Kho Tao.20th largest Island in Thailand.
Population: 70% British. General topography of island: 60% dive centers, 25% western style restaurants, bars and clubs and 15% clothes shops which all have exactly the same stock.
Kho Tao a.k.a. Hotel California. A place I planned to spend 6 weeks and stayed 4 months.
Here is my story in pictures and a few words... well.... maybe not so few.
The new Fatty (who passed away whilst I've been here...sniff sniff)
The New Sony pictures / Force 5
Blue spotted Ray, White Rock
Fab Pizza (for Thailand) but the service will never be able to match up to home. Marco you are missed.
Me, Clare and Amy on their snorkel test - The infamous rite of passage that DMTs are expected to do when they complete their training.
This consists of the graduate drinking copious amounts of alcohol fed to them through a snorkel whilst wearing a mask, therefore not enabling them to breathe. They are then obliged to complete some form of obstacle course created by the dive school in front of an audience.
My idea of hell and something I managed to avoid by not turning up to mine. Sorry Nick and Wib!!!!
My whole diving experience didn't exactly start out as smoothly as hoped. On my first dive, whilst trying to conduct an air of skill and professionalism, I managed to misjudge the long tail boat and slip. Only saved from the water by grabbing the mooring line, I found myself dangling from said line, feet on boat arse inches above water, everyone scrambling around trying to hoist me back on the boat. Not exactly my finest moment. I was automatically accepted as an honorary member of Team Fuckwit. The next few days didn't get any better. I had conveniently forgotten that I suffered from an acute case of sea sickness, which isn't fun when you are on a boat everyday and have specific duties to attend to. It tended to be worse in the morning when we did the deeper and further away dive sites and funnily enough normally followed a night where I had stupidly tried to keep up with Team Fuckwit. This lead to a distinct pattern of absence for morning dives and my membership of Team Fuckwit revoked to be reassigned to my own little club, Team Lightweight. Yes my friends, me, a lightweight!!! Luckily my solitary membership didn't last long and two other DMTs joined Siam, both of which were as crap as me in the partying department.
Jonas :
and Raoul:
Raoul, was a fantastic guy with incredibly dry wit. My favorite quote from him being that the man always has the last word…… “yes darling”. Unfortunately due to marital pressure he only hung around for a month. He had obviously said his last word.
Jonas however moved in next door to me and we became best buddies.
Another addition to the family was Satan. Given to me by this man...
Al, boyfriend of Amy, and instigator of the chaos that Team Fuckwit conducted so well. Al is also renowned for being a Master Jedi in lighter thievery and also likes to adopt animals, give them weird complexes/names, and then spot a sucker like me to palm the poor animal off on. At the time I was given Satan I was at my lowest ebb. I'd just returned from a Visa run from hell which had not only just taken 12 hours longer than it should have, but during the trip I received the heartbreaking news that Fatty, my much loved cat at home, had become really ill and had to be put down. Satan was just the comfort I needed and has turned out to be the funniest cat I've ever had. Much loved by the whole neighborhood for his weird ways and crisp addiction, both needless to say created by Al.
Rachel my pal from San Francisco arrived at the end of August from Korea, after teaching English there for a month. She planned to stay a couple of weeks but in true Kho Tao/hotel California style ended up staying 6 weeks.
Then we had another cute boy move in next door...
Michael
Then Jonas' girlfriend Nina turned up...
Jonas and Nina. a.k.a Planet Denmark. Creators of the Kho Tao Top Trumps game where my Suntan factor was 97% only beaten by Satan, and Nina's special feature was 'poker & backgammon hustling bitch'. Be warned she may look all sweetness and light but she is one competitive mother!
And finally Katie, who Rachel had met in Korea moved in with us and completed our little Kho Tao community.
All we needed was a dog...
Meet Sausage, cutest dog on Kho Tao and sparring partner of Satan. Looked after by all of us when his owner mysteriously disappeared for a while.
So this season I've been mostly....
...Going to Jamahkiri day Spa, where a full days complete treatment cost under 30 quid....
...Eating fantastic cheap Thai food at Mama's Restaurant, where this incredibly cute, but normally stroppy madam, demanded to be made up on a regular basis...
...Watching Arsenal get their arses kicked at Choppers bar with my favorite Bar Manager, Hammers Boy Dave a.k.a. Massive and his lovely Swedish Girlfriend Terese...
That's Taan btw the way with Dave not Terese. I'm sure you'd agree she doesn't look very Swedish.
…Being bitten alive by mosquitoes, all of which became infected in the true Kho Tao way, and spending a week in hospital because I'd contracted Dengue fever….
...Going to various fancy dress beach parties at the Lotus bar....
That's not me by the way in case you were wondering.
...Drinking Cocktails At Papa's Tapas..
...Going to Indie Disco and 80's night at the Dragon Bar...
Me, Rachel, Victoria and some random guy at Indie Rock night.
OC Lara & Tom, Ben and some other random guy at Indie Rock night .
