This is Christine's mnemonic phrase for BWRAF: BCD (itself an acronym, which stands for Buoyancy Control Device), Weights, Releases, Air , Final OK. It's a checklist of items you need to check with your scuba-diving buddy before you go into the water, as we learned at Koh Tao. I personally prefer thinking of Calvin messing with his mushy green vegetables which first come alive, and then swallow him up, with the cartoon bubble reading "BWRAF!" Or, since buddies stand face-to-face while doing this check, it's easier for me to remember that Boobies Want Rubbing and Fondling. (Christine retorts: Boobies Want Respect and Freedom. My response: If freedom means no bra, I'm all for it.)
Scuba diving was, in fact, our second activity after landing on Thailand. The first was doing a one-day tour of Bangkok, starting with its airport. You see, we had a rough idea of what we were going to do in Thailand, but no firm plans or reservations, so we spent some time at the airport trying to figure it all out. We got a local calling card (because the pre-paid AT&T calling card from the US doesn't allow intra-Thailand phone calls... it worked that way in Europe but go figure) --- turned out to be a good way to save money since coin-operated pay phones ate up coins. Much like the innumerable scam artists hanging around the airport in official-looking suits aiming at one thing: booking unsuspecting tourists at hotels or tours that leave a lot to be desired; thankfully, the Lonely Planet warned us about all this. What is most ridiculous about the airport is that there are two exits from the customs area: left for tour groups, right for individuals. Of course, the pestering is concentrated on the individuals' side... so we went to the other side to finish our planning. Which included a personal commitment to give not one penny to those kinds of individuals --- we gave enough to Saigon Tourist in Vietnam, thank you very much.
And so our first experience outside the airport was finding the local bus that employees take to commute between the airport and town. Not the expensive taxis or the equally exploitative "airport bus" ($2.50 per person), but the true local line ($0.50 per person, also air-conditioned). We found it, and more importantly we found real, everyday Thais who are not in the tourism business. What nice people! Very few spoke English, but there was a sincere eagerness to help us find our destination (the youth hostel, where we stayed for $8.75/night, with air-conditioning and private bath); in fact, the conductors were the most helpful (and most likely to speak basic English) despite being civil servants. Also, we saw Bangkok traffic, which, in a sense, is the big equalizer --- taxi, expensive bus, or local bus take about the same amount of time to get wherever; there's a new metro system that's probably faster, but we didn't get to try it cause it didn't match our itineraries. Unlike cities in Cambodia or Vietnam, Bangkok is almost like any other Western city --- with jammed, modern, raised highways, packed wide streets, many more cars than motorbikes, and an elaborate, timely public transit system (beats Austin, I tell ya). They also drive on the left, which means we kept looking towards the wrong side of the street before crossing.
Our day took a turn for the weird (or, rather, Toli-and-Christine-normal) when we got off the bus and started walking to our hostel. We saw a kitten hiding behind an electrical pole --- it looked skinny and hungry, so naturally we stopped at the next market, bought some fried fish (not an ideal choice, but the best available), and Christine went back to feed it while I waited with the luggage. After getting to the hostel, we spent an hour looking up local animal shelters only to discover that there is virtually nothing for cats (but a decent number of options for dogs). Next time we walked by the pole, the kitten was no longer there, so we hope it had found a home.
We were actually on our way to Khao San Road, the backpacker headquarters of Bangkok --- the place stinks of tourism, and yet it's quite bearable, because it's low-end, alternative, hippie tourism. We got there in the evening and saw a street unlike any other we had passed: jam-packed with people, neon signs, currency exchange booths (the Thai Military Bank offered the best rate, by the way, but we opted for something more aligned with peacetime), and loud techno music from CD street vendors. Locals are a minority on Khao San Road, and the majority of shops are bead shops (they are called jewelry shops, but don't sell diamonds and the like --- they sell parts to make your own), while bridal gown shops dominate the side road (nope, I cannot see a connection to tourism either). The type of tourism (low-end) affects the nature of the items sold, but not the manner of selling, i.e. overpricing everything except food. On our last day in Bangkok, Christine asked me to buy a keychain, and I found a very nice one that is a locket too. The guy asked $2.50 for it (which is ludicrous by local standards) but eventually settled for $0.80 after I bargained (if it was up to me, I would not have bought a thing from such an exploitative seller, but I was on an errand and hence not-to-buy was not an option).
