Southern Thailand

Phuket

Friday, February 28

After flying through Bangkok to Phuket, Thailand, I met this woman at the baggage claim. She mentions sharing a Grab together to the southern part of the island. However, I don’t really see how the Grab driver is going to drop her on southwestern part and me on the southeastern. Google maps is showing me it’s about an hour to my hostel on a public shuttle for a fraction of the cost of this Grab. I’m soon stuck with this woman waiting outside an airport for a Grab that doesn’t let Grabs in. We walk to find him and then we explain we want two different drop-offs and he wants considerably more. I’m out and go to find the shuttle that should be leaving from the other side of the airport in about 15 minutes. The woman is now also going to take the shuttle. There are actually multiple shuttles depending on your location and I’m on a different one than this lady, which I’m now thankful for. I sit at the airport for another 30-40 minutes before we leave. A couple more people get on and then we drive off for about five minutes then switch to another van. Then we drop two girls off at a bus station and switch vans again. We stop and pick people up and then drop them off along the way. I’m one of the last stops this shuttle makes and the only person in the van at the end. I ask them if they can stop closer to my hostel, and they end up delivering me about 100 meters from the hostel, which was great, because it’s now 9pm and I’m starving.

I met a girl in my room at Sleepy Station Hostel, who happens to be meeting up with her brother and his food for a bit. I end up joining them and we eat at a street market with a lot of variety, but I get some spring rolls and fried chicken. After a walk to the beach, we all head back.

Saturday, February 29

I hang out at the hostel for a little bit and meet a couple guys that want to head to the beach. We all walk to Karon Beach together even though we’re closer to Kata beach. It’s pretty hot, even by 10:30am so we all go for a swim and by the time I get back to my towel I’m already dry again. I read for a bit, go for another swim and then decide to head back for some food. I had woken up in the middle of the night, surely sick from the street market food and had decided to take it easy all day.

By afternoon, I felt a little bit better and rented a scooter. I drove inland to the Big Buddha. And man, it was indeed the biggest Buddha I’ve ever seen. Walked around the whole thing and sat in the shade for a bit enjoying the view. Then I drove up to the more famous Patong Beach to check out their market. Everything they had I had seen before, as a typical market in Thailand would. I got some dumplings for dinner there and then drove back to my hostel.

I sat there for a bit trying to figure out what islands I wanted to go to, as most people were going to Koh Phi Phi, but I also heard it was gross there. I opted to go straight to Koh Lanta and bought my ticket for the later option in the morning.

Sunday, March 1

I woke up at the crack of dawn and drove to the southernmost point to watch the sunrise. Turns out, it’s more of a sunset watching spot than a sunrise watching spot and I couldn’t see much. I did get some good views on the way back and saw the rising sun poking through some trees at one point.

I return the scooter and get some breakfast nearby. My bag is ready to go and I’m able to sit and wait for the pick-up to the ferry port. Another guy from my hostel, Buzz is also waiting for the ride, but is going to Koh Phi Phi. He’s Canadian and we end up chatting while we wait, and then more in the hour ride of picking up more people. We saw goodbye, and then realize we’re on the same ferry to Koh Phi Phi, and then I’ll switch to another ferry to Koh Lanta there, so we awkwardly have a few more hours of hanging out.

Once in Koh Phi Phi, I have about an hour to kill before the second ferry. There is a mass exodus to leave the ferry and people are getting their temperatures taken for Coronavirus, as well as having to pay a $5 “trash fee” to enter the island. I wave goodbye to Buzz as he continues onto the island and I wait at the ferry so I don’t have to pay the fee for an hour to sit in a Burger King. I sat there reading until it got closer. I then go over and ask some people waiting at a desk and they look at my ticket and tell me to wait. I am waiting and waiting and then say to myself, “This doesn’t feel right.” So I go and ask some other people, they show me the line of people getting on the boat and I hop in it.

Koh Lanta

The hostel, Non La Mer, had written in their “About us” section the approximate cost of the tuk-tuk from the ferry port to the hostel and also mentioned the cost from the town at the end of the island. A man had been on the boat trying to sell taxis to people, but I didn’t like this. When I got off there was about 25 women with signs forming a small passageway to get through all shouting “Taxi, taxi” at you. I made eye contact with one woman and negotiated with her. Once I got close enough to the recommended price from the hostel and the driver found two other people to share the tuk-tuk and we were off.

