Live and let dive

There is so much to tell, but there is so little time to do it. I'll try to tell something, however. As said, I started my Dive Master education about two weeks ago. From then on everything has happened in a short period of time.

Dive Master is a program provided by PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors), which aims to train divers, who want to make diving as a profession. More about PADI and stuff later.

However, I managed to choose the dive shop I liked the most: Big Blue. It was kind of accident. I was wandering around and happened to walk into the shop telling my affair. I met resort's manager, Jim, and he literaly talked me in. He was very assuring and it took only 15 minutes. Live and let dive being Big Blue's motto, the resort is one of the biggest dive shops on the island, but has managed to keep it's relaxed easy-going spirit without negleting from the quality in education. This is mainly because of Jim and the other big guys, which are mostly former officers from the British Navy. One of them has been working as a combat diver. Just kind of place, where one gets the best possible education for a possible career as a diver.

Life as a Dive Master trainee (or candidate or simply as a DMT) is just awesome, but also quite tiring. Wake up is somewhere between 5 and 8 o'clock every morning. Days are spent by diving. During first 10 days I was diving 22 times and spent 17 hours underwater. Evenings go on by having dinners and some beers with numerous new friends or sometimes on lectures. Filling up exams and reviews required has also taken suprisingly long slice of the evenings. The time in between I have spent by reading dive theory, which forms a big part of the Dive Master degree. All professional divers seem to be more or less alcoholic having beers every night. Keeping in pace after a long day at the sea has been an over-whelming task. Normally I sleep already at 23 o'clock.

Since most of the people (DMT's and instructors) are from UK and talks fancy English, I have encountered a problem with the language. It's just very...advanced. Socialising is difficult because they'd just talks and I'd try to listen. However, this is probably a good change to improve my English...or then I'll just start talking like 'em...

In many ways I have experienced the back-to-the-army feeling. Philosophy of the education is very close to that leadership education I got in the army. Dive Master candidates are a bit like the lower officer candidates in the Finnish Defence Forces. Instructors are very kind to everyone. Except, if you happen to do something very wrong. Mistakes are punished by peer pressure and bad talks behind your back. Cool guys are separated and revarded with acceptance. Since DMT's are supposed to be some kind of good role models for the other customers, the life is full of strange rules. One example is a strict no for speedos. So also I had to invest to sport shorts - only to look cool.

Anyhow life here is good. Every day is again something different than yesterday. Diving is easy (no dry-suits) and the underwater world great. I have been studying the ecosystems underwater and made unavoidable comparisons to the places I have been diving before. The next text is probably going to deal with those.

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"It's only in your head"

Freediving is probably the oldest extreme sport human kind have made up. It's simply diving under the water without additional air. Since I have been into under water rugby, I wanted to learn more about freediving techniques. It turned out that there was only one freediving school on the island. Therefore I singed into a freediving course offered by a spanish guy Eusebio.

Modern freediving is as much about technique as mental control, said Eusebio. Both of them comes with practise, he continued. Because of the full moon party on Koh Phagan, I was the only student on the course. The education started with practising correct breathing tecnique. Forming an O with the lips. Sucking air painfully slowly first using muscels in the stomach then filling up the chest. Beathing out slowly and controlled. Again, again, again and again. Clearing the mind from everything. Just relaxing and sucking air. For some reason, the lesson reminded me of the scene in the Star Wars episode V, when Yoda is trying to teach Luke Skywalker some Jedi skills.

After practise in the class room we drove out with a boat and dropped a line into the water. There was no way to see the bottom. The end of the line was visible, however. It ended to 13 meters depth. By the end of the day, I would be able to touch the end of it, said Eusebio. I was feeling something between fear and pure terror. My deep-water phobia had awaken despite all the practise I had done to kill it. However, Eusebio's favorite phrase seemed to be Don't worry, it's only in your head!, which for some reason reminded me much of an other Spanish guy I met on Svalbard. It turned out that they both were right.

Eusebio said that even though the correct breathing technique enables to saturate your veins with oxygen and it is possible for anyone to survive witout breathing, at least for three minutes, a nerve in the brain doesn't understand that. The nerve says that you have to breath. It turned out that my breathing nerve was all-mighty. Apparently the nerve just wants to keep me alive and says it's very determined opinion quite clearly in 5 meters depth. Stop, equalize, wait that it goes away and go down an other metre, I was instructed. After immerse mental fight and limit breaking, I somehow managed to proceed to the end of the line in 13 meters depth. The feeling was something similar to the feeling when reaching the finish in Spitsbergen Marathon. I had won one of the biggest trolls, I had ever encountered inside my head.

