Durians, diving & yoga
Trip Start
May 19, 2011
1
Trip End
May 31, 2011
Koh Tao, Thailand
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Anyhow, the day after my birthday I flew to Thailand for a couple of weeks. I first went there in 1977 and stayed a couple of months, mostly living with a couple of brothers & their sister that we met on a train station in Phuket, who lived above a Thai family in Bangkok - although my friend David and I also had some interesting (some would say foolhardy) adventures trekking among the hill tribes in the Golden Triangle, staying in a Chinese warlord's village, and walking through jungles with wild bears, without a map and hardly any idea of where we were.
My destination was the island of Koh Tao, where I had booked to do a couple of scuba diving courses. Usually sons follow fathers, but in this case I followed my son Michael, who had been to Koh Tao a couple of months previously and spent a month traing in Muay Thai (commonly known as kickboxing), as well as scuba diving. I took only a medium size backpack as cabin luggage, and on the way to the airport I wore as light clothing as I could (t-shirt, light summer trousers, lightweight slip-on shoes, and a gossamer-thin jacket), as once I got to Koh Tao I would basically be living in bathers and wet suit.
After a night in Bangkok I took the 2nd class sleeper train to Chumphon, a 9 hour journey south, where we arrived about 5.30 in the morning, and took the hydrofoil across to Koh Tao. After frenetic Bangkok, it was fantastic to arrive on this tiny island (about 6kms long & 3 kms wide) - densely forested mountains, sandy bays, and many rock formations, floating in an azure sea.
I had one day to myself before the scuba courses started so I hired a motor scooter and went exploring. I was staying at the southern tip of the island in Chalok Baan Khao, so I rode up to Mae Haad where the ferries come in, then on to Sairee Beach, which is where the vast majority of people hang out, and where most of the dive schools are based.
On the way I saw a curious thing - a big group of men standing around a number of beautifully carved timber birdcages hanging from wires. I stopped and watched for a while - every couple of minutes or so, a whistle was blown and and the men would start barracking and yelling encouragement. I asked a few people what was going on and finally found someone who spoke English and he explained it was a bird-singing competition. Each time the whistle blew it was a new round, people laid bets, and owners and supporters would barrack for their bird to sing the most. I stayed right until the grand final between the last 2 birds and it was amazing how intensely everyone followed the competition.
After that I had this wonderfully hair-raising ride over the mountains to Hin Wong Bay on the other side of the island. The road was very narrow and very steep, with rough dirt sections - my scooter could barely make it up some of the ascents and I had to shift my weight to the rear and only use the back brake on the descents, otherwise I would have gone head over heels. After a very pleasant afternoon swimming in the bay I returned to the fleshpots of Sairee Beach for dinner.
One of my motivations for going to Thailand was to eat crabs - I have this lovely memory of sitting in Phuket 34 years ago (sleeping in a tiny shack on the sand), ripping crabs apart with my bare hands, chomping with my teeth on the legs and claws to break them so I could get at the sweet flesh inside, making a mess on the table, then diving in the water to clean myself off. So, I asked around in Sairee beach to find a restaurant that served crab, but nobody seemed to know of any until finally someone told me about the "crab shack" and told me it was on the beach up the northern end. Most of you will know that I will go to a great deal of effort to get a good feed, so I set off up the beach, which is almost 2 kilometres long, looking for the crab shack. After having walked the full length of the beach, past any number of restaurants with backpackers lying on cushions on the sand, drinking cheap cocktails and beer to a cacophony of disco beats, reggae, and hip-hop, I found out the crab shack had closed for the season (I was there in the low season), so I settled for a barbeque of grouper & giant prawns (about 15cms long).
So, next day work started in earnest. I had booked 2 courses with New Heaven dive school, and the next 6 days involved starting around 9am, reading the appropriate section of the PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) manual, heading out for a couple of dives to put the theory into practice, returning and doing a test, then when the schedule allowed I did a yoga class from 5 to 7pm above the dive shop. It was just a timber-floored open space with a thatch-roof and we looked out directly to the sea and horizon. I have never done yoga before, except once after a delicious lunch in a Swedish millionaires palatial compound in Marrakech (it's true, I'm not making this up and trying to make you jealous :). Our instructor, Rose, was this beautiful, dark, lithe Chilean (who had a Sicilian grandmother) - she was extremely fit and flexible and after 2 hours I was drenched with sweat, although one day Devrim, the proprietor of New Heaven diving school, a Cypriot Turk who had grown up in London, took the class and he was more into the meditation and breathing, which I also enjoyed. So, as you can see my time in Koh Tao wasn't lounging about the beach & drinking cocktails - it was work :).
