Those of you who have seen my posts will know a lot of what I write about is diving, together with my better half "Koz" we have been visiting the Philippines for a little over five years and living here for the past three. So how did a couple from the UK find themselves staying in the Philippines? For a answer to that I will have to go back in time and tell the story of our adventures in diving, it's a long story so i'm going to tell it in two parts.
I have always been a bit of a water baby, any opportunity to get in the sea, a pool, river or stagnant pond was like a magnet to me as a youngster, not always pleasing my mother when I would return home filthy and stinking, so it's no surprise that as a adult I gravitated towards the sea and in my twenties moved from a landlocked county to the coastal town of Newquay in Cornwall. The main purpose was for surfing, a sport that was a major part of my life and for a while my only focus. This changed in 1996 when a couple of friends asked if we would like to join them on a holiday to Thailand, initially I wasn't over keen as usually if I were to travel it would be to a place I could surf but having not long spent four months in Sri Lanka on a surf trip the decision was made to try something different. Our friends (Dave and Celeste) had traveled in Thailand the year before and became our unofficial tour guides and so started a whistle stop tour of the country. First stop Bangkok what a crazy city that was, full of back packers and seedy back streets full of Go Go bars. We stayed just off Khao san road a hot spot for penny pinching travelers, it was April bloody hot and coincided with Songkran a water festival where the streets fill with party goers armed with water pistols and a unknown white powder the aim to have a water fight to cool off once soaked through the powder is thrown around liberally and smeared on peoples faces as a blessing. After a couple of bottles of Sang Som the local grog distilled from sugar cane we threw ourselves onto the streets and to say it got messy is a under statement, soaked through and covered in white slime we found ourselves in a massive street rave and completely off our faces, finally falling back into the guest house in the early hours of the morning.
Dave, Celeste and myself looking worst for wear.
A couple of days later and probably for the best we took a twenty hour sleeper train north to Chang Mai where we spent a bit of time taking in the ancient culture around the city before heading of on a five day jungle trek. This involved some serious walking taking in some stunning scenery and waterfalls each night we stayed with local hill tribes sleeping in traditional long houses with a fire in the center. On the last day we took a elephant ride ( I know not considered a good thing these days!) for a couple of hours to a river where we jumped on bamboo rafts and sped down river passing spots where our guide happily pointed out places where tourist like ourselves had died on bamboo rafts, nothing like making you feel safe. At journeys end we left the rafts at the side of the river to be broken apart, it was at this point I realized that we had paid to transport building materials down stream for the locals, clever buggers. Picked up by the tour organizers in a pick up truck we were taken back to the guest house and starting point of this trip, luckily we had hot showers in the room as we were stinking and filthy, just like being a young kid again without a moaning mother around. The following day and the plan was to travel south over a couple days to the islands of Koh Phangan then Kho Tao.
Here is for me where I was in my element, great beaches clear sea and lots of wildlife. Initially we pitched up in a quiet bay in the north of Kho Phangan Thong nai pan noi, very few people as tourism hadn't really hit the area, that changed massively in the following years. While here I met a English couple who had been working on Kho Tao as dive instructors and through our conversations I decided that when we moved on to there I wanted to give diving a go, I had joined a club back in the UK when quite young encouraged by my cousins but meeting up at the local swimming pool and looking at ceramic tiles didn't really cut the mustard so after a few sessions of being bored witless I quit. A few days later it was time to move on before we smoked ourselves to death on bamboo bongs loaded with local herb, we chartered a small speed boat which picked us up from the beach to transfer us to the next island.
Arriving on Kho Tao (turtle island) it was clear this place was all about diving, having had my birthday a couple of days before I treated myself to a few days on a trio of small satellite islands, Kho Nang Yuan a beautiful group of tiny outcrops joined by sand bars, this would be where my first dive took place.
Kho nang yuan.
With the dive center on the small middle island it couldn't have been a better place to restart my diving so on the morning in question myself and Koz walked across the sand bar from the north island to take a dip. We were given a short introduction and before we knew it we had on full scuba gear and were entering the ocean, in retrospect the pre dive briefing was awful Koz who had never done this before floated to the surface without the guide noticing and the whole thing was a bit of a shit show, "never again" she muttered as we left the water forty minutes later. I was gutted despite the poor experience on her part I knew I wanted to do more of this and get certified but Koz was having none of it, this could be curtains for my chances as a diver if the wife won't do it. A couple of days later we were back on the main island of Kho Tao and I was still dreaming of getting underwater, Koz was adamant that diving wasn't for her, I needed to hatch a plan.
After speaking to the guys at Crystal dive center I was even more up for it so what can I do to convince the other half to give it another go? (Hatching a plan) When you dive we use a buddy system, that is you always have someone with you and check constantly on each other and help with spare air in case of emergencies. That was where my plan came from, if I can't talk her round the next move was to outright lie, "if I don't have a buddy I can't dive" I told her laying on the guilt she came around reluctantly and agreed to give it another try.
The next day we met our instructor Chris and started our open water course, this time things felt a lot better, there was lots of classroom work before we learned how to set up the equipment and entered the water for a shallow training session, it was a different world to the messy introduction we had done a few days prior. Over the course of four days we had a mix of classroom, shallow dives then onto four proper training dives and to my relief Koz really enjoyed it, at the end of day four we took a final exam and we were then open water divers, I was ecstatic what had started as a complete let down had swung full circle and most of all the wife was enjoying it. Over the following week we had a mix of diving while spending time with our friends who had chosen not to dive. This was a new beginning for us and I knew it would change the way we traveled in the future. Sadly time had passed all too quickly and we had to pack up and return to Bangkok to fly back to the UK, we made the promise to return and do further courses later that year but hey guys that's another story.
Turtle island we'll be back!
Look out for part two of our life aquatic coming soon to a cinema near you (OK it will be on Hive)
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Epic post for an epic story. This is really good mate; Readable, interesting and well-written. Thanks for taking the time and adding this excellent offering for the posting initiative.
By the way, I've been in Thailand for Songkran also...Crazy! Fun though.
Thanks again mate and bring in part two!
Thanks dude, didn't come out too bad I thought, i'll try get part 2 sorted in next day or so.
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Thanks as always guys.
@biggypauls your write-up is interesting and well composed. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us on hive.
Thanks, part two coming later, stay safe.
Alright good. We will be expecting. Thank you
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