This will be a short entry, seeing that I only have about 20 minutes to write it up before leaving on our bus to Lampang/Chiang Mai. Hey - I'm sacrificing my evening shower to do this, so no complaining! I'm going to stink up the bus thanks to my dedication to my log readers. :)
Anyway, I know we've been out of touch, but now it's not because times have been crazy, but because we have been LAZY. After exploring Angkor Wat and getting up in the wee hours of morning to catch the beautiful sunrises over the temples, we made a beeline for Sihanoukville and lived on the beach for a few days in sun-filled hedonistic pleasure. There's not much to tell about because all we really did was sit under an umbrella-ed hut on the beach, play in the water, and occasionally patronize the snack sellers for freshly cooked seafood (not Toli, he would buy french fries from the restaurant behind us) and cut fruit. I averaged $1 for two-three average-sized crabs each day - it tasted heavenly!
After Sihanoukville, we went back to Phnom Penh to catch our flight to Bangkok, where the plan was to see the city and visit some other areas in Thailand with ancient ruins. That got tabled when we passed by the "Easy Divers" outlet near Khao San Road and decided to take a "peek" and see what scuba diving trips cost here in Thailand. Ever since Nha Trang, Toli and I have been lamenting our lack of scuba certification. We had actually made plans already with a friend to get it this summer, before our Kauai trip, but that was before we found out how dirt cheap it is to go diving in SE Asia. So, after moaning and groaning about not diving in both Nha Trang and Sihanoukville we decided to go for it and get our diving certification in 4 packed days at Koh Tao ("Turtle Island") off of Thailand's eastern coast.
It cost us about 8500 baht each for the diving program (about $215), which isn't that cheap compared to the states. BUT, we also got a beachside hut and a delicious Thai dinner every night for 300 baht (about $7.50) thrown into the package, which really made the whole thing seem like a nice mini-honeymoon on the beach. Koh Tao is a *beautiful* island, which is frequented mostly by scuab-diving tourists, so just about every little business there is geared toward diving. It does feel a wee bit Disneylandish in that way, but once you hit the water, you see immediately why all the divers flock to Thailand and its islands. Clear, warm tropical water with good visibility (except for our last dive which was a little murky) and an impressive variety of aquatic life. Couple the beauty of the islands with the low cost of living (and diving) and you see why a bunch of westerners (like our diving instructors, for example) have gone native and decided to settle down in the area for a while. Were it not for our additional travel plans, we could have easily extended our stay for another week...or year.
But a more important trip has come up for us, and now we're headed to Lampang, home of the "Thai Elephant Conservation Center." They host a 3-day mahout (the Thai word for "elepant keeper") homestay program there where you basically learn how to ride, feed, bathe, and otherwise care for a big beautiful pachyderm. I'm trying to convince Toli that taking one home with us will exceed our luggage limit on the airline, but let's see how I hold out once I set my own eyes on one of them myself.