory. I sprayed him to death with my insect repellent, pulled my shoes back on, and continued walking.
Not 15 minutes later, I fell on my ass. The section on which I'd fallen was no slipperier than any other. In truth, some of the other tracts had merited signage, warning of the danger:




But I suppose the leeches had taken my focus, and I hadn't paid enough attention.
After I'd raised myself up off my rump and walked on a hundred meters or so, it occurred to me that I was quite lucky not to have injured myself beyond a few scratches. I also realized that I hadn't seen a single other person the entire time on the trail, that only the park ranger knew that I had even entered the park and not even which route I'd taken, that I had no cell phone, and that I wasn't even sure if I was still on an actual trail. Suddenly, the "No one knows I'm here" scene from "127 Hours" flashed through my brain, and I decided to turn around.
As I walked, I noticed more tiny leeches determinedly climbing the sides of my shoes. I sprayed most of them to death, holding the trigger down as I sprayed, heedless of how wasteful I was being. The revulsion I had suppressed while removing the early colonists emerged with a vengeance as I fought off their disciples. I walked twice as fast as I had in the other direction, wanting nothing more than to get safely out of the damp.
When at last I reached the park entrance, I dumped my sneakers into the trash. (They had all but fallen apart already anyway.) Then I returned to the cosy sanctuary of my accommodation, vowing to remain there for the rest of my time in Khao Sok.
I spent the next two days writing, catching up on rest, doing yoga, and hanging out with the bungalow owner's dog, who followed me everywhere and would wait outside my door when I went into my little cottage.




He would snuggle up at my feet while I ate or worked on my blog on the porch. On one occasion, when I must not have paid him enough attention for his liking, he hopped up onto the table beside mine, sat down, and stared at me from eye level.




My other regular dinner companion was a toad the size of a softball, who would hop around my table, but then hop just as quickly away if I turned in his direction.




On my last morning in Khao Sok, I took a pic of my usual collection of used, left-behind water bottles-- and this only for 3 days!-- which made me feel terribly wasteful, but I left Khao Soak feeling healthier, hydrated, more rested, and generally ready for whatever came next on my trip.




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Location:Khao Sok, Thailand

Diving the Similan Islands, Part 2 (April 30th-May 1st)

I woke up wrapped in my bedding on a lounge chair on the top deck.




Over the course of the night, Captain Tid had piloted us to our next dive site at Northpoint-- fittingly, the northernmost dive site in the Similan Islands.




I woke up Thierry and Maia, who had also slept on the deck, and I started the day with my new favorite breakfast: bananas, peanut butter, and




Within the first 10 seconds of our first dive, my mask broke and began to flood. Uncharacteristically, I remained calm. I signaled to Tam, whose group I'd rejoined, and we exchanged masks at 25 meters. He was able to patch it enough to make it through the dive, and I went on with his. And thank goodness because the dive was awesome, replete with banded sea snakes/kraits, yellow masked angelfish, varicose wartslugs, blue dragons, and the biggest giant moray any of us had ever seen, wedged between two massive slabs of rock. And Lia, the boat's dive photographer captured the whole thing brilliantly.




I was elated to find her by my side when we came across a beautiful hawksbill turtle.




Then we came across another, who posed with a moorish idol.




On our second dive of the day-- this one at Koh Bon Ridge, a few kilometers away-- Lia stuck with our group again, and the two of us clambered after two particularly evasive reef octopi.




Our afternoon snack of oranges, hardly made it into anyone's bellies because most of us used them instead for juggling practice under the tutelage of the adept Thierry. Except for the crew, of course, who instead spent their midday break as they had all the others: fishing or buying the catch of the day off the locals for their own suppers.
For the third dive, we moved along to Taichai Plateau, where we encountered our first school of batfish.




Toward the end of the dive, we came across a current so strong that we had to cling to the coral wall by our fingertips. To get from one section to another, we had to swim harder than I had ever swum in my life and, at one point, form a small chain to catch Sophie, who was perilously close to being swept into the deep.
That afternoon, we bizarrely snacked on mango and French fries while I studied upstairs on the sundeck with Stu. I also accidentally flashed Francisco while attempting to rewrap my sarong, and, gentleman that he is, he began hollering, "I saw a booby!" around the deck. Maturity, thy name is Francisco.
That night we had a fantastic sunset dive at the same location, on which we saw scribbled filefish, andaman sweetlips, brown marbled grouper, red tooth triggerfish, rainbow wrasse, and lots of giant morays and lion fish.




