Advanced Open Water Certified!

Merry Christmas from Koh Tao! That’s right, I came back. I am so obsessed with Scuba diving that I decided to get my advanced open water. I know I say a lot of stuff, but I’m really serious about eventually becoming an instructor, and hopefully making a triumphant and permanent return to Koh Tao. The advanced course included 5 dives over 2 days. After meeting my group, which consisted of 4 boys and me, we filled out paperwork, went through the book and got to it. Our first dive was a 30m dive, to become deep certified. I had heaps of problems equalizing my ears, so the boys went off while I swam around with an instructor (who, thankfully, was also a girl). I saw the largest fish I have ever seen ( a grouper) and heaps of other really cool animals you don’t get at 18m. I was the only one to have troubles with this dive, and since I was the only girl, you could only imagine how much it pissed me off, but I got over it, and was ready for the next one. The next dive focused on Navigation underwater. Its tricky, since everything kind of looks the same and theres really no landmarks. After a descent, its really quite easy to get lost. We rocked it, and I was able to navigate with my buddies no problem. The final dive of the day was a night dive, which was fucking brilliant. Armed with only flashlights to see, we swam around. When you turn off the flashlight, the plankton reacts to movement and lights up, being easily, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. We also played some fish god, shining lights on little fish to watch massive barracudas eat them. MUNCH!

The last 2 dives were multilevel, and a fish id dive, but they were really just us swimming around and having fun. This class focused a little more on how to plan our own dives, and the last 2 we didn’t have an instructor, so made us independent divers.

Spending Christmas on Koh Tao was amazing~but I’ll write about that when I get to my next point~Koh Phi Phi! Night ferry ahoy!

Happy Holiday,
ErinJ

Kp Phan~awesome

So, I want everybody to think of the movie the beach, starring leo. Clean waters, pretty sands. Theres a part where they do the rice run and they all hate it? Thats the island I'm on, Ko Phan Ngan for the Full moon party! While the island is littered with beach side bungalows, as a solo traveler I opted to stay for a more social dormitory, and was pleasantly surprised! I walk in, and its literally a bar with one room on top of it with 16 beds. I walk in and it was awesome. Everybody was kind of excited to see me, and after introducing myself, we went to dinner and chatted. Theres a group of about 6 of us that all wanted to check out the full moon party, but not go alone. We ended up going to the beach that night, where buckets were in order, harassing swedes was protocol and trying to jump rope through fire was successful. I think today may include me recovering on the beach.....
Ugh, I don't want to take a class next month! I just want to conintue tooling around!

Scuba Scuba Scuba

Woot! I am officially a PADI licensed Open Water diver! I’m not going to lie, I’ve never given much thought to scuba diving before, nor was I even sure I was going to like it. However, now I’m obsessed. Scuba diving was something that came really naturally to me for whatever reason. It was also a ridiculously fun class to take. Kind of like school, but way, way better. The first day, we rolled into our first theory class. It was a fairly large class (Which has its advantages and disadvantages, but I ultimately chose it so I could meet people) . As we went around the classroom and introduced where we were from, I met up with somebody from UCONN. It was very exciting, and him, me and another American girl quickly became fast friends. The next day we learned skills in the pool, and were mostly getting used to breathing underwater. Your natural reaction covered in H20 is to hold your breath, but if you do that scubaing, you will die. This was a very long section, but it was interesting, and it was cool getting used to the equipment. We then went to another classroom theory session, which is kind of boring, but seeing as there is a written test you have to do it. The next day was our first DIVE. It was SO CRAZY COOL. It was actually kind of peaceful, floating around fishes and stuff. Its weird, cause I really don’t like fish that much, looking at them kind of grosses me out, but not underwater. We did two dives that day, and I am simply obsessed. That afternoon was followed by a really long classroom session, but our last one, where we took the final exam. Yesterday was our last few dives, where we were able to go deeper (18m~max depth for an open water cert) and saw sting rays and corals and schools of barracudas and it was epic. That night we got our temporary certificates, and celebrated as a class.
Insert tomfoolery and shenanigans of a German persuasion?
I woke up this morning and played with the idea of staying and getting my advanced cert, but decided to go to Ko Pha-Ngan for a few days and come back for it next week. I’m really excited for the advanced, and think I want to work hard and save up, and eventually be a dive instructor. Imagine being able to do this every day, on a beach in paradise? They’re living the dream here. I wish it didn’t cost so much, but I think I’ll be able to manage it. Maybe by the time I’m 25? New life direction!
I met so many ridiculously fun people in the class, and it was kind of like college. We all lived in the resort and ran around, eating meals and drinking on the beach together. I would highly recommend it, and even though I stayed at a huge facility (Ban’s diving) it was super professional, and turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Short on pictures, but huge on experiences!
Patience and faith,
ErinJ

Bangkookkk

Boat Trips in Bangkok
So after I rested up from the temple tour, I was lounging in the hostel skyping and such, when I realize on the big facebook, Anna writes 'last day in Bangkok" Remember Anna, from Xi'an, china? well, I do, and her and Dexter are the only people I know in Bangkok, so after some internet chatter we end up meeting up! STOKED. Anna nad Dexter are good friends to have, as not only are they well traveled, interesting, and fun, they are always, always up for getting at least a beer.
After getting some beer, I realize they're in bangkok for about as long as I am. We decide to meet the next morning for breakfast, coffee and a trip to the US embassay, "which should take no time at all" as I have to get some more pages taped in ( a fact that I'm quite proud of). Anna, being the brilliant traveler she is suggests that we take the boat down river, the train from there and walk, which is really the most efficiant way of doing it, and honestly, I'm so stoked for company at this point, I'm game. We walk towards the peir, getting coffee on the way (here they put Sweetened condensed milk instead of cream and sugar, and its gods gift to me, I swear. Try it. It. Is. Amazing.)
Bangkok Starbucks?