I had 2 dive instructors - first day was Abel, a Catalan, and the next 5 days was Adnan, who was Turkish. New Heaven dive school seemed to have a preponderance of French people, both as instructors, and students (Agnes, Lola, Sophie), although there was one Aussie trainee instructor, from the Mornington peninsula of all places (not far from where I live). Quite a few Europeans and Americans work as dive instructors and have lived on Koh Tao for years.
I had got my diving licence in my early 20's and had last dived over 20 years ago, so it wasn't completely new to me. I went through the 2 courses with an 18 year-old Canadian and an early-20s Frenchie. Unlike my Australian course, which took many weeks and was mainly done in a swimming pool, we did the whole course in the sea, usually at very scenic spots with lots of undersea life. A highlight was the night dive (part of the Advanced Course), where we set off at dusk, swimming some distance on the surface to the dive site, then descended in the dark. The experience was completely differnt to the day dives. Firstly, you can't see the surface, so as you are neutrally buoyant, you have no particular directional reference, other than your bubbles. Secondly, it's pitch black, except for the thin beam of torchlight of you and your dive buddies. It's quite eerie floating around surrounded by the sea in the dark, seeing the pencil-thin light of the torches moving about.
On the way back from the night dive, Adnan, our dive-master stood on the stern of the longtail boat and took us around the point back to the dive shop. There was quite a strong wind, which whipped up the waves, and as we had to round a point, we were side-on to the waves for quite a bit of the time, which made the boat hard to control and it would have been easy for the boat to be knocked over and capsize. After we got to quiet waters in our bay Adnan asked if we'd been scared - we all said we hadn't, we just enjoyed the wild ride, but Adnan admitted that he'd been scared.
So, what do I think of Koh Tao? Well, firstly it's not the real Thailand - it was only settled by some farming families about 50 years ago, and it lives almost exclusively on tourism - mainly young backpackers - the uniform for men is generally singlets and board shorts, tattoos, and a beer in the hand, and for women, skimpy top, really short cut-off jeans (with pockets hanging out) and tattoos too, but usually more reserved than the men. At night time on Sairee Beach it's a big party - there are a few places where you can get reasonably typical Thai food but the vast majority cater for the backpacker market.There are lots of bars selling cocktails (for around $3) but they are very weak - I'm not really a cocktail drinker, though I do enjoy a Margarita, and had one most nights, but it would have taken 3 or 4 to have the same effect as one I would make at home.
So, after my hard-working holiday on Koh Tao I took the slow boat back to the mainland (I had come over on the fast catamaran), then I had a few hours to kill on Chumphon before catching the overnight train to Bangkok. What better to do than eat so I rocked into the Papa Seafood Restaurant near the station to sample their wares. Nearly all the tables were outdoors, which was good because it was a hot night, and there was a big stage, which hosted a number of singers and musicians throughout the night - amateurs I would say, probably singing for their supper - they all sounded the same and I found it hard to distinguish between one singer and another and one song and another. I scanned the huge menu, which included specialties such as (quoted verbatim): fish maw in brown gravy, stuffed, beansprout & egg; baked rice with salted olive; fish head with albino soup; steamed shrimp with milk; sting-ray eggs & pineapple curry; spicy intestine salad; salted egg sausage. After great deliberation I had the following:
a first dish of oysters (I didn't even know they had oysters in Thailand) - 3 huge oysters (between 10-15 cms long) accompanied by side dishes of raw chili & garlic, limes, a dark brown sauce, some unidentifiable floss, & green vegetable fronds - the oysters were completely tasteless but the rest tasted good, especially the raw chilis & garlic, which I dowsed with a couple of beers. Next dish was a fish & vegetable steamboat - an attractive young lady brought the fish (pomfret) and cooked it gently in the broth, then mixed in a big plate of fresh green vegetables. The last (and in fact also the first time) I had this type of dish was in Pattaya Beach 34 years ago. Somehow my girlfriend and I had been invited by this well-off looking gentleman to join him, and dish after dish of seafood & vegetables were brought and cooked in the steamboat, then finally rice was brought and the wonderfully flavourful broth was ladled over it. The only problem is that I had been struck by tummy troubles the day before, but I was determined to make the best of the free feed, so after each course I would have go to the toilet and either bring it up, or, how shall we say, expel it forcefully from my nether parts. Fortunately this time no such trouble, and although it wasn't as good as my first one, at least I didn't have to go to the toilet after every course.