I loved this hostel with its hammocks and cushions for the floor. I was starving at this point so I walked down the street and got some fried rice with double chicken and a chocolate chip cookie, which I hadn’t seen in ages. Then I walked to the beach for the sunset because even though I was meant to be getting to Koh Lanta by 2pm, it was more like 5pm before I arrived, which limited the number of islands I could get to drastically as it took an entire day of travel to go anywhere. I met some nice Norwegian girls in my room. I met a friend from earlier travels at the Mushroom Bar, which had cool neon paint you could paint yourself or the tables with. We went just for a drink and we got another late dinner together.

Monday, March 2

I really just wanted to lay out on the beach for the day and relax after the day of traveling. I met the Norwegian girls, Isalin and Mae there, and then played some volleyball with them and some other new people.

After an afternoon of searching for my scuba diving card and looking up different companies, I found the cheapest to be with my hostel, as they would give me a discount with Go Dive! I lied on the phone and said it had been five years since my last dive and they said since it was beyond two I would need to do a refresher. Little did they know, it had actually been ten years since my last dive.

By evening, I went to a place that the Norwegian girls had said had really good pad thai. It was a little old man with a cart and a wok and he served the pad Thai in a piece of paper, much like you’d get fish and chips in England. After a beer and hanging out at the beach for a bit, I went back to the hostel and made sure I was ready for the morning.

Tuesday, March 3

I was picked up around 7am from a truck out front. As the last one in the tuk-tuk, we were all driven to the Go Dive! office. They didn’t have my name when I checked-in, the only blank on the page with my hostel next to it. I had spelled my name for her on the phone, so I laughed a little to myself and then went on to do my paperwork. I was never asked for my diving license, just the number, and I’m not even sure they referenced that. Then I was asked to try on some fins and a wet suit (I put my on backwards, like I said it had been a while). Then I got on the boat and the next thing I knew, we were off.

The drive was about an hour and they made an announcement about the day, and how breakfast and lunch were to work, where the toilet was, and where the sea sick medicine was and how it worked as a preventative. We had toast, hot drinks, tuna fish, and other random things for breakfast. After seeing one of the dive masters, I took his idea and made a little tuna fish sandwich with carrots.

My dive master for the day, I can’t remember his name so I’ll call him Steve, as part of the refresher course, he asked me to fill out a quiz to see how much I had remembered. He also said I would be with this older French couple and they spoke very little English, so everything he said he had to tell us twice, once in English for me and once in French for them. I actually enjoyed this, because his body language was the same each time, so I could pick up on what he was saying when he told them in French and I remembered more. Anyway, I sat down next to this French couple just in case I had a question, but their questionnaire was in French anyway and they spoke no English, so that was useless. Steve went over the answers with me, and I actually did ok. For future reference, when in doubt with scuba diving, just go with the most safe sounding answer, because you’ll probably be right!

After the quiz, he had us how we would go re-learn how to put all our equipment together, and then relax until the horn sounded, put our equipment on, jump in and do an underwater quiz, which he had just explained and consisted of finding neutral buoyancy, finding our respirator by reaching our arm behind us, and clearing our masks.

Then we went downstairs and he showed us how to put assemble our tanks to our BCD, which I couldn’t remember what it stood for, but I knew what it was. We also practiced turning our tanks on and off and checking to make sure the gauge was working as well as the tank was full. Then we returned upstairs for a few minutes and left anything we wanted to keep dry up there. A few minutes later, the horn sounded and we went back down to put our wetsuits on, get our fins, and goggles on, and do a buddy check to ensure the tank was secure.

Steve jumped into the water first and I was the last one of the group. It took a second for my respirator to kick in and then it was good to good. We hung out above water for a few minutes before going down for the underwater test. I had another weight added around my tank and then was reminded to exhale going down. As someone had recently told me, its suddenly easy to forget how to breathe when you’re underwater. I had also forgotten how much my own lungs worked in changing my buoyancy.

But alas, we all finish the three things we had to do as part of our refresher and then went a little further down and immediately see a sea turtle! We watch him for a minute before he disappears into the rocks and we keep swimming. We saw a ton of other fish including a lion fish and an eel and various types of coral. Before I know it, the French guy is running lowest on air and we start to make our ascent. Upon reaching the surface, we are a little bit of a swim away from the boat. I didn’t realize my BCD wasn’t totally inflated, so I struggled a little, but eventually made it to the boat and handed over my fins to the boat guy while I went up the ladder.

Back on the boat, we strip off our wetsuits and weight belts and switch out our tanks so we’re ready for the next dive. The next dive site is just a couple minutes away, so we all enjoy a 45-minute break where Steve gives us a breakdown of this dive, we have some fruit and drinks before the horn sounds again and we get everything back on, the boat moves about 100 meters and we jump back in the water.

