Category: travel

I can be your hero baby

Wow. As of today I have been in Thailand for a week. It simultaneously feels like one month and one day.

I’d finally arrived in Koh Samui for a quick 24 hour rendezvous with two amazing ladies I hadn’t seen in nearly a year. After a quick dip in the ocean which subsequently resulted in me turning everything blue, including my hands, back and neck (ewww), we got all glammed up Thai style (meaning we put on shoes) for dinner and a night on the town. There were fireworks, lady boy cabarets, Jimi Hendrix and hardcore rap. I think it’s safe to say Thailand caters for all tastes. There was even a quick stop off at a strip club, but after seeing the going rate for a Chang I realised I’d just feel dirty and taken advantage of, so we left.

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The next morning I woke up hungover like you wouldn’t believe, naked from the waist down, spooning one of my girlfriends. Luckily I know myself well enough to know that sometimes… Pants are just too hard!

After breakfast we said our goodbyes and I jumped on a ferry to Koh Tao, dropping one of the girls off on the way.

When I arrived I felt like I had come home. All the wonderful memories of my time here earlier this year came flooding back along with the added bonus of hugs from a few old friends I made at the time.

The next day was the beginning of my Emergency First Response course. As I’m quite well trained in the field after flying, I took advantage of a few moments of intellectual confidence before the scary stuff started. I met my two Divemaster trainee buddies and we got to bandaging each other up.

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The next day we started out rescue course. Pretty much preparing us so that in the event of worst case scenario, we know how to freak out on a less major scale. The course includes navigation, search and recovery, dealing with panicked divers and, my favourite part, learning how to hoist an unconscious diver up a ladder and onto a dive boat without assistance. What we have be led to expect is being punched in the face, having our masks stolen and near drowned. Fun! Just what I hoped for on this day of being epically hungover while on bitch ass, rough seas.

Let me make something clear. Navigation… Not my strong point. The overwhelming sense of joy I felt when I recovered my “lost diver” was insatiable. If I’d had the time for an underwater happy dance, I would of, although I don’t know if it would have added or subtracted from my mark.

After a short epic surface swim, “blowing and towing” my victim (not as much fun as it sounds!) I had to attempt the dreaded ladder climb. Might I just add that while I am not a little girl, there is only so far up a ladder I can drag a 6’4″ German beast of a man! Total ego blow! Luckily there were some chivalrous gentlemen on the boat I enlisted the help of, although not technically allowed. Needless to say, if you ever come diving with me, for your own safety, make sure someone stays on the boat!

A few days after successfully completing my Rescue course I had my DMT (dive master trainee) orientation. What I learnt is that my ass pretty much belongs to the Dive school for the next few months. They sure don’t make it easy for you. If you want it, you’ve really gotta want it. It’s a solid month or two of fairly decent study and hard work, culminating in the final test, the snorkel test. I had the privilege horror of observing a snorkel test recently.

This right of passage, brought to you by your local PADI school, involves the graduating DMT’s being lined up and given random tasks to complete and questions to be answered. The sole aim being to have them consume as many shots of whatever alcoholic concoction has been created for them that evening. I won’t lie. I saw a guy drink a shot out of a soggy dive boot… That had just come off his instructors foot after a dive……..

Why am I doing this????

The final snorkel test involves the DMT’s drinking a bucket, similar to the ones bought at a full moon party, through a snorkel and mask. The catch is, your DMT mentor can put anything they like inside. I saw whole chilli’s, raw eggs including the shell, and there was talk of a Viagra surprise. Then after chugging the bucket, it’s a race against your other DMT’s to spin around your chair, submerge yourself in the ocean and back on your stool. Did I mention some people had to do this half naked. Frat houses should take a leaf out of a PADI book someday.

Maybe I want to be a librarian.

Big bags and small bladders

Well, my big adventure has finally kicked off. Obviously after six years as a trolley dolly, I’m well accustomed to international travel. That is, international travel with all the perks like crew lines to cut the queues, airport passes and travelling in groups. International travel without the perks…. Not so easy, especially when travelling alone.

I’m no stranger to solo adventures. I’ve done Spain by my lonesome and at the beginning of this year I was exactly where I am right now, sitting in Bangkok airport, alone, after my one serious break up, determined to take on the world with my new found independence. (Cue beginning of diving love story!)

Let me tell you something: never take your travelling buddy for granted. With a five hour layover in Bangkok airport and with no one to mind your luggage while you pee, because you’re a responsible traveller and always stay hydrated… things can get very complicated. I also had to master the art of sleeping half on a row of seats, half draped over my luggage trolley, god forbid anyone nicks my wetsuit while I nap.

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I don’t know why, but I always manage to attract loud/weird people to me. You can guarantee if I’m standing at a train station with a hundred other people and there’s that one crazy guy that wants to tell someone about his stuffed dead pet collection… He’ll pick me. Needless to say my five hour nap was punctuated with howls of laughter from what I am assuming was a group of pre-op Thai ladyboys wearing matching lilac shirts. And damn it if those ladies didn’t have better figures than me!

I also had this weird moment when a young Chinese lady, wearing the most adorned pair of Crocs you’ve ever seen, came up and slept with her head on the chair adjacent to my head. I’m not complaining or anything, although I do have this strange issue with people I don’t knows hair touching me, but the weird part was, there was about eight other entirely vacant rows of chairs. There was even several vacant seats at her feet in our row which I would have felt a little more comfortable had they been between us. But what can I say. Maybe she liked my hair, who wouldn’t!!

Another perk of travelling with a buddy is having someone to double check things like what time does your flight open, where you are meant to go and which boarding gate your flight leaves from. I have the attention span of a gnat and mild dyslexia, so I find myself checking and rechecking things a lot. Which is good seeing as I have just typed half this post sitting at the wrong boarding gate and my flight departs in ten minutes. Attention I must pay.

My five hour transit has given me sufficient time for the gravity of what I’m about to do to sink in. As someone who is very familiar with making last minute travel arrangements and terrible at making plans, I often find myself on a plane somewhere before I even realise where I’m going or what I’m doing. Thankfully I’ve always been a lucky/blessed person and things always seem to go my way. Although I have been “planning” this trip for months, everything happened so fast in the last two weeks that I don’t think I really had a chance to acknowledge what I’d gotten myself in for. Now I have. My stomach is attempting to recreate Circ Du Soleil in my belly and I can’t seem to take a proper lungful of air. Thankfully I will be spending tonight with two of my favourite crazy babes from Dubai, so they can deal with my mental breakdown instead of me for a change. Ahhhh brain holiday.

Stay tuned for an update from the island!

(Here’s one I prepared earlier! Due to the shocking internet connection on this rock I haven’t been able to post it for a few days so expect the follow up fairly soon!)