So, on to the 2nd class sleeper train again, and for a second time I was on the top bunk, rattling along slowly northward with about 50 other people. We arrived at Hualumpong station around 7 in the morning, and I decided to walk the several kilometres to my accomodation, the grandly named Shambara International Boutique Hostel in Khao San, as it was relatively cool at such an early time, and I would get to see a bit of Bangkok street life. I ended up walking mainly through Bangkok's historical Chinatown - there is a broad main road through it but you only have to turn off one of the side streets and you are plunged into a warren of streets and narrow alleys, populated with markets and stalls and teeming with people. Breakfast was pork & noodle soup, eaten at a fire-engine red table at a food stall on the street. I was happy to come back to my lodgings at Shambara - it is only 50 metres down an alley off noisy and crowded Khao San Rd, the largest backpaper precinct in the world I believe (the instructions for getting to Shambara were very specific - arrive at the Burger King end of Khao San road, walk 10 steps to the New Boston Tailor, turn right up the alley and walk for approximately 30 seconds. It's an old 2 story timber house with a peaceful courtyard in front, large colourful fish swimming around a sort of moat, and it has beautiful old teak floor boards about 30cm wide. My room was simple, clean and sparse - just a large single bed, plenty of windows and ventilation, and cost 300 baht (less than $A10) per night. I spent the next couple of days doing a little sightseeing - the Vimanmek Palace, a beautiful Royal mansion made entirely of teak, Jim Thompson House (he was an American who made Thai silk famous, and mysteriously disappeared while on a trip to Malaysia in 1967), hanging out at the Ethos vegetarian restaurant nearby, where they had specialties such as masala coconut shake (coconut cream with cardarmom, cinnamon, cloves, star anise (delicious); beetroot & passionfruit shake; salty lassi; and spaghetti fantasia, with mixed vegetables, mushrooms & coconut cream (no, I didn't try that one), ganoderma drink (made from a type of medicinal mushroom), and teas made from jiaogulan (a herbaceous Asian vine), and fermented kombucha.
On my last day I went over the top and indulged and pampered myself extravagantly - I had my beard shaved off (11 days worth), then was given an 8 step facial, comprising massage, scrubbing, lotions, steam, etc, finally culminating in my whole face being covered with cold cucumber slices - after the heat and humidity of Bangkok it was bliss. I also had a foot massage, and a fish spa - this consists of putting your legs into a fish tank populated with a couple of types of small fish (gyrinocheilus aymonieri & siamese gyrinochellid), that like to nibble human feet & legs - it felt like tiny pinpricks of mild electric current. I followed this up with a 2 hour body treatment - massage with oils & lotions, personal sauna (you sit on a chair inside a sort of shower curtain with an umbrella over to keep in the steam), then a long soak in a bath (the water was milky in colour and had cut-up limes floating in it). You can imagine that by this time I was pretty relaxed, then it was on to the plane late that night and transported swiftly back to our fast-paced life, which was a shock after the slow motion of diving, and the desultory and movement in the heat & humidity of Thailand. The only thing I didn't get to do was to dance tango in Bangkok - there was a class and practica my last evening there, but by the time I had finished dinner, it was getting late, and the venue was some distance away and looked fairly difficult to find, so I didn't end up going.
People have asked me what it was like going to Thailand after 34 years, and it's a bit difficult to compare as the experiences were so different. Last time the trip was very much about living with young Thai students and a family - one of the students was studying English at university and we had many fun nights helping him with his studies - try and imagine explaining the lyrics of the Rolf Harris song "Tie me kangaroo down sport", especially verses such as "tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred". Bangkok is now probably at least twice the size and full of tourists, which unfortunately nearly always has some unpleasant effects - ripoffs, inflated prices, touting, etc. I was caught in one of these scams, where a tuk-tuk driver will give you a really cheap fare, providing you just "stop for 5 minutes" at a store (jewelry, clothing, etc), where he will get some commission. It's understandable and I didn't begrudge the driver, and seeing I was trapped I decided to make the best of it and ended up ordering 3 hand measured shirts in beautiful white cotton cloth, for a fraction of what they would have cost in Australia (which were delivered to my hostel 4 hours later!). So, what next for me?
Now that I have my diving certificate I can start thinking about where to go diving next - possibly Europe in August.
ps: I nearly forgot about the durians - it was durian season while I was there and they were everywhere in Bangkok. I have only eaten fresh durian once before in Indonesia 34 years ago and I well remember the pungent smell when they are cut open. The outside has a hard spiky skin but the inside is like a pale yellow custard - one description I read is that eating a durian is like a strawberry blancmange in a public sewer. I finally had durian on my second last day in Bangkok - I bought it from a street seller located at a huge busy intersection, with a freeway overhead - a real juxtaposition of the old & new.
Comments
Hey cousin,
wondered where you got to! HAPPY 60TH, MISSED THAT ONE! A full blog on Khao San, and not one mention of Cold Chisel! Well done.
London awaits whenever you're ready.
Claude
Happy belated 60th birthday. Welcome to the 60s club.It looks like you had a great trip.I just got back from 5 weeks in Peru and Turkey.yesterday.
Hi Everard,
Great to read about your latest travels and to see what Michael is looking like these days. Happy Birthday. Apparently there's quite a lot to see in Port Phillip Bay with your scuba diving if you can stand the cold!
Best wishes,
Benita