After all it was only in my head. Unfortunally including my left ear, which didn't like the quick descends and fast equalizations at all. In the next morning the pain was too strong in order to continue the course. I went to a doctor instead.

A moment, I thought that also my diving plans are going to fail, but fortunatelly the doctor knew what she was doing. Althought it was pretty scary. The conditions were quite basic. She injected Coke in to my ear in order to wash it. After that she dug out stuff from my ears with a 5 cm long spike. I was shaking from fear during the threatment. She said that she had done that for 30 years and for tens of thousands divers. I just decided to believe her. I had no other options.

Now, few days later I can hardly feel any pain in my ear. I went diving and there was no problem at all. I can continue my diving education and start the Divemaster course, as planned. The relief. That's enourmous.

More about SCUBA diving, the Divemaster course and stuff follows later...

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New life in the jungle

After the first morning on the island, everything have been quite like I was dreaming about. Palm trees, the jungle, wild life, bungalows and diving resorts. Things are very different from Phuket. Only in a good way. It's even possible to walk on the streets without that a hawker comes to shout in Finnish "Terrve, terrrrve! Osta hyva puuukku!" or that every second woman is whispering in your ear "Massaaage, massaage. Only you and me, honey!" (which was not that disgusting after all). Last but not least. The spirit. It somehow reminds me of Svalbard. Many things are similar including the "this is my place" feeling. Many things are also very different including the monkeys, the butterflies and the palm trees.

Last days have gone on organizing my new life on the island, since I realized that I have to stay at least for two months. After a full day of fixing, I managed to find a diving resort which I liked. After driving around half of the island, I found a home that looks like me. It's pretty basic. Quite like Dagtun. A small bungalow. Just big enough for one dirty bed and a toilet. The roof might be leaking a bit. Electricity is on, when the time is right, but the view. That is something. While laying in the hammock on the terrace, one can see half of the island. Beaches, the jungle, islands and rocks around Ko Tao and far to the sea.

The bungalow lays in the middle of the jungle on a side of a mountain. In a perfect quiet spot, although the wild life is a bit of concern. Animals such as very noisy birds and monkeys are quite OK, because they have stayed outside. I am a bit in trouble with the animals such as ants, bugs of all kinds, mosquitoes, geckos and spiders. They just want to be my room mates. I guess, I just have to accept it. At least I have a good change to learn something about them. We start to have a special relationship with a 10 cm long gecko living on the wall. He is eating all kinds of blood-thirsty insects, they say. As long as they won't come under my mosquito net, we shall have a peace.

An other story is the guys keeping the bungalow resort. They dealed me a motor cycle (125cc off-road bike) with a very good price (80 e / month). I am part of the family they say. No falang (white man) prices for the family members, they said. And I like it. We have been sitting on the terrance looking down to the island and reasoning about the life. They have liked it, I think.

As a conclusion about this all: This must be the place. This is life as it should be!

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Destination: Paradise Island

Hangover. The hangover was considerable. My last night and that "only a beer" had slipped into a misty night. It was my last night with the friends anyway, I had reasoned.

In the morning I managed to hand out my room and jump on my rental scooter with all my luggage. I even managed to push myself through the hectic traffic all the way to Phuket town without any accidents, even though an accident was very close in the last curve. From Phuket town I took a bus to a town named Chumpton. Only some hundred kilometres, but it still took eight hours. The roads. They make the traffic to crawl.

In Chumpton bus station I had no time for thinking about my next step. I was kindly, but determined, bushed on a pack seat of a scooter and driven through the warm night to somewhere. Somewhere there was a wooden ship, about 25 meters long, waiting in a pier. The ship was going to Ko Tao, I was said. The taxi driver even changed my voucher to a ship ticket and didn't want any money. He pushed me into the boat, said Khop khun khrap and left. That was good service, I think.

While waiting for the departure, I was enjoying some local culture. A puppet show with a band. Some kind of election advertisement event, I think. I was the only Western guy in the area. I wasn't sure, if the people were staring more at the show or at me. However, everyone was amazingly polite, even though we didn't speak the same language. I was offered water, a seat and everything.

The boat left one hour before midnight. I managed to go with it. Me and three locals. There was a plastic carpet on the back deck. We were sleeping on the carpet. Or they were sleeping and I was watching the stars. The Orion was about there where the Polaris had been on Svalbard. I was again heading to an island. To a tropical island this time. I was told so many stories about the island that it had became some kind of Promised Land. A paradise island. A new Svalbard. Now, finally, I was very close to that island. I could smell the sea, feel the waves. I was smiling so much, that I couldn't sleep. The moment. It was something to remember.