...Having Poker/Backgammon tournaments on our front porch.....
Always won by Planet Denmark, Or Tom and Lara. Below is Nina sporting our favorite dealer hat found in Malaysia complete with flip down shades incorporated in the visor.
And of course a lot of this:
My whole diving experience got much better when I found my sea legs. Myself and instructor Dave became the onboard entertainment, striking up an impromptu song whenever possible. Our favorite was the Dennis Waterman Classic ‘I Could Be So Good For You’ whenever there were any Israeli’s on board (Israeli / Arthur Daley for those who don’t know your cockney rhyming slang).
On a more serious note, I now have over 150 dives under my belt and am a deep, wreck and Nitrox specialty diver as well as now being a qualified Dive Master. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some great new people and witness them experience the under water world for the first time, which is always a treat.
My favourite first timers were these guys. My first graduate Open Water students:
(Dave) Tom and Will a.k.a George and Mildred because all they did was bicker like a married couple.
I’ve also had the opportunity to assist a group of forty 12 – 14 year olds from an international school in Hong Kong learn to dive. It was complete chaos, but great fun.
The highlight of my Kho Tao diving though was my whale shark experience when wreck diving with Davey Jones’ Locker. I dived two wrecks with them, the Unicorn and the Torpedo, both of which were decompression dives as the wrecks were over 50 meters deep. The dives themselves were fantastic experiences and a good insight into the world of technical diving, but the highlight came while decompressing. A six meter whale shark came out of nowhere and hung with us through the 30 minute deco period. It circled us so close that I had to move out of its way a couple of times. It is to this day the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
The whale shark with Tim, Michael and Gary on the deco line.
Whilst doing all this I met some pretty amazing people, alongside those already mentioned, that I hope to keep in touch with. Here's a selction of my top chums and hot boys.
Newbie DMT Sam. Long lost sister, who like is me is terrified of moths, hates clowns and is a Charmed obsessive.
Nick & Wib. Top diving chums and snorkel test bullies.
Murray, Guy, and the lovely Simon.
Lloyd and Steph (Magnum & Cleopatra in case you were wondering).
She’s Mia Farrow’s niece don’t you know!
Jesper, Papa’s Tapas bar manager. "He's so hot right now"
Ben & Adam, more newbie DMTs
Scott and Phillipa, top Geordie bods.
Leo.
and canine chum, Eddie the dog.
Then the rain came and the season came to an end.
Tor, mad barman at Lotus.
Everywhere started to shut down and it all got a bit depressing, so it was time to entrust Michael with Satan (as he was staying there indefinitely) and move on.
First I went to meet my friend Victoria on the western side of Thailand, Kho Phi Phi. It was the first time I’d had a chance to witness the effects of the Tsunami, and although much work had been done over the past year it was still very much evident. Here I did some of the best diving I’ve ever done, but unfortunately I have no photos of this trip, which is such a shame as the marine life vastly out weighs that of Kho Tao. You’ll just have to believe me that I dived with Mantarays and Leopard sharks on one of the most eventful day’s diving I’ve ever done. Eventful because of all the great diving yes, but add to that 10 cases of chronic sea sickness (not a pretty sight), 1 case of a severe reverse block (me, I’ve never experienced pain like it in my life) and 1 case of serious decompression illness, followed by the bumpiest speed boat ride to get the patient back to the island into a decompression chamber and you’ll get a better idea of the days events. Thankfully the patient wasn’t from our trip. We were helping out a live-a-board boat whose videographer had a diving profile that went off the chart and was very lucky to have survived. I believe that he had to have 15 sessions in the deco chamber and only escaped paralysis after around the 8th session.
I then moved on to Kho Lak to meet Jonas and Nina to investigate live-a-boards in the Similans. I’d already found out by this point that my friend Dave in Bangkok had found me a job teaching at his school and an apartment next door to him, but I was expected back on the 6th of December so time was pressing. Luckily we found an amazing company called Phuket divers who did us a professional diving rate because we were dive masters. They had a trip leaving the following day so we headed off on a 4 day trip for 14 dives around one of the top 10 dive spots in the world.
Here I saw a lot of firsts…
My first Octopus
My first Seahorse
My first Cuttlefish
My first Box fish
My first ghost pipe fish
Squid
Shrimp
Jonas and a lion fish
Sadly it was all over to quick and it was time to go back to Bangkok and get my sensible hat on. A lot’s happened since then, some great things and some bad things, but that’s another story for another time as I don’t think this computer can take anymore uploading!
However, first some more Lookie Likies....
Lookie Likies no. 3-5
Dive Master Owen (on the right) - Eddie Izzard.
Random diver no. 1 - Dustin Hoffman circa 'The Graduate"
And wait for it my Force 5 chums......
Random diver no. 2 - WOOLFIE!!!!
Belated Merry Xmas and a Happy 2006!!!!
posted by Sam Wayne @ 2:55 PM
<< Home