We came up into a thunderstorm and consequently powerful waves that made for one hell of a time getting to and back aboard the boat. Over dinner, we listened to our instructor' stories of other professionals narcing out in depths beyond their skill level-- essentially getting drunk on their air-- thinking they are fish, and swimming away.
Since the weather didn't allow for another deck slumber, I went to bed in my bunk, hoping against hope that the skies would clear by morning, so as not to interfere with our journey to the highlight of the trip: Richelieu Rock.




When I awoke, it appeared that my prayers had been answered, metaphorically speaking, but we didn't head out immediately. The first dive of the day was our third at Tachai Plateau, but the locale still held surprises, like a gigantic napoleon wrasse.




Gigantic to my inexperienced eyes, at least. Those had seen them before said that this one, at a mere meter and a half height and two meter length, barely approached the size to which they CAN grow. I, however, had never seen a bigger fish, and it impressed the heck out of me.
But the best still awaited us, when, a few hours later, we arrived at the renowned Richelieu Rock. There I got to complete my Advanced OW training by testing my skills at fish identification. I couldn't have picked a better dive for it. We saw tomato anemone fish, peppered morays, tiger tail seahorses...




... cornetfish, skunk anemone fish, brown marbled groupers, harlequin shrimp...




...redcoat squirrel fish, juvenile emperor angelfish (which I had to identify and draw, once back on the DQ), and a massive school of chevron barracuda.




I came up from the dive positively giddy. So giddy, in fact, that I didn't realize that the latch didn't catch when I went into the bathroom to change out of my wetsuit, under which I had started wearing nothing because of the rash I'd gotten from my bathing suit strap. At the exact moment between removing my wetsuit and getting dressed again, Fokke slid open the door. I screamed, as did Ya and Gay who stood in the kitchen area, immediately behind him.




As he yelled, "Oh!" and shut the door again, all four of us burst out laughing. After I'd dressed and collected myself, I came back out, apologized to all three of them, and returned upstairs, giggling and hearing Ya and Gay's giggles behind me. I couldn't believe I had unintentionally been seen nude twice in two days!
On our second Richelieu dive we came across jan's pipefish, devil's scorpionfish...




... banded boxer shrimp, and pineapple fish.




One particularly curious batfish seemed to adopt us, staying by our sides from the moment he found us, until we had to ascend to our safety stop. Due to a strong current, we took the stop along an anchor cord.
The force of the water against us was such that we could barely hold on. I became inverted as we thrashed about. I loved every second of it.
Our night dive at Tachai Southeast Ridge held few surprises but it did have the added suspense of a faulty flashlight. When it went out, I attempted to get my group's attention, but that can be hard to do in the pitch black of the ocean by night, WITHOUT A LIGHT. I managed to get it back on for a few minutes at a time by banging it with my hand and kept close to my group in the interims.
That night, a few of us played games and finished my red wine, but then it was off to bed. I stayed up just until midnight in order to wish Thierry his first
Happy Birhday, then I fell solidly asleep.
A stunning sunrise roused me for our last morning of diving.




At breakfast, the dive masters surprised Thierry with an M&M pancake cake.




On our first dive, at Koh Bon Ridge, I really began to feel how much 12 prior dives had taken out of me. I enjoyed it, of course, but I felt sluggish and glad that the next one would be our last.
Between dives, I panicked when I couldn't find my dive computer and thought I might be out several hundred dollars, if I needed to replace it. I searched everywhere and eventually found that another diver had grabbed mine accidentally. What a relief!
They'd saved the Boonsung Wreck for last. Visibility wasn't great, but what we could see amazed me. I'd never even heard of the honeycomb eel, but once I'd seen it, I couldn't think of even one possible evolutionary reason for its appearance, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.




Lion and puffer fish abounded, and a sucker fish chased us, trying to attach to each of us in turn, and almost succeeding with Maia, who began to bleed after he bit her. It was a fun last dive.




Back on board, we put our gear in cleaning tubs to go back ashore. We cleaned out our bunks, got the last signatures from our dive masters in our dive books, and hung out on the main deck for the 4-hour journey back to Khao Lak.




On arrival, we bid farewell to the crew, the boat, and the ridiculously addictive cookies onboard.
That night, I split a triple with Fokke and Thierry, and the three of us met Stu, Lia, Francisco and Virginie for birthday drinks at a local watering hole. I felt a bit wobbly back on land, so I didn't move on to the second location, but I'd had a great time in any case.




The next morning, Fokke and Thierry hugged me goodbye. I called my Grandma to wish her a happy 86th birthday. Then it was on to a bus and off from Khao Lak to Kao Sak!
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Location:Khao Lak, Thailand