Arrival to the paradise island was not the easiest one. In a mindless sparing intoxication, I decided to walk in stead of taking a taxi. A mistake. The night is for dogs. They didn't like me at all. I had to apply some bawling and head-torching to scare them away. When I was waiting for people to wake up, I managed to stand on an ant nest. They were biting, of course. So were moskitos. My glasses decided to break down just spontaneusly. I was walking and sweating like a big. In the morning I was desperate enought to take the taxi.

It took only 2 hours and I had got a bungalow with lovely view to the beach.

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The beach of sins...and some fish

"Girls, girls, gilrs" says a street poster of Rock Hard go-go bar just outside the Patong Beach area. If red-faced middle aged sex-tourists, alcohol, cigarretes, Mc Donalds, hawkers, tuk-tuk drivers and alcohol again is added to the boiling of all possible sins, then the picture of Patong Beach begins to take shape. The beach has a dubious reputation, which it earns well. Many would stay away from this kind of places, but with right kind of people, it actually can be very much fun. Thai's there are able to make parties all the way to their perfection. A perfect place for the lonesome.

If you have got only two weeks free and some money to spend, I can warmly recommend you a holiday in Patong. Patong is the largest beach in Phuket island and gives the reputation for the whole island, which is wrong. Phuket itself is a lovely island with amazing nature and some distant remains of original Thai life with fishing and trade. I could almost tell a story of our nightly adventures, but this is not a novel. The nature. It was much more interesting.

The fishing trip we had was stunning. Sun was shining the whole day. The sea was almost flat. Perfect day for a day at the sea. We were lucky and got 14 tunas about 3 kilos each. Twice we had a fish in many rods at the same time. Two times we had 3 tunas hanging in one rod. It was hard action and good exercise. Snorkling in the crystal clear water with aquarium fish while waiting that crew cooks a fresh tuna for lunch crowned the whole trip. It was simply one of the best trips ever.

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Out of the frying pan into the fire

It is very difficult to navigate, if one doesn't manage to say any parts of a local name so that the locals would understand what the one is actully talking about. Finally after many big problems, misunderstandings and hassles, I successed to leave the metropol. Mostly because of some friends decided to buy me a Lonely Planet book. Many things happened during my last day in the town. I may post some stories with better time, but for now let's just say that I wasn't ready for the city.

When thinking about a bus trip in South-East Asia many would imagine an old bus and dusty roads. Not in Southern Thailand. Even though I took the cheapest ticket and was the only foreigner in the whole floor, the bus was more luxurous than those which operate in Finland. 13 hours trip to Phuket was actually quite comfortable.

Around 5 o'clock in the morning, I finally arrived to a shabby bus station in Phuket town. Within 15 seconds I was hailed by flock of taxi drivers who wanted to drive me everywhere. With help of a random Finnish guy and his Thai girl friend, who had came about same time, we took scooter taxis to a guest house.

The guest house was surrounded by small houses and a flock of some tropical trees. The view from the balcony of my room was stunning. A tropical forest and a small forest covered hill. There was some small houses between the trees. Local cocks started to crow in the forest to welcome the morning around six o'clock. Crickets and birds compleated the noice to a sympohny of nature. Sleeping was out of guestion. There was magic in the air.

In the next morning I rent a scooter and drove to meet my friend, who were in Patong Beach. Learning curve in the traffic was steep. That's good because otherwise, I would be dead. Thai's doesn't need traffic signs. They seem to do well, althought I didn't. I used more time to roam around than driving towards the destination. 14 km trip took 1,5 hours. Not bad. At least I was alive. I also got sunburned. In Bangkok the pollution was blocking UV's efficiently. Here the sun was actually shining. Yes mama, I used sun lotion as you said...

Patong Beach turned out to be worse than Khao San road. The nest of sins. Unsparing girls, cigarettes, alcohol and drugs everywhere. Nevertheless, there I must go. We made a deal for Thursday. My friends friends Thai girl friend discussed quite reasonable price for us. We rent an own yacht to take us for a fishing trip. Day with the boat going where ever we want, food, service and the crew included. 8000 Baths in total. We are five to share it. No Brit-tourists on board.

Now I'll head to the hectic traffic of Phuket island and drive to Patong. There I'll stay until Friday morning. A field report of a night in Sin Beach might follow.

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