The best thing about Khao San Road was the food. You see, we don't speak Thai and hence local restaurants were a total hit-or-miss for me: we could not read the menu (Thai uses a writing system that is not based on Roman letters) so we couldn't rely on the phonetic similarity to dish names familiar from the US, looking at the dishes provided no clue regarding the contents or spice level (locals love spicy food), and English is rarely spoken to an adequate level. But on Khao San Road, food was good, cheap, comprehensible, and had a local touch as well (as local as you can get if you eliminate hot spices). Yum! With one exception, this is where I ate most of my Bangkok meals: pad thai, spring rolls, satay meats, and fruit... the main exception to Khao San Road was Lonely Planet's vegetarian pick, which was a bit of a disappointment for the reasons above, coupled with the fact that the prioprietor felt that, as we couldn't communicate, it was up to her to choose what she'd put on my plate from the many pre-cooked pots in front of her. Oh well, it was worth a shot. And it had a cat with two kittens, so that makes up for everything :-)
Other items for sale on Khao San Road were forged TOEFL certificates, youth hostel cards, and other fake IDs. There was also a street seller that attracted my wife's attention with her Nemo (the clown fish from Finding Nemo) handbags... she had to use every ounce of her willpower to resist the overpriced bags, but she made it. It was also on Khao San Road where we started realizing that the most popular, ever-present supermarket chain in Thailand is 7 Eleven. It is everywhere, even on the tiny island of Koh Tao where we learned diving.
It was this first evening, near Khao San Road, that we stepped into Easy Divers and got ourselves thinking we should get our diving certification. We just got the info that evening, returned to the hostel, and made our plans: we'd leave the very next day, postpone our elephant camp for two days (turns out we missed the birth of a baby elephant as a result), and leave some of our luggage at the Bangkok hostel. A great plan in theory, but when executed, it resulted in a horrendous transportation schedule, with many a night sleeping on a bus, and a lot of luggage hauling. For example, the bus to Koh Tao left at 9p, arrived at the pier of Chumpon at 5a, where the boat left at 7a and arrived at Koh Tao at 8:30a. On the way back, we were booked on the same boat by the Easy Divers Bangkok office who did not realize our class ended at noon; so we missed it, but they kindly rescheduled us for another boat whose journey lasted two extra hours, and where we had to take a weird bus that was like a military bus for a short distance (it was like a truck with three long parallel benches in the cargo area, with travellers sitting along the inner walls and in the middle bench). And the long haul bus was a night one too, getting us in Bangkok at 5a, at Khao San Road, which meant a nice pre-sunrise walk through town. The upsides were that everything went smoothly in the end, it was nice to see Bangkok as it was waking up, we caught the sunrise on the Gulf of Thailand (it was absolutely divine)... and I got to spoil a Wiener dog at a bus station by petting him senseless for half an hour.
But I am jumping ahead. We decided to go with Easy Divers because the deal was too good to resist. The cost of the class is comparable to the US. What is far superior is everything else: learning in warm tropical waters that are teeming with fish, paying $7.50 a night for our own bungalow on the beach, incl. a yummy dinner all-you-can buffet, and spending the non-class time on a tropical island, on the beach, or petting the resort's puppy (a beautiful dog that looked like a tiny Husky). We had a choice between two places to stay: Nang Yuan island and Koh Tao. The first is a delightful grouping of three tiny islands connected by natural sand bars, a few hundred yards off Koh Tao, which is substantially bigger. The problem was that few boats did the trip between Nang Yuan and Koh Tao, the last one departing at 5:30p, and the whole of Nang Yuan has only one restaurant, owned by the resort itself; so we were afraid of becoming hostage to overpriced meals and few culinary options, and opted for Koh Tao instead. Our resort was very basic, nature-y, and tasteful, and catering to divers only. So it was quiet, locally owned, and without screaming kids or pointless luxuries. The bungalow was a small elevated thatched hut with a bedroom and an attached ground-level concrete bathroom --- there was only a fan, which was fine since air-conditioning is unnecessary during the mild weather at the beginning of the rainy season. It blended beautifully with its surroundings like the vast majority of the tourist accomodations on both islands. Overall, if we choose to pay to support development of the island (and we did), at least the money went to the locals and specifically locals who build in harmony with nature.
