I was pretty excited to see my Grandma and to be back to Thailand after so many years. The last time I was in Thailand was about 11 years ago and the last time I saw my Grandma was when she came to the states to visit about... 7 or 8 years ago. Oh, my whole life I have known Grandma as Kuhnyai, the Thai word for grandma, so this will also be reflected in the blog starting ...now. Anyways, I'm glad I have been brushing up on my Thai language skills since we were able to speak together in Thai and laugh about a bunch of things. I realised that I have both Kuhnya's laugh and her sense of humor. 
We all had dinner at a family friend's restauraunt located on the river. That night we went to Pattaya, a touristy town located on the gulf, to experience the sights and sounds of Thailand's nightlife. Throughout the night we we all collectively went about 12-14 against the locals at their bar games which surprisingly include connect four and jenga. No joke. In the end, Mark had one too many Singha beers and ended up challenging a local muay Thai kickboxer, bareknuckle and with his glasses on.
The next day we hung out at Kunyai's for most of the day and just relaxed. That night we drove to Bangkok where we caught a red-eye bus down south to Krabi. We were headed to Krabi mainly to get scuba certifications and also to be by the beaches. A family friend is a business partner of the scuba school we were going to so we all got a great deal on NAUI certification. We arrived in Krabi at about 9am and got picked up by a friend and scuba instructor from the dive school we were attending. Below is a sunset from Ao Nang, the beach town we stayed at while getting scuba certication
The theme for the week: Underwater Sea Adventure. Scuba classes over here seem to be a little more lax than other places. The day we arrived in Ao Nang we watched a 3 hour scuba instruction video and were told the next day we would be in open water. Sure enough, the next day we took a longfin boat to an island and began our open water lessons. We went over all the equipment, signals, etc on the boat and underwater we worked on dealing with equipment while submerged. Our instructors were pretty cool guys. They were both about our age. Sam was a Californian who grew up in Thailand so he spoke both Thai and English fluently. Mon was a local Thai who knew a little English, he had the personality of Michalangelo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle so we all enjoyed their company.
We did 6 dives total over three days. The third day was by far the best. We took a big boat about two hours to Koh Phi Phi (I believe the movie The Beach was filmed there). Visibility was great and we saw a lot of soft coral, needlefish, puffer, clowns, seaturtle, and the elusive ghost pipefish. Max depth we hit was around 16 meters, we are certified upto 18 meter. By the end of our dives my buoyancy control was spot on. On the boat ride back we had our take home certification tests graded and we all passed with flying colors. We all had great experiences under the sea and are planning to do a couple of dives while in Phuket, our next destination. I didn't take many pictures since we were wet the whole time, so I found one that summed up our week in a nutshell.
We all had dinner at a family friend's restauraunt located on the river. That night we went to Pattaya, a touristy town located on the gulf, to experience the sights and sounds of Thailand's nightlife. Throughout the night we we all collectively went about 12-14 against the locals at their bar games which surprisingly include connect four and jenga. No joke. In the end, Mark had one too many Singha beers and ended up challenging a local muay Thai kickboxer, bareknuckle and with his glasses on.
The next day we hung out at Kunyai's for most of the day and just relaxed. That night we drove to Bangkok where we caught a red-eye bus down south to Krabi. We were headed to Krabi mainly to get scuba certifications and also to be by the beaches. A family friend is a business partner of the scuba school we were going to so we all got a great deal on NAUI certification. We arrived in Krabi at about 9am and got picked up by a friend and scuba instructor from the dive school we were attending. Below is a sunset from Ao Nang, the beach town we stayed at while getting scuba certication
The theme for the week: Underwater Sea Adventure. Scuba classes over here seem to be a little more lax than other places. The day we arrived in Ao Nang we watched a 3 hour scuba instruction video and were told the next day we would be in open water. Sure enough, the next day we took a longfin boat to an island and began our open water lessons. We went over all the equipment, signals, etc on the boat and underwater we worked on dealing with equipment while submerged. Our instructors were pretty cool guys. They were both about our age. Sam was a Californian who grew up in Thailand so he spoke both Thai and English fluently. Mon was a local Thai who knew a little English, he had the personality of Michalangelo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle so we all enjoyed their company.We did 6 dives total over three days. The third day was by far the best. We took a big boat about two hours to Koh Phi Phi (I believe the movie The Beach was filmed there). Visibility was great and we saw a lot of soft coral, needlefish, puffer, clowns, seaturtle, and the elusive ghost pipefish. Max depth we hit was around 16 meters, we are certified upto 18 meter. By the end of our dives my buoyancy control was spot on. On the boat ride back we had our take home certification tests graded and we all passed with flying colors. We all had great experiences under the sea and are planning to do a couple of dives while in Phuket, our next destination. I didn't take many pictures since we were wet the whole time, so I found one that summed up our week in a nutshell.
Next we are headed up the coast to Phuket where my brother, Jonathan, will meet us. It's pronounced poo-ket and not how it sounds phonetically. We will be there for about 5 days or so. Thanks all for tuning in. Until next time
Cheers!
-David
No comments:
Post a Comment