First, the French couple takes some pictures with their kids in a different group. And then we swim down into this “cave” that has an exit. It was quite cool being in this room with fish swimming in every direction. Then we exit the cave and swim along a wall. Steve is point out interesting animals along the way. When Steve asks us how full our tanks are, mine is already running low, so we begin to make our ascent. I screwed up and ascended way faster than I should have. But we made it back to the boat, no problems stripped our wetsuits off again and left everything there for the staff to put away. Steve went over the log book information with me and gave me some recommendations on where to scuba dive in Malaysia, where I was headed in a couple days. After arriving back at the office, those of us that had to pay lined up, and then got in the tuk-tuk to be driven back to our hostels and hotels.

Log Book Stats

Dive 1: Koh Haa Lagoon

3/3/20

Maximum Dive Depth: 15.3 meters

Bottom Water Temperature: Above 27C

Visibility: 6-12 meters

Bottom Time: 53 minutes

Dive 2: Koh Haa 1

3/3/20

Maximum Dive Depth: 18 meters

Bottom Water Temperature: Above 27C

Visibility: 6-12 meters

Bottom Time: 52 minutes

After arriving back at the hostel, I hung out on some cushions with a bunch of people socializing. Then we all went to the beach for smoothies and a game of volleyball, but were joined by some older people that didn’t allow talking during the game. We were too many people anyway, so the group from our hostel hung out in the water for a bit and then went to a different volleyball court further down the beach.

It was quite fun and we played until the sun went down, and then all went back to shower. We grabbed dinner across the street, which was quite reasonable and delicious. Then we got beers from the store and took them back upstairs to our comfy cushions while someone played on the guitar and the rest of us pretended that we would sing, but no one did.

Wednesday, March 4

Everyone else had already scootered around the island the day before, but said how fun it was. I had the free breakfast at the hostel and got my scooter from them. My intention was to start at the national park on the southern tip, but I missed a turn, and ended up near the Old Town. I found a new pair of sunglasses, as mine had been missing since I went tubing in Laos. I also got a shirt and a milkshake. I then drove down the pier and back to the southern point of the island, thinking I could loop back up, but the road doesn’t connect at the bottom. So I drove all the way up, taking a stop to walk through the mangrove forest, crossing the bridge into the northern part of Koh Lanta, and then walking through the Wednesday market, which I found disappointing and as it was all fresh produce.

I’m now at the top of the island and I drive all the way to the southernmost point to the National Park where I’m stopped and have to pay an entrance fee, which I don’t have. I go back to the first beach and try to park my scooter on this hill. I get my scooter very stuck and am sweating profusely and then the scooter topples over. Luckily, it was fine and I could pick it back up, wheel it down to a flatter surface to park it.

It’s about 2pm and the sand on the way to the beach burns the bottoms of my feet, but the water feels so good. I dry off, trying to read, but it’s too hot, so I jump in the water again and then leave. On the way back, I find an overpriced restaurant with a nice view. After getting some food, I make my way to this waterfall, Khlong Chak in the center of the island. I started hiking in with some people but then realized I left my phone in my scooter, so I go back for it and hike in by myself. What I thought was an obvious path, quickly becomes not so obvious and I see people way below me while I’m up on this hill. I thought I saw the path return, and take it, but then am sliding down the dirt and rock based hill on my butt, which is why there is still a hole in my leggings on my right butt cheek to this day. Eventually, I get to this waterfall and it’s a mere drip coming down, hello dry season. Anyway, I’m hot, so I go and dip in the little pool of water and climb the giant log leaning in front of the waterfall. I meet some people from Amsterdam and they seem so nice, and we agree to meet up when I’m in Amsterdam in two weeks. Little did I know, I wouldn’t make it to back to Europe for quite some time.

I return to my hostel and find everyone hanging there, mostly because they are extremely sunburnt from the day before and haven’t been able to move too much. We hang out for a bit before getting food at a place the Norwegians wanted to go that supports anti-animal cruelty. It was prix-fixed meal and half the group found it too expensive, so we enjoyed a beer there and then split off to go back to the same restaurant as the night before.

We found everyone sitting on the cushions again when we returned and more people had arrived to the hostel, including one girl that had been in the immigration line with me between Thailand and Laos, and then been at my hostel in Vang Vieng, and then the bus to Vientiane. It felt like a very small world. The group went down to drink on the beach, and this girl Megan and I started chatting for a bit as she was just arriving in Koh Lanta, but heading to Malaysia after. Sure enough, she was in the bunk above me, so it felt like fate that we kept meeting.