We take the boat down, get some shitty lunch, and are in a different part of bangkok and it is lame. I guess its a city, and people have to live and work somewhere, but this place sucks. We walk past richpeople land, with 4 seasons and prada stores, onto Embassay row, where we roll into the US embassay and they say its going to BE AN HOUR. for them to tape some pages in there! WHAT. We hang out in the embassay instead of exploring the park even though its reminiscent of the DMV. Why? Have you not been paying attention? AIR CONDITIONING PEOPLE. We end up going back to Khao Son Rd, getting thai massages, buying thai pants (read: loose pj pants which are acceptable to wear anywhere...I bought some with bells on them. BEST. DECISION. EVER) Eating bangin' Israeli food, walking etc. It was swell.
So, for quite possibly the most amusing stories of my travels so far
Then we start drinking, in the heat, on empty stomaches. So, background information, there are these old ladies, in bizzare hats, selling really fucking annoying wodden frogs that make frog noises. Its aweful. After a beer, I'm kinda annoyed but see this woman in a bright, weird hat. I have more than 10 cents on me, so convince her to sell me the hat and a frog for 6 usd (seriosuly, I found 6 usd in my pocket and gave it to her. Kinda ripped off, but I decided to make it WELL worth it). After more beer, I then continue up and down the streets, waiting for frog ladies. They're annoying, they come up to you in resturants, bars, wherever and try to get you. I wait until they're preying on people enjoying their beer and go up in my hat, with my beer and frog and try to get them to buy my frog. In the states I may have gotten punched in the face. Here, people were diggin' it. I made friends with the foreigners who thought I was insane, but a riot, and the Thais (especially the frog ladies) who thought i was crazy, but were into it after a while. Best. 6 bucks. EVER.
We went back to the truck bar in the street, which was awesome, and chatted with the owner,who was really great guy. He was super interesing (an engineer by day) and kinda living the dream. We said goodbye as anna had to wake up to catch a 6 am flight, which is sad. I loved seeing them again, but know that since we're all world walkers, this won't be the last time.
So thats my Bangkok experience. Not a lot of sight-seeing, but a lot of awesome.
I'm going to try to keep this blog rocking on a pretty regular basis, with details and shit (mostly so I can read them later and remember) and try to include hostel reviews, etc etc. So if theres anything you want to see more of, see less of, or anything else, comment or e-mail me, (all 5 of you that read this)
Take care,
ErinJ



Anna and I in front of our favorite bar in Bangkok~it was literally a truck in the street, run by the cooooolest people. Check out Gypsy's lips if you're ever in Bangkok!

Scenes from the back of a tuk tuk

Tuk Tukkk
So after a solid 16 hours of sleep, I bounced up this morning ready to go. I started walking to the palace, as apparently you have to see it in. I'm not going to lie, I'm at a point where I'm extremely indifferent to palaces, but I'm in Bangkok for a few days so had to kill time somehow. So as I'm wandering, I met a Israeli couple who are lost, and ended up walking around with them. We walk to the palace, and some guy is blathering on some bullshit that I caught onto, but couple didn't. Either way we ended up going on a "site-seeing" tour for 10 baht a person (read: 30 cents) cause, really, I wasn't doing anything anyway, so I may as well not do anything with people. So we went to a really large standing Buddha, which was okay, the "lucky Buddha" which was bloody lame and the marble temple, which I actually liked a lot. It was pretty, and a river ran through it and it was one of the nicer ones. We also went to a bunch of shops where they tried to get us to buy shit, but I honeslty didn't care because a) these places had bathrooms and b) they were airconditioned. I am shameless in the fact where I'll listen to somebody blather on about tailor made suits if I can do it somewhere that isn't 8432 degrees. This was only a 2 hour excursion, which was chill.

Buddah Buddah BUddah Buddah rockin' everywhere

We went to the Grand Palace afterwards, which was actually a pretty cool place. We rolled up, and they immediatly called me out for not wearing pants. Well no shit, its a trillion degrees in the SHADE by 9am, so I had to some long Thai pants. Assuming they would keep me cool, cause I mean, they do wear pants in the desert. Yeah, CAUSE THEY'RE CRAZY. Erin+Heat= ><

Either way, the palace was really kind of neat. This is apparently known for housing the "jade Buddha" which was small and underwhelming. The grounds themselves were amazing though, with really colorful, shiny halls and the like, and it was huge.
Grand Palace

The artwork was beautiful and I really liked it. I did Khmer arctitecture, and this was much nicer than the one in Phenom Phen. We decided we were too hot so walked to wat pho, which is known for its reclining Budd ah. It was huge, and once again, the grounds were pretty. The temples here are so colorful and use a lot of mirrors, so it looks shiney and reflecty and is overall, impressive in the sun.

Wat Pho

After this, I was a little watted out, as were my travel companions for the day, so we called it a day. After the most glorious cold shower of my life, and a nap, I bounced up for more pad thai~and I stand by my theory that it is in fact, the most delicious food ever. I also stand by all of my observations from yesterday. The thais were out in long sleeves and jeans today. I wanted to pass out just looking at them!

Guardians at the grand palace

Patience, Faith, and multi colored pants,
ErinJ