As for our activities on Koh Tao, it was like being at Stanford again: going to class, practicing, reading at nights, and taking tests. Scuba diving is a lot of fun, and much like driving: a bit complex and overwhelming at first, but it becomes second nature the more you practice. There is a social element to it, as you get to know your classmates too: in our case, we got to know (superficially, of course, given the time constraints) two Norwegians and a med student from New York. The test-taking part is pretty easy, and Christine got 50 out of 50 on her final exam (I missed a question cause I don't have the photographic memory of my wife). The hardest part is learning how to be a fish, esp. when you are in such a wonderful place that you get constantly distracted by looking around. You see, the diving class starts with some confined (shallow) water dives where you learn basic underwater skills (e.g. how to put back your breathing apparatus if it accidentally leaves your mouth): these are typically done in swimming pools, but in Koh Tao they are done in shallow beaches, so there is still the distraction of the beautiful fish. Some fish run away, but many are social and come up to you to observe you (or nip at you). So there are constant distractions, which multiply when you start the open water dives in water as deep as 18m (54ft). All our open water dives were impressive to us newbies, even though the last one was on a rainy, overcast day so visibility was bad: but even this dive included an encounter with a fish that follows diving groups and likes to be petted (thus dubbed "dog fish"). Not all distractions are good: there is also coral pieces that hide on sandy bottoms; they are sharp, and you really don't want to rest your knees on them while practicing your skills. And there are huge black sea urchins, which you want to avoid cause the wet suit ain't much protection. Anyway, the underwater experience was spectacular, and we look forward to more exploration in the future (in August while at Hawaii): we were already overwhelmed at Koh Tao, seeing many colorful tropical fish (such as parrot fish and a manta ray) and colorful corals and anemones, but other divers said Hawaii is still better! There's also more to scuba than watching fish: the sense of weightlessness, and effortless movement in all directions (including up and down) is very appealing in itself... sort of makes you feel detached from earth and (once the technique becomes second nature, which will still take some time for us) maybe encourage some spiritual experiences: I suggested to Christine that she teach underwater Yoga in Hawaii.
Underwater aside, Koh Tao was thoroughly enjoyable at all other times too. The rest of the diving experience was fun as Christine and I made fun of each other: she couldn't lift herself out of the water because the tank is so heavy. On my part, I missed one question on the final exam, and copied the right answer from Christine who thus earned herself a Hello Kitty item from Japan. Besides diving, it was nice learning something with Christine as a capable, smart partner, and totally enjoyed the evenings we spent reading side by side from our textbook. In addition, Koh Tao offered some fantastic sunsets, during which Christine and I swam (just stood in the water really) in warm, serene, welcoming tropical waters. We took many a photo, so you'll see for yourselves. An odd sight while swimming was the flying fish. Seriously. These are fish that swim in large groups --- you can tell where they are without looking underwater because they normally swim so close to the glass-like surface that they visibly agitate the water. And, quite often, they all jump a good foot upwards, as if there was an undersea explosion! The beaches were fairly clean and empty since most people at Koh Tao come for diving --- the majority of accomodations only accept divers ---, and so they have had enough of the sea while diving to spend time on the beach in the evening; instead, they enjoy the few foreigner-oriented restaurants in the one town of the island (where the port is). The food was good, there was some welcome variety in the available options, and the price was right... most irresistible were the $1 fruit smoothies during the class lunch break. Here are some other memorable items at Koh Tao:
Talking of royalty, Thais sure take their royal family very seriously. They are a symbol of their national identity, and since national pride ranks high, so does the reverance of the king and queen. Bangkok has plenty of large posters with the photos of the royals on them, and calendars with photos of the king are very popular. (Calendars with the supreme patriarch of the Thai Buddhists are also common... he is sort-of like the Pope in Italy.) And, of course, the king's image is on the Baht banknotes. In fact, the most popular calendar shot is the same as that on the banknotes: the king with his Nikon camera hanging from his neck and looking quite personable. Of course, I've never met them nor know anything about them, but my impression of the royal family is that they are very close to the people. The Thai Elephant Conservation Camp was founded by a princess, the king sports unofficial outfits in most occasions, and always has his camera with him, a popular photo of the king and queen is just like that of any young couple in the 50s ready for the prom, and so on... I was really hoping to see an exhibition of the king's photography, but we got there just as it was closing. It's quite ironic, by the way, that the cop stopped us from taking photos of him :-)
We only got to walk through a small part of Bangkok --- it's a huge
and sprawling city. We also took a boat "bus", that runs along the
river (where traffic is never an issue). Overall, it was a pretty
interesting, modern city with nice people --- excluding those who
annoy tourists (especially the tuk-tuk drivers who are renowned for
ripping people off or luring them into scams while pretending to be
helpful). Maybe next year we'll have a chance to see more of it.
Posted by Toli at May 15, 2